Communication, Data Sharing characteristics and methods, and digital thread
Going towards the future world of the Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, and Digital Manufacturing, we need to need to have a basic understanding of Digital Thread Deployed throughout the product life cycle, digital thread enables you to more quickly and authoritatively share information in the design process.
Before thinking about the implementation of Digital Thread let us understand various aspects of Data Sharing and Communication.
- Do you think of various communication channels used in your Organization?
- Did you evaluate how much these communication channels are effective?
The purpose of this blog is to explain factors that impact the ability of organizations to share data both internally and externally.
After finishing up this blog you’ll be able to evaluate data sharing strategies and point out the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches.
The first section in this blog focuses on the active data sharing, or passing information from one group to the next. Our focus is on the motivating factors that drive the adoption of the digital thread.
Why Proper Communication Channels are important?
I once went through a management exercise when I was in my Engineering College at Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, Our HOD asked me to organize an Entrepreneurship Awareness Program as the HR of Saint Gobain was visiting our campus for a guest lecture. In that seminar, he has lined up all the participants and shown a phrase to the first person and asked her to share it with the second person by whispering in his ear without letting the third person know. And the second person should repeat the same with the third and so on. After completion of this exercise, the phrase repeated by the last person by the last person is completely different from the original. This was a classic example of how miscommunication happens.
In another training during my employment at a corporate very different outputs resulted when given the same problem based solely on how much communication took place. In the exercise, we were given a simple task, build a structure out of spaghetti and tape that would stretch the farthest and reach the highest. There were multiple groups. One was allowed to communicate throughout the process and other groups had varying degrees of communication.
One group, my group, was not allowed to communicate at all. We were given 30 seconds at the beginning of the exercise to allocate resources, then about 20 minutes to work through our solutions for the individual components. A base, a vertical portion, a horizontal arm, and a coupler, or link between the vertical and horizontal pieces. At the end, we are given about three to five minutes to try to make everything work. As you can imagine, once our group got together with our individual components, it was quite interesting. The base would not hold the vertical piece, the coupler didn’t fit either, and the vertical piece was designed so aggressively, it was ready to collapse under its own weight. The only thing that saved us from utter disaster was the fact that tape was not limited. So we are able to put the entire structure under compression, much like a radio transmitting tower.
In contrast to that, the team that had full communication throughout developed a tightly integrated, elegant design that performed very well and didn’t require any massive heroics to make it work.
I think we all have war stories of that sort, where communication gaps resulted in a fair amount of rework that could have been avoided.
Part of my enthusiasm for the digital thread, and the overall digital manufacturing and design paradigm, is the promise for greater communication as we design complex products. Without sharing information or only sharing it at very discreet moments in time, we limit ourselves, and the ability to be responsive and to address changes and requirements. As I worked with companies over the years one of the things that keeps coming back is that innovation frequently happens at the interfaces, or connections. Those could be interfaces between parts of a product, groups within a company, or external strategic partnerships. Thinking back to the example that I gave on the structure, the interfaces would’ve been the couplers and the base, where all the problems resulted.
Importance of Data Sharing within Organization
Within an organization, data can often be a highly treasured and highly protected resource. For example, sales might wish to retain all of their leads in-house and all the conversations in-house. However, that means that latent needs or shortcomings that are only brought up in sales conversations are not visible to all. This raw data does not often make it to groups who would benefit from the information.
If instead, an engineering team had insight into those sales discussions, they might be able to map the customer interests into internal initiatives and advance their product while still meeting customer needs. This can potentially increase satisfaction or even open up a new market.
Similarly, service and after-market data could feedback to sales and engineering to help understand how products are being used in the field. And to assess whether or not requirements and specifications actually match usage. An outcome from this could be a redefinition of specifications that gives customers the impression of a jump in quality. While in actuality it’s just better to match the real-world usage with the specifications that were used in the design phase.
Importance of Data Sharing between Organizations
Between organizations, especially with complex products, it’s fairly evident that communication is important. In complex products, if we’re looking for an efficient design process, that means sharing information in some way that will allow suppliers from different levels of the supply chain to have input on the design of the product. Otherwise, the product will likely be.
Over-designed, more expensive, and take longer to bring to market.
Transparency is recognized as a valuable property of a highly effective supply chain. Having early insight into a problem can result in early, aggressive solutions, reducing harmful impacts, and increasing financial gains. With the advances of lean production, the bullwhip effect becomes more significant. As impacts grow and spread through the system, it becomes very beneficial to organizations higher up on the supply chain to have advanced notice of any disruptions.
Characteristics of Data sharing
Before we consider strategies for data sharing, we first need to identify what are some important properties of data sharing methods? Some that immediately come to mind are,
Reach: That means how many people can receive the information?
Participation: This is how much back and forth happens during a communication.
Capacity: The ability to share large volumes of data, and speed, this can be transmitted or requirements of presence.
Persistence: This provides documentation of the communication.
Tone: Providing nuanced, subtle cues about the information.
Data sharing methods
Using these qualities, let’s consider different methods of communicating data.
In person meetings:
Many people can receive information, so there’s a broad reach, but useful participation is limited.
Information can be shared, but that is typically limited to what can be carried out of a meeting in printed form or what notes you can take during the meeting.
Meetings generally create a communication lag because of the planning required to call one and documentation can be achieved through recordings or formal minutes.
Phone conversations:
These can also reach a broad audience in real-time if on a teleconference.
But sharing large volumes of information is difficult, and active participation by more than a few is difficult at best.
Phone conversations can also persist through recordings or minutes.
Email:
This ubiquitous communication mechanism that we use, can be directed individually or to a large group.
Although the transmission of email is nearly instantaneous, a benefit of email is that it does not require that all participants be present at the same time.
This allows for potentially greater participation.
Data can be shared, but typically anything over 25 megabytes can be difficult to attach.
Email is necessarily devoid of tone, so nuanced messaging can be difficult to achieve.
Email does leave a persistent trail that can be used for documentation purposes.
Portable devices:
As we move to portable devices, these emphasize capacity over all other aspects.
t’s cumbersome to take a device around to multiple locations to share data.
But if you’re looking to hand off many gigabytes, or even terabytes, of files, portable data may actually be the fastest way to share the information.
Cloud services:
Moving on to Cloud services like Google Docs, Dropbox, and others. These hit reach, files can be shared with large groups. It also hits participation, Google Docs provides a method for multiple simultaneous editing of documents and capacity, multiple gigabytes, even terabytes can be stored.
Virtual private network:
For the security conscious, another variation of the Internet that provides fairly secure access, and is vital where you have multiple offices, is to use what is called a virtual private network, or VPN, to share data . A VPN creates a secure connection from an off-site location to your corporate location just for the time you are connected. VPNs require you to log in to the corporate system with your corporate credentials. Sometimes there is even additional identity information required, like a file, or other device that clearly communicates that you are who you say you are. Once that connection is established, all communication going between the remote computer and the corporate network is encrypted.
This approach allows secure connections between site offices and coupled with internal controls for access, make it possible for suppliers and other corporate partners to quickly and securely share design information to collaborate on product development.
This means that large amounts of data can be shared and allows for data singularity and security.
Using a VPN does incur a little bit of expense, in terms of capital acquisition, and user training, but creates much more agility and the ability to respond to an ever-changing business environment.
