Delivering Accountability Real Time

Green Solutions For Blasting Projects

2011-04-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

Refineries are under constant pressure to maintain an extremely high level of safe and environmentally sound practices. One of the areas that creates a hazardous scenario is the use of Ultra High Pressure (UHP) dry blasting. The abrasive materials pose health and safety concerns, the dust created from these devices can be high combustible, while the waste created by the operation provides a need for a sealed enclosure to contain the mess.

For the first time in the US, QuillAIR has introduced a revolutionary solution to the health and safety problems listed above. The QuillAIR dustless blasting system is a "Green Solution" that is mobile, affordable, safe to use in any environment, versatile and most of all effective.

Click here to watch video

Fast
The systems can blast up to 18m² per hour leaving surfaces clean, contaminant free and profiled to many industry standards.

Safe
The systems are Ex rated, Zone 1 approved, Baseefa accredited, TUV, ATEX and NORSOK compliant making them among the safest in the blasting industry. Minimal personal protective equipment (PPE) is required by operatives and other trades can continue to work safely in close proximity while the systems are in operation.

Versatile
There is a very wide number of applications that the systems can be used for as they are capable of tasks from precision operations such as cleaning soft stone or removal of one coat of paint at a time to more heavy duty operations such as storage tank maintenance, hull blasting on ships or cutting through concrete to reveal steel supports in structures for inspection and maintenance purposes.

Environmentally Friendly
As the systems we employ use wet blasting technology, no dust is produced during their operation. There is minimal debris whilst in use as the majority of removed particles are captured by the water used by systems. 50% less grit is required than with dry blasting systems and, subsequently, there is 50% less waste to be disposed of. The systems operate with up to 21dB less noise than with dry blasting systems and, finally, the blasting media that we use are all natural and do not present any health hazards.

Cost Effective
The speed of operation and the efficient use of blasting media combined with significantly reduced waste disposal shows the cost effectiveness of the systems that we employ. Additional benefits can be realized as coatings applied after blasting works have been completed can achieve greater longevity due to the removal of surface contaminants such as soluble salts and chlorides during the blasting process.

Mobile Delivery
The system is trailer-mounted so that the technology can come to you. The unit is highly portable and gives your projects an effective low cost solution onsite. Our operators are trained and certified for specific projects. We understand that your assets are extremely valuable and the care given by our team is always professional, polite and well informed.

Contact me today for an onsite demonstration to show you in person just how powerful the QuillAIR Dustless Blasting System performs.

Joseph.windover@me.com

Mobile Number 225.937.2049

DART Reports Samples

2011-03-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

DART has hundreds of standardized reports available at your fingertips. These same reports and any combination of data present will be automatically delivered to your personal desktop, dashboard, smartphone or email. We want you to have relevant information when you need it. For that reason alone we are in the process of developing our all new DART Interactive Mobile Delivery system. We will be revealing the concepts at the end of Q2-2011.

Task Safety Analysis Report

Mechanical Equipment Job Quality Analysis

Fitting/Welding Job Quality Analysis

DART Dashboard Desktop View

DART Iphone Report App

Objectives In Maintaining A Fixed Asset Library In DART (DFAL)

2011-02-24T06:55:00.000-08:00

Introduction

Recently, a big topic in Business Intelligence (BI) has been the importance of “data quality” – in essence, cleaning up the data that is presented to the data warehouse so that the errors, inconsistencies, and so on are eliminated as much as possible. What many users do not realize is that this is just a part of a larger problem: How do you get the most out of the business-relevant data floating around, inside and outside the organization? As it happens, I performed a survey and study on the subject last year. Our analysis focused on refinery asset library data and the processes in place to insure accuracy.

Analysis

What does this study recommend? The short answer is, you should start thinking of your organization as being in the business of gathering data, turning it into information, and using that information as effectively as possible. In other words, you think of your organization as trying to get as much high-quality, potentially useful information to your BI solution as possible, and then analyzing that information, followed by using that analysis to make decisions as rapidly as possible. Then you try to develop a set of metrics that will tell you how well you are doing, and what are the weak points in the process.

This set of metrics measure what I call data usefulness. I define data usefulness as the ability to deliver all needed accurate, consistent, and appropriate data to the right user in a timely fashion. My survey in the study convinces me that there are significant and growing problems at every point in the process of converting data into useful information.

Table 1 shows my take on the typical steps in the data-delivery process, the metrics by which the effectiveness of each step should be judged, and the problems that many are seeing today at each step. The key take-away point is that fixes to one or two steps will not in the long run fix the overall data-usefulness problem. Rather, organizations of all sizes need to take a comprehensive, long-term approach to ensuring data usefulness.

There are four objectives that are accomplished by building and maintaining your asset library with DART.

Digitalization – Although every refinery location has accumulated years of data specific to an individual piece of equipment, 80% of those sites do not have a digital library created. By capturing the critical data and the documentation associated with each piece of equipment, within a data warehouse like DART, your organization will open the window to a to unlimited analytical potential.

Standardization – DART comes fully equipped with the templates and wizards needed to make every employee your best estimator or planner. Industry best practices and norms deliver consistent results.

Agreed Upon – When you have the ability to deliver a consistent result, you harness the power to present a methodology and system that everyone can agree with. DART delivers this result by allowing you to measure your data, compare results across multiple sites, make good business decisions based on those results.

Accessible – DART Asset Libraries allow many layers of security so that sharing and delivering the useful data to decision makers is fast, easy and relevant.

Table 1 TRT Summary of Data Results from 2009-2010 Client Survey

A DART Fixed Asset Library (DFAL) must be kept in order to be in compliance with legislation governing corporations, companies, etc. It allows a company to keep track of details of each fixed asset, ensuring control and preventing misappropriation of assets. It also keeps track of the correct value of assets, which allows for computation of depreciation and for tax and insurance purposes. The DFAL generates accurate, complete, and customized reports that suits the needs of management.
A DFAL also allows a company to keep track of fixed assets that are not under simple, direct control of the company. This means owned and leased assets, assets under construction, and imported assets.
The DFAL can also be used to aid in capital budgeting and to keep track of amount provided for Asset Retirement Obligation (ARO) in respect of each asset as required by US GAAP (FAS – 143).

Making entries in the DFAL
There are many data points that can be associated with a company asset. In the area of fixed equipment used for producing product for the company; Table 2 shows the standardized fields captured at our initial pilot refinery in Texas.
Table 2 Displays Data Points Captured at a Texas Facility

Not all assets are capitalized. Keeping in view the concept of materiality, a company may have a policy to capitalize only those assets which cost more than a specified amount. In the US, government agencies are required to expense all equipment whose value is below a threshold limit. Similarly, fixed assets which have a useful life of less than one year are not capitalized.

In some companies, improvements or alterations made to an asset are capitalized separately in the DFAL. This is not correct. If such mistakes are made, it is highly probable that the auditors while undertaking physical verification of assets will notice irreconcilable differences. Where improvements or alterations made to an existing asset justifying capitalization, such additions should be made to the cost of the original asset.

With some assets organizing useable data for specific purposes allow for a company to maintain accuracy and reliability for the target audience. In Table 3 you will see how DART Asset Library data is captured and used by the plant and specific Turnaround personnel.

Table 3 Turnaround Asset Specific Data Purposing

The format of DFAL Entries

The format / details to be provided in a DFAL generally depends upon the following factors:

a) Nature of assets.

i. If moveable assets constitute a significant portion of total fixed assets, details will be necessary on their movement from one department / cost center / people to another.

ii. Cost of assets. Greater control and security is required for costly equipment.

b) Customized Reports on fixed assets required by management.

c) Disclosure norms / regulatory compliances as per statutory laws applicable to the entity.

d) Extent of owned, and assets taken on lease / hire purchase.

e) Requirements of insurance company.

f) Location of fixed assets. If fixed assets are located at numerous locations, greater details will have to be given. In the case of a construction company, the assets are located at different work sites. These work sites maybe in different cities / countries / continents.

g) Maintenance costs. Some fixed assets require regular servicing to keep them running in an efficient and satisfactory manner. It would be necessary to keep a tab on the maintenance costs, dates of servicing etc. during a stated period. DART provides these capabilities.

Maintenance of data in a DFAL

Maintenance of a DFAL in a Multi-National Corporation (MNC) can be complex due to different regulatory and compliance requirements in each country and different currencies.

Generally, maintenance of DFAL is decentralized. The DFAL is maintained per the company’s policy, and regulatory requirements which are country specific. DART originates it’s business language as English and US Standard Measurements. However, DART is delivered in a format that can be easily translated for the local language and measurement standards. This is accomplished by providing a customizable desktop administrative tool that allows local translations to comply with your company policy.

Identification of a fixed asset

In a large corporation, the task of identifying and locating a specific fixed asset can be difficult unless numbering is scientific, systematic, and up-to-date. A common problem in most companies is the improper maintenance of the DFAL. Physical verification of fixed assets becomes a futile exercise unless the DFAL is properly maintained.

DART uses your scientific numbering process to maintain unique identifiers throughout your fleet of equipment.

Verification is maintained at the local level, but accessible from any desktop on your network.

Conclusion

There is a great deal of more in this study about how to tackle particular parts of the problem, what vendor products and solutions deliver the biggest bang for the buck, and how to monitor the process – material that is far too long to cover here. However, users can take certain steps immediately, without knowing that much about data usefulness.

Those steps are:

1) If your company now includes 2 or more (usually acquired) organizations whose operational data is at least partially kept separately, put an EII (Enterprise Information Integration) or “data virtualization” tool in front of your BI, so you can query both sets of data at once. Examples: DART Asset Library.

2) Get a DART dashboard BI add-on for senior executives, so that you can fine-tune the relevance of the information presented to them, and perhaps be able to display more current information than standard BI reporting tools. Examples: BI solution vendors such as TRT Microstrategies or Daugherty Business Solutions

3) Make sure you have an Excel option for your BI solution, so useful information can be delivered as spreadsheets as well as hard copy. Examples: DART TAR Solution and Oracle OLAP Option.

One caution: today as in the past, the first reaction to problems with data usefulness is to attempt to put everything to do with data in the BI organization, and all data in the BI data store. Experience has shown that this never, or only temporarily, works. There’s just too much data floating around out there, and more new types of data coming all the time. Improving the quality of data coming into the BI solution is one thing; attempting to force everyone to enter all data into the BI solution is quite another. Don’t waste your time and money on the latter.

Refinery data usefulness begins with an accurate set of asset data. The first step in any implementation project always begins with this phase for our clients.

DART Asset Library Happiness Factory

2010-12-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

See How DART Is Transforming Your Workplace Into...

The Happiness Factory

Product Overview
One of the most frustrating facts about purchasing any software system is rapid decline in the user adoption rate. This is the score your users grade the program after their initial training and first month of use. The main reason users stop utilizing the software is because it is unfamiliar and difficult to master the program. The normal user adoption curve begins strong and then quickly begins to decline the minute your software training and support staff leaves your office.

DART has overcome this problem with a revolutionary new system dashboard. The all-new dashboard is a virtual 3D environment of your facility. The user enters the software directly into a 3D graphical environment that looks completely familiar to them. They recognize equipment, roads, landmarks, and buildings that invite the user to explore the entire plant right from their desktop or portable device.

A user can then “fly over” or “walk out” to a specific piece of equipment by a navigational joystick built into the dashboard controls. By then clicking on equipment images, the user opens an endless amount of data that is displayed in an easy to read and understandable format. Any data captured that is relational to the equipment like technical data, job requirements, attachments, plot locations, procedures, activities, and nozzles are all at your fingertips.

Because the environment is familiar, users from every department rate the DART Asset Library with exceptionally high grades.

“The system is so easy to use.” Says Richard Dunlap , Project Manager. “Every time I use the DART Asset Library, it feels like I am just stepping out the front door of my office and literally flying over to a tank or tower. Keeping data and information updated and accurate is simple and fairly automated. My DART control panel alerts me when other departments have added new information to a piece of equipment. A monthly reminder provides a change report and asks me if I need to make any changes to specific equipment when edits are recognized.”

What if every worker was your best worker – and each documented work process is a best practice? With DART Asset Library, you can reduce the variation in performance, cost, quality and brand protection, achieving a new level of operational excellence.

As a shared collaboration point for your fixed equipment, the DART Asset Library Module enables power users and domain experts to digitize manual and automated processes with one tool – capturing process, traceability and QC data across systems to reduce errors, waste and delays. You can manage by prophecy, orchestrate production and achieve event-based, data-driven results.

“Building” an asset library is the easy task. “Maintaining” data integrity is where owner operators run into problems. In past systems, your library was difficult to access and maintain. However, with DART Asset Library, Operations, Maintenance, Safety, Quality and any other department can instantly access and update records from their desktop or mobile smart devices.

Work flow automation and administrative rights insures the data is accurate and updated regularly. And because the DART Asset Library is accessed through the Internet, the data can be delivered to the people that need it, wherever and whenever they need it.

Complete Job Packages
The final and most outstanding benefit realized by building an asset library within DART, is that after gathering all of this critical data, a complete Job Package is ready for your planning and estimating team to use for future TAR events.

Built on the DART Turnaround Management Solution platform, our new Asset Library module also is third-party extensible and enables composite solutions, enhancing the value of existing systems.
Achieve the power and results of Lean Six Sigma in your production operations
Digitize manual and automated processes with one tool
Automate execution data to close the loop on performance and improvement
Manage by Prophesy – Act Before the problem occurs based on DART 4D simulation
Replicate automated work flows across your business using wizards and templates
Quickly create automated processes that impact your business every day

Use DART Asset Library to:
Orchestrate high-level processes and manage the data between systems
Digitize SOPs and Work Instructions
Plan Projects, Estimate and Track Costs, Execute Projects years in advance
Automated Alarm and Event Response, Corrective Action processes built
Automated Task Responsibility Error-Proofing
Plant Task Management
Work Flow Process Automation
Workforce Management and Resource Allocation for both crews and foreman

Results of Digitizing:
Lean your processes – improve, eliminate and automate steps
Automate information flow from Plant-To-Enterprise and Enterprise-To-Enterprise
Integrate people and their roles / functions
Standardize tasks by embedding automation
Manage and audit your production processes more effectively and consistently

Anatomy of DART’s complete Asset Library
With the DART Asset Library the following

Equipment (location and description)
Equipment ID, Plant, Unit, Area, System1, System2, Equipment Description, Parent Equipment, etc…

Technical Data
Such as size, rating, manufacturer, material composition, operating limits, test results, head type, specific gravity, installation date, etc...

Job Requirements
Commonly required during execution: Scaffold, Insulation, Paint, Stress Relieving, NDE, Fresh Air, and Pyrophoric

Attachments/References
Specifications, Drawings, Reports, Photos, etc…

Nozzles
Position, Dimension, Rating, Location

Plot Location
Location and Elevation of Equipment is registered on Plot Plan. This is Important for 3D rendering, and conflict resolution.

Procedures
List of procedures likely referenced during planning and execution

Digital Images and Documents
Pictures, Documentation, Plans, Instruction Manuals, Original Manufacturers Instructions, API, OSHA, Legal Documentation, all linked and associated with the specific equipment.

Activities (for one or more work types)
Resources, Materials, Permits, Safety Flags, Data Codes, JSA, Tools, Connections, Welds, Scaffold, and Notes

The most practical course when building your asset library is to capture the most utilized information on the equipment which is most critical and requires the most man-hours to maintain. This is normally your fixed equipment, such as towers, heat exchangers, vessels, drums, tanks and control valves.

The secret to creating a 3D environment economically is attributed to the DART equipment icon collection and our streamlined process. Each equipment icon is fully scalable and can be completely manipulated to view, re size, dissect, move, and rotate. Each icon is created to be instantly recognizable to the user, but is not sized to require a super computer to operate.

Plot plans are merged with Google Maps of your facility and equipment is strategically placed to create an instant 3D Virtual World. DART project teams are located at our home office to keep labor costs at a minimum.

Continual updating and audits to insure accuracy allow the owner operators to continue to build detail into the asset by collaborative efforts from all divisions in the organization.

DART White Paper

2010-09-13T08:50:00.000-07:00

Lean Principles with DART
Workflow Genius Enables Standardization and Automation to Create a Culture of Change in the Refining Industry

“A relentless barrage of “why” is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo. Use it often.” - Shigeo Shingo

DART Workflow Genius

Many times in the lean journey, teams move through a methodology on projects, deliver improvements and move on to the next project. Six Sigma establishes a Control phase to maintain changes for improvements, but even with that, it can be difficult to keep delivering benefits because the Control phase itself can break down. Once momentum gets lost on the project, people can revert back to their former processes that include waste—or teams may need to make necessary changes and inadvertently add waste back into processes.

By maintaining automated control over a process with DART Workflow Genius, companies can have a much better chance of reducing waste for the longer term. Standard work processes become embedded into the DART system, which can take lean initiatives to the next level. With true standard work and an electronic environment for Kaizen, momentum always remains high, waste is eliminated, work processes are monitored—and the gains grow year after year.

Enabling Lean and Lean Six Sigma

Many lean initiatives start by looking at manual processes and defining them. Often, this exercise is the first time that a process is defined, documented and analyzed. Right away, teams can see benefits from this exercise as obvious areas of waste can be immediately eliminated. The exercise takes time, as it is a manual process, but can be worthwhile because it drives good benefit.

As teams continue along the lean journey, they start to roll out processes more broadly and develop spreadsheets to help execute processes and report on them. However, process modifications start to peak, and eventually teams see erosion begin to take place, as shown in Figure 1. People can go back to their old way of performing tasks without new processes being enforced. The value realized starts to decline, and leadership may move on to another type of improvement initiative.

However, as shown in Figure 2, the lifecycle of lean projects and initiatives can continue to deliver value for the long term through Electronic Standard Work—digitized processes and Work Process Management all within DART. DART Workflow Genius supports lean and lean Six Sigma efforts in the following ways:

· Graphically define and document work processes— making it much easier to start the lean journey

· Find and eliminate the non-value add activities more quickly and easily

· Execute work processes through a controlled, electronic system—ensuring that processes are followed

· Improve processes in real time—not “after the fact”

· Automatically capture, store and analyze production data— closing the loop for continuous improvement

· Digitize the control plan and its execution

· Keep process improvements consistent, so projects keep adding value

Digitizing Work Processes to Eliminate Waste

Digitizing—or electronically defining and executing—production processes significantly impacts the value realized and time to implement. Value realized will increase, and time to implement will decrease. With DART Workflow Genius, teams have a chance to sustain long-term lean improvement and consistency of processes.

In support of this idea, let’s look at the experiences of a major oil refinery. A general manager for the gulf coast at this company has implemented between 70-80 lean Six Sigma rollouts. He states, “You can lean without software, but it will take about seven years. With software, you can do it in three years and prevent gains from slipping away.” In other words, by leaning with some type of digitization, companies can boost the velocity and sustainability of improvement processes.

As an example, teams can look at processes graphically and more easily find areas of non-value add. The electronic workflow graphically displays all steps in the process, and teams can easily analyze steps that can be removed and steps that could be performed in parallel, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Eliminating Steps and Performing Steps in Parallel

Digitization also helps teams put in place and define real-time Critical to Quality (CTQ) and Critical to Process (CTP) measures. Using DART Workflow Genius, you can set up a system that notifies certain people or takes corrective action when CTQ values are exceeded. Furthermore, the system records values associated with CTQs and CTPs, so historical data is always on hand to support the improvement process.

Figure 3 Defining, Complying With and Improving Standard Work

DART Workflow Genius digitizes both automated and manual processes, which are mixed in most production environments. In many cases, the processes within an organization are not documented—or if they are documented, the information is located in a policy and procedure manual that is on a shelf, static and rarely looked at.

Perhaps its greatest value to lean, DART Workflow Genius makes it much easier for organizations to define and enforce standard work. As stated by Taiichi Ohno of Toyota Motor

Corporation and father of Lean Manufacturing, “When there is no standard, there can be no kaizen.” Kaizen means “Change for the better” or “Continuous Improvement.” Standard work is the foundation of lean and continuous improvement. Without standard work, gains can too easily become lost.

There are many philosophies on how to encourage managers—and subsequently operators and other frontline leaders—on ways to maintain standard work once it is put in place. But, in the end, processes that are not enforced slip outside of the standard. Therefore, there needs to be an automated way to maintain improvements.

While manual tools can require a great amount of time, which takes away from the lean effort, standard work can be incorporated right into a DART Workflow Genius software system, providing a way to:

· Create standard work instructions

· Deliver standard work instructions to operators as they perform tasks

· Capture completion of standard work steps

· Analyze performance to identify best practices

· Easily modify standard work instructions and disseminate for approvals and automatic implementation

DART Workflow Genius offers a closed-loop system for creating, deploying, analyzing, improving and redeploying standard work.

With an easy-to-use system, teams have less frustration and backsliding as opposed to that experienced with poor tools such as spreadsheets and Big Chief note pads. DART Workflow Genius reduces mundane work and frees people to focus on core tasks and true continuous improvement of them.

As shown in the example in Figure 4, in addition to viewing a screen with a set of assigned tasks, operators can easily view the standard work instructions associated with the steps and any manual data entry. Additionally, operators can easily access any documentation that would help with the process, such as equipment manuals. The system records operator and equipment performance for analysis and compliance documentation.

While the DART Workflow Genius system monitors and manages execution of standard work, supervisors can also navigate the system’s higher-level views. Supervisors can view all of the workflows running within the system, assess performance, determine and deploy a new best practice as standard work, generate reports, and more.

DART Workflow Genius can also help during an Action Work Out. During the work out, teams cannot only make decisions to improve processes and eliminate waste – but can actually implement right away. Power users who are production domain experts often can make changes immediately to work processes, rather than waiting for and requiring assistance from IT. This speeds the results of the Action Work Out and keeps momentum high.

In addition to helping teams drive lean initiatives, DART Workflow Genius also helps enable Six Sigma, reducing defects and controlling variation.

Driving Six Sigma With DART Digitization

DART Workflow Genius can help satisfy each of the five process steps within DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve and control) —combining real-time data with Six Sigma tools. Teams can digitize work rules and processes that directly capture the CTQ and CTP measures and their relationships through:

Y = f(X1, X2, …,Xn). These expressions can be mapped directly into the DART data repository for real-time data values.

For example, in a production process, you could have a Y that represents a queue time. This Y is expressed as: QueueTime = NextTaskStart - TaskCompleted

With the execution of workflows or business process rules in the system, organizations can feed data into CTQ expressions and use that data for execution and exception management.

DMAIC Mapped With DART

Define In the Define phase of DMAIC, teams define the “as-is” and “to-be” process maps. DART Workflow Genius can greatly speed the diagramming and mapping of processes – and also helps teams move quickly into the next phase of Six Sigma. Additionally, teams can build templates and wizards within the software, which allows for building a process and applying it repeatedly in different situations. These workflow templates can have inputs and outputs, allowing it to be easily applied in many areas. This ability to create templates and wizards saves time and increases quality with repetition of correct process maps and work processes.

Measure During the Measure phase, teams typically develop a plan to collect data for analyzing capabilities. With DART Workflow Genius, once processes are graphically defined and automated, there is no need in most cases for a separate data collection plan, as all relevant data will be readily available. The system is collecting data as the team is executing.

For example, the DART Workflow Genius system manages all of the data, the task allocation, the attachments, etc. There is no incremental work needed to gather the data. In addition, all the CTQ and CTP measures are built in, collected and historically recorded into the asset library.

Analyze During the Analyze stage, teams need to analyze the process capability and identify sources of variations. This is typically accomplished with the help of a statistical package such as Minitab (click here to view Minitab demo - http://bit.ly/bIiw2b). DART Workflow Genius can provide ad-hoc reporting to generate the process instance data needed for analysis. This data can then be exported to Excel or directly to Minitab for analysis. Another alternative is to directly connect to the process data repository through SQL queries.

Improve DART Workflow Genius can greatly enhance the results of the Improve phase. Traditionally, teams using DMAIC make changes using “after the fact” data, and there is a lag in the timing of improvement. With processes digitized and automated, the improvement of the process can be controlled in real time. Teams can designate escalation rules to specific task assignments. The escalation rules can specify, for example, that if a task assignment reaches within 25% of the CTQ upper specification limit, the system will immediately inform the managers or re-assign the task to another participant. Thus, since all the Y’s and X’s of the process are properties, the system associates rules that can trigger events if the values of CTQs or CTPs are getting close to their upper or lower limits. This means that teams can potentially avoid exceptions and increase the performance of processes in real time.

Additionally, real-time support is not limited to “production rules.” Other areas where a Work Process Management system like DART can provide real-time support for Six Sigma processes include:

· Corrective Actions: These workflows could be triggered dynamically during the execution of a work process. For instance, in an in-process quality check, if measurements are out of spec, a corrective action workflow is triggered, allowing correction action to be taken immediately.

· Events activated whenever there is a change in the state of the process or in any of the process properties (the Y’s or X’s): For example, if an OEE value for a unit of equipment falls below a specific target, the system can trigger a workflow to determine the problems with the process.

· System Workflows: Teams can use system workflows to monitor processes and automatically take action—such as escalating a work item to another party, sending notification or raising the item’s urgency—or make changes to process instance properties.

Control DART Workflow Genius automates the Control plan within DMAIC. Given that work processes are now digitized, any improvements to them will remain consistent from that point forward.

In a manual process, teams go through the first four phases, make improvements, and have visibility within the organization regarding the improvements. Eventually, however, projects can lose momentum, and the new processes or improvements can break down. By automating the control plan and control process, the project stays alive. Teams can have workflows that enforce consistent execution of the processes and have a system that generates reports related to the control plan.

Improvements remain in place, focus stays on the benefits, and visibility and commitment stay high within the organization for continuing the initiative.

Additionally, DART Workflow Genius can allow later versions of the processes to be maintained, referenced, and sometimes activated again.

The combination of digitized processes and an event system can ensure that work processes do not revert back to their former state of poor performance—and that gains remain high for the long term.

DART Work Process Management Video Demo

2010-08-26T09:33:00.000-07:00

The video presentation you are about to see is under 25 minute long. Joseph Windover and Seth Fujinaka of TECH REALTIME present DART to our viewers.

The presentation navigates the many modules included within DART and how each one builds off the other and connects you with every division in your organization.

DART is a web-based solution that can be shared with anyone, anywhere at anytime, thus explaining the name of our product (D.A.R.T.) Delivering Accountability Real Time.

Click Here To Watch This Video

DART WorkFlow Task Manager Video

2010-08-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

The video you are about to watch is a short introduction to the DART WorkFlow Genius Task Management System. The presentation is quick so feel free to use the progression slide tool to repeat any portions of the video.

DART WorkFlow Genius allows you to automate the processes associated with implementing Lean Six Sigma practices within your organization.

Work Process Management can help satisfy each of the five process steps within DMAIC—combining real-time data with Six Sigma tools. Teams can digitize work rules and processes that directly capture the CTQ and CTP measures and their relationships.

Defining Work Processes with DART is Easy.

Measuring the Progress of Each Task happens automatically.

Analyzing the Process by constantly comparing Baseline Standards and Best Practice Results.

Improving your Process with DART happens in "Real Time" not after the event is completed.

Controlling your plan within DART, given that work processes are now digitized, any improvements to them will remain consistent from that point forward.

Click Here to watch a video on DART Task Manager

DART 4D Workflow Genius Video Presentation

2010-08-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

DART 4D Workflow Genius Video Presentation

Work Flow Management for Data Integrity

2010-08-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

How DART revolutionized the petro chemical industry

Product Overview

What if every worker was your best worker – and that each documented work process is a best practice. With DART Workflow Genius, you can reduce the variation in performance, cost, quality and brand protection, achieving a new level of operational excellence.

Figure 1 - DART Workflow Genius displays your world in a recognizable 3D map. Work Lists, Technical Data, Foreman Job Package Reports, Shift Handoffs, Workforce Management, 4D Scheduling Conflict Resolution, Real Time Project Progression, Asset Information, Cost Tracking, Manuals, Procedures and Photos are all managed within one system.

As a Turnaround Work Process Management software system, DART’s New Workflow Genius Module enables power users and domain experts to digitize manual and automated processes with one tool – capturing process, traceability and QC data across systems to reduce errors, waste and delays. You can manage by prophecy, orchestrate production and achieve event-based, data-driven results.

Figure 2 - Eliminating steps and performing steps in parallel.

DART Workflow Genius on the right side of the illustration, graphically displays all steps in the process, and teams can easily analyze steps that can be removed and steps that can be performed in parallel.

Built on the DART Turnaround Management Solution platform, our new Workflow Genius module also is third-party extensible and enables composite solutions, enhancing the value of existing systems.

Achieve the Power and Results of Lean Six Sigma in your Production Operations

Create Standard Work Instructions
Deliver digitized manuals and automated processes to operators as they perform tasks
Capture real time completion of standard work steps and sub tasks
Analyze performance to identify best practices
Easily modify standard work instructions and disseminate for approvals and automatic implementation
Automate execution data to close the loop on performance and improvement
Manage by Prophesy – Act Before the problem occurs based on DART 4D simulation
Replicate automated workflows across your business using asset libraries and templates
Quickly create automated processes that impact your business every day

Use DART Workflow Genius to:

Orchestrate high-level processes and manage the data between systems
Digitize SOPs and Work Instructions
Plan Projects, Estimate and Track Costs, Execute Projects
Automated Alarm and Event Response, Corrective Action
Automated Task Responsibility Error-Proofing
Plant Task Management
Decision Wizard
Work Flow Process Automation
Workforce Management and Resource Allocation for both crews and foreman

Results of Digitizing With DART Workflow Genius

Lean your processes – improve, eliminate and automate steps
Automate information flow from Plant-To-Enterprise and Enterprise-To-Enterprise
Integrate people and their roles / functions
Standardize tasks by embedding automation
Manage and audit your production processes more effectively and consistently

Challenging the religion of the refinery

2010-05-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

Challenge a religion and people wonder if you’re challenging their faith.

After our inaugural weekly TRT Tribe meeting I reflected on some of the responses and reactions to the conversation.

I quickly realized that what we were up against in our own company, as well as our clients is an established religion, and a fairly strong faith to back it up and defend it.

Faith is critical in all innovation. Without faith, it’s suicidal to be a leader, and attempt to question the status quo.

Religion, on the other hand, represents a strict set of rules that our fellow humans have overlaid on top of our faith. Religion supports the status quo and encourages us to fit in, not to stand out.

There are countless religions in our lives, not just the capital-R religions like Zoroastrianism or Judaism. There’s the IBM religion of the 1960’s that included workplace protocols, dress codes and even a precise methodology for presenting ideas. (on an overhead projector).

Religion works great when it amplifies our faith. That’s why we invented religion. It’s why human beings have spiritual religions and cultural religions and corporate religions. Religion gives our faith a little support when it needs it, and it makes it easy for our peers to encourage you to embrace your faith.

Religion at its best is a consistent reminder that belief is okay. However, religion at its worst does just the opposite. Religion can reinforce the Status Quo, and sometimes at the expense of our faith. What we believe is replaced by rules and order for the sake of managing success. The reason it’s so difficult to have a considered conversation about religion is that people feel threatened. Not by the implied criticism of the rituals or irrationality of a particular religious practice, but because it fells like criticism of their faith. Their personal belief system and inevitably them as a person.

And that is exactly what we are attempting to do.

Our customers have performed the same rituals for their entire careers. Additional rules, regulations, budget restrictions, safety concerns, and an aging workforce are creating new challenges for our clients.

We must understand what our clients believe (that is their faith). We must understand the rules of their religion (that is the documented work flow process). We must understand their rituals (these are the specific tasks and milestones).

Once we understand it, then we can name it. Once we name it we can examine its relevance. Once we examine it we can challenge the process. Once the client becomes a willing participant in the challenge process we can begin to identify the problems with the system. Once the problems in the system are identified the client can quantify the personal cost of not changing the process. The client is now ready to be helped.

At this point and only this point, can we begin to show how DART can be used to solve our client’s problem.

I know that most of you will read this and think that the process described would take years to unravel. However, every person at a customer site has a story. Every person has a responsibility to the process. Every person reports to someone else. Every person is responsible to perform a specific task. And undeniably every person is going to reveal a problem with the system.

DART as a standalone tool, will always be limited by our own presuppositions of our clients problems. However, when we help our clients to become a participant as an agent of change, we open up a whole new world of possibilities for the future. Open your ears and encourage your clients to help you understand the challenges they face each day. They will begin to listen to you when they believe that you understand their struggles. They will begin to have faith that you can help them once you truly understand what the problem is personally costing them.

You just may help them to discover an entirely new religion.

DART Business Review

2010-05-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

Team review of weekly data trends, accomplishments, challenges and identifying the plan for the next week

Business reviews drive accountability, guide the development of action steps, and provide opportunities to recognize successes.

The business review is a weekly meeting, lasting between 30-60 minutes. It provides front line leaders and their teams with an opportunity to evaluate the previous week’s safety, quality, schedule and cost performance.

Within a structured setting, trends are discussed, successes are reinforced, opportunities are highlighted, options are identified, and action plans committed to.

Key elements of a business review:

Front line leaders have a setting in which to engage their team and better understand accomplishments, issues and constraints
Options available to address future challenges
Environments for front line teams to better understand how their contributions impact the team and the entire operation
Forums for senior leader to develop a performance oriented culture based on accountability and workforce engagement

DART Influence Factors

2010-05-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

DART production management system

2010-05-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

Scientifically Proven to Improve Company Performance

The DART Production Management System is a paradox. On the one hand, every activity, connection, and production flow in a refinery or factory is rigidly scripted. Yet at the same time, DART allows operations to be enormously flexible and responsive to customer demand. How can that be? After an extensive four-year study of the system in more 4 plants, our clients came to understand that with DART, it's the very rigidity of the operations that makes the flexibility possible. That's because DART operations can be seen as a continuous series of controlled experiments. Whenever DART defines a specification, it is establishing a hypothesis that is then tested through action. This approach--the scientific method--is not imposed on workers, it's ingrained in them. And it stimulates them to engage in the kind of experimentation that is widely recognized as the cornerstone of a learning organization.

The DART Production System grew out of the domain knowledge of our client’s most valuable human assets, by discovering that most of their knowledge of the plant had never actually been written down. By making the implicit explicit, DART lays out four principles that show how our clients set up all operations as experiments. The DART Production System teaches the scientific method to its workers. The first rule governs the way workers do their work. The second, the way they interact with one another. The third governs how communication lines are constructed. And the last, how people learn to improve.

Every activity, connection, and production path designed according to these rules must have built-in tests that signal problems immediately. And it is the continual response to those problems that makes this seemingly rigid system so flexible and adaptive to changing circumstances.

influencing cultural change

2010-05-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

To make real sustainable change within an organization there needs to be more than a good system in place. Accomplishing real change comes from people treating every moment like a opportunity to analyze and improve themselves and the people they serve and are serving. True cultural change does not take place over night and does not last for a specified time frame. It is a constant experiment of trying ideas, testing the results and then working to perfect the ones that work and diagnose why some ideas fail. Change can happen in any organization as long as you affect these 5 areas - Business Objectives, Accountability, Transparency, Transition and Communication.

Below is a graphical display of how our company takes on those challenges.

DART Supports Lean Principles

2010-05-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

Lean principles for manufacturing and management go hand in hand with DART in today’s very demanding market. Companies that have been able to survive on a highly coveted product or outstanding sales organizations are a thing of the past. Today your company must understand how to identify sustainable value for your customers, employees and owners.

Lean is more than just a conversion from an old process to something more organized - it’s about changing mindsets to identify and eliminate waste. Thinking Lean is first mapping every step in your company’s workflow all the way to the end customer. The second step is identifying value in every step. If a step does not add value to the end customer, employee or owner than that step is adjusted or eliminated. Workflow must be an equal and fair balance of flow and pull at each step in the process as well. Accountability and a focus on value with every transition and hand off is the benchmark of an organization that has made the leap from a forced directive to making Lean a part of their corporate cultural. The common mistake companies make when implementing Lean principles into an organization is halting the perfection process. A successful company never stops perfecting their process. It is ongoing and never ending. Lean principles become part of your corporate culture that carry over into your personal life and then affect your community.

DART is one of the most powerful tools available to support Lean principles in your organization. Delivering Accountability Real Time is exactly what Lean principles introduce to your organization. In the petro-chemical refining business, the turnaround is a scheduled maintenance event that is scheduled years in advance of the actual date of the project. Thousands of people performing millions of tasks in an unfamiliar setting surrounded by extremely dangerous elements make this more than an event - a turnaround is a controlled experiment based on scientific methods. DART allows a turnaround to be both tightly choreographed and supple at the same time.

DART sets the planned events that will take place, but allows for discoverable work and what those best practices would be if they are experienced. The flow is supported. The pull from the next step is accountable for insuring value. The data gathered, reviewed, and perfected each cycle is completely geared to supporting a Lean environment that equates to sustainable value for the customer, employee and owners.

welcome to tech realtime

2010-05-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

TRT is a worldwide organization of performance improvement specialists. We partner with companies for an immediate, lasting impact on financial performance and corporate culture, through front-line engagement with our proprietary project managing system branded as DART (Delivering-Accountability-Real-Time). Our process although driven by data, is all about people, and most definitely about results. We invite you to explore our site and share our vision of making business excellence a personal journey.

Imagine what your business could be if all your employees treated your company as if it were their own and worked together every single day to make it a better, more productive place. The possibilities would be limitless. Imagine people that would help you explore these possibilities for your company, helping turn possibilities into reality.

Our employees share our belief that people hold the key to success in any organization. They are driven to help organizations and individuals reach their full organizational, professional and personal goals. They have a proven ability to work with individuals and teams throughout all levels of an organization, from hourly operators to the CEO.

Where many companies fall short when implementing a change in culture and performance, TRT delivers the answer. DART is used as a central meeting spot for all levels of data within your organization. Our system gives you the tools you need to understand business objectives, review trends, accomplishments and challenges. Our system analyses live data, compares it to schedules, milestones, trends, and key performance indicators and delivers a simple one-page report every week. We help transition shift work by organizing clear visual indicators of work-in-progress along with any critical issues that leads to consistent performance throughout the project. DART is constantly comparing live data which gives your front line leaders the tools they need to engage with crews on a daily basis. This allows them the ability to talk about goals, expectations and deliverables at the start of every shift. Finally, we view accountability as a regularly scheduled forum where senior leaders see success and indentify barriers to performance. Far too often senior leadership creates what they perceive to be a positive initiative without actually seeing how it affects the performance of the crew. The DART system automatically schedules boardwalk events and reports for senior leadership. The result is the accountability necessary to yield actual performance improvements and a culture of teamwork that can never be accomplished without a structured system in place like DART.

Our project managers and their families relocate to client work sites for the duration of an implementation, exclusively focusing on an assignment. This commitment allows TRT employees to blend with our client’s employees and integrate within an organization on a much deeper level, and is so effective in achieving project objectives that our clients realize a multiple return on their investment and experience lasting cultural change.

Our people are skilled, experienced and deeply committed to success in bringing to life the TRT Vision and Mission on a very personal level.