Ben Amaba, PhD, PE, CPIM, LEED AP

Digital transformation is affecting manufacturing and petroleum industries across global markets. Institutions, companies and professionals are adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) at a rapid rate to create efficiencies, new products & services and respond to market dynamics. AI technologies hold the promise of creating smarter, safer, efficient, and more secure systems. AI is being developed on quantum computers and on multiple distributed edge nodes, while systems are becoming more… Show more

Digital transformation is affecting manufacturing and petroleum industries across global markets. Institutions, companies and professionals are adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) at a rapid rate to create efficiencies, new products & services and respond to market dynamics. AI technologies hold the promise of creating smarter, safer, efficient, and more secure systems. AI is being developed on quantum computers and on multiple distributed edge nodes, while systems are becoming more responsive in thinking, perceiving and acting within time performance constraints. Like the software systems that run an autonomous vehicle, we are seeing AI improve our production lines, streamline our logistics, enhance geological explorations, render dynamic pricing, and deliver better health, safety, security and environmental protection (HSSE). Solutions and applications like customer care, cognitive visual inspection, cognitive auditory inspection, production optimization, and equipment maintenance advisor are growing rapidly. Success will depend on experienced professionals who are responsible, accountable, and liable for the deployment, monitoring, and management of the system’s performance, nurturing it as an intelligent workflow, that delivers business outcomes just as a human would, but at much faster speed and unprecedented scale. Designers are becoming increasingly confident at applying multi-technology advancements to solve large, complex, uncertain, and often ambiguous challenges. As the AI technologies become more prevalent and accessible, an interdisciplinary set of skills and people are collaborating to transforming industries. Engineers, business users and data scientists are focusing on the analysis and model to produce answers and options for these emerging AI technologies that drive enterprise intelligent workflows.

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The combination of growing competition and inexpensive connectivity has made the Internet of things (IoT) an ongoing topic in manufacturing. Sensors, devices, and machines all connected via the Internet are the “things” in IoT. The flood of IoT data can provide the information needed to stay competitive, by applying analytics and artificial intelligence—with the goal to improve operations’ efficiency, safety, and flexibility.

Innovators are not only using artificial intelligence, blockchain and robotic process automation with data to pragmatically create cost efficiencies, create new products and services, and better understand the customers. More importantly, it has created a new business model, network platforms, which are providing up to 16 points margin advantages above the industry average. The convergence of these technologies holds the promise of creating safer, efficient, and more secure systems. There are… Show more

Innovators are not only using artificial intelligence, blockchain and robotic process automation with data to pragmatically create cost efficiencies, create new products and services, and better understand the customers. More importantly, it has created a new business model, network platforms, which are providing up to 16 points margin advantages above the industry average. The convergence of these technologies holds the promise of creating safer, efficient, and more secure systems. There are patterns that are surfacing rapidly distinguishing successful designs as well as gaps between those disrupting through better products and processes versus those disrupted with externalities and internal gaps that could have been avoided. The gaps in scaling and making existing technologies readily available are hindered in the areas of governance, integration, openness, and engineering discipline of the requirements, design, and architectures rather than the algorithms and models. Artificial Intelligence is not fully functional in a silo. Where the algorithms and models are readily available in open source libraries and collaboration of experts for many years, the gap in integrating disparate proprietary databases, removing bias in models, organizing and cleaning data across multi-cloud platforms and open integration standards to bring together hybrid architectures is the chasm first to be crossed. Show less

Digital world has produced efficiencies, new innovative products, and close customer relationships globally by the effective use of mobile, IoT (Internet of Things), social media, analytics and cloud technology to generate models for better decisions. Blockchain is recently introduced and revolutionizing the digital world bringing a new perspective to security, resiliency and efficiency of systems. While initially popularized by Bitcoin, Blockchain is much more than a foundation for crypto… Show more

Digital world has produced efficiencies, new innovative products, and close customer relationships globally by the effective use of mobile, IoT (Internet of Things), social media, analytics and cloud technology to generate models for better decisions. Blockchain is recently introduced and revolutionizing the digital world bringing a new perspective to security, resiliency and efficiency of systems. While initially popularized by Bitcoin, Blockchain is much more than a foundation for crypto currency. It offers a secure way to exchange any kind of good, service, or transaction. Industrial growth increasingly depends on trusted partnerships; but increasing regulation, cybercrime and fraud are inhibiting expansion. To address these challenges, Blockchain will enable more agile value chains, faster product innovations, closer customer relationships, and quicker integration with the IoT and cloud technology. Further Blockchain provides a lower cost of trade with a trusted contract monitored without intervention from third parties who may not add direct value. It facilitates smart contracts, engagements, and agreements with inherent, robust cyber security features. This paper is an effort to break the ground for presenting and demonstrating the use of Blockchain technology in multiple industrial applications. A healthcare industry application, Healthchain, is formalized and developed on the foundation of Blockchain using IBM Blockchain initiative. The concepts are transferable to a wide range of industries as finance, government and manufacturing where security, scalability and efficiency must meet. Show less

Innovation processes and methods have taken center stage in many organizations as companies begin to evaluate new ways to deliver growth and maintain a competitive edge. Specifically, the proliferation of methods originating in software development (agile) and product development (design thinking) put pressure on organizations to dedicate resources to apply these methods, irrespective of industry. The challenge is that innovation program deployment is being mistakenly compared to the relative… Show more

Innovation processes and methods have taken center stage in many organizations as companies begin to evaluate new ways to deliver growth and maintain a competitive edge. Specifically, the proliferation of methods originating in software development (agile) and product development (design thinking) put pressure on organizations to dedicate resources to apply these methods, irrespective of industry. The challenge is that innovation program deployment is being mistakenly compared to the relative ubiquitous deployment of Six Sigma programs over the past decade. This is most apparent in industries such as Construction, namely mega-project construction, that face irreversible processes (concrete curing), risk (both life-critical and business), and elongated project cycles.
To address this challenge, companies need to recognize limitations to agile methods as well as the impact of project time to the delivery of innovations. For example, a multi-billion-dollar rail project may take several years to deliver, during which technology advancements can change dramatically and project agency issues can impact the implementation of solutions to make the next job. Bechtel recently deployed an innovation program that addresses this alignment issue by providing a “fail-safe, fail-fast, fail-forward” process that is matched to a centralized fund for innovation. This paper presents key considerations for the deployment of a robust and scalable innovation program that maintains the ad-vantages of design thinking and speed of development for industries with similar challenges. Show less

The objective of the current work was to design and develop a cloud-based smart health data analysis platform for real-time patient-specific health monitoring and analysis with long-term surveillance to support a learning based information processing system benefiting from cloud and mobile technologies. A DevOps approach to cloud-based applications development was used to create a platform for remote health data recording, surveillance and clinical reporting. IBM Bluemix as a platform… Show more

The objective of the current work was to design and develop a cloud-based smart health data analysis platform for real-time patient-specific health monitoring and analysis with long-term surveillance to support a learning based information processing system benefiting from cloud and mobile technologies. A DevOps approach to cloud-based applications development was used to create a platform for remote health data recording, surveillance and clinical reporting. IBM Bluemix as a platform, Gravitant for decision analysis for hybrid cloud, Urban Code for build deploy, and IBM Cloud Orchestrator to manage solutions in health care was utilized as infrastructure of the platform presentation layer where remote sensing of patient-specific vital physiological signals (Heart rate, Blood Oxygen level SpO2, Body temperature) are locally performed at the patient site via a designed embedded system equipped with Raspberry Pi. The embedded system is transmitting data to the cloud where the health care provider can control and analyze health data in real- time. The proposed smart health data analysis platform on the cloud offered real-time remote health monitoring solution, which provides rapid and secure deployments of the best patient- specific treatment strategy available for remote patients. Show less

Industrial control systems are increasingly becoming interconnected with local area networks, wide area networks, extranet networks, and cloud computing environments. Cloud and mobile technologies provide a competitive advantage for global companies. In this research, a DevOps approach to cloud-based applications development was used to create a capability for industrial control systems management and reporting. The research demonstrates a secure method to connect to industrial controls systems… Show more

Industrial control systems are increasingly becoming interconnected with local area networks, wide area networks, extranet networks, and cloud computing environments. Cloud and mobile technologies provide a competitive advantage for global companies. In this research, a DevOps approach to cloud-based applications development was used to create a capability for industrial control systems management and reporting. The research demonstrates a secure method to connect to industrial controls systems using cloud-based mobile technologies, addressing one of the most challenging issues in cloud computing systems. Data access control and security connectivity from mobile to cloud to control systems are addressed. Show less

Whether or not it is consciously designed to the standards of systems engineering, the coming Industrial Internet of Things will be a system of systems. Adopting a unified engineering approach that explicitly recognizes and tracks the interactions of physical, organizational, and business factors will be the key to developing these interlocking systems And it offers
the best hope for long-term safe and reliable operation of constellations of billions of interacting elements that cannot be… Show more

Whether or not it is consciously designed to the standards of systems engineering, the coming Industrial Internet of Things will be a system of systems. Adopting a unified engineering approach that explicitly recognizes and tracks the interactions of physical, organizational, and business factors will be the key to developing these interlocking systems And it offers
the best hope for long-term safe and reliable operation of constellations of billions of interacting elements that cannot be fully defined at the design stage...if ever. This white paper is intended to offer a glimpse of that future, and to help the people who will build it get a sound start on the task.
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Energy is considered a resource vital for survival. The recent changes and ‘black swan’ events in the chemical and petroleum have created a complex puzzle of regulatory guidelines, safety performance metrics, human factors changes, risk assessments, and new off shore exploration techniques, to name a few. These recent changes are creating complexities in maintaining regulatory compliance and strengthening safety cultures while facing the unyielding pressure of costs and time to… Show more

Energy is considered a resource vital for survival. The recent changes and ‘black swan’ events in the chemical and petroleum have created a complex puzzle of regulatory guidelines, safety performance metrics, human factors changes, risk assessments, and new off shore exploration techniques, to name a few. These recent changes are creating complexities in maintaining regulatory compliance and strengthening safety cultures while facing the unyielding pressure of costs and time to market. Organizations are finding themselves in a dilemma where detailed specifications, changes and relationships among key elements in operational assets are not clear and traceable. Constantly changing opinions, priorities, and perspectives in society can fuel frustration and animosity, impeding success in process safety projects. Critical best practices in process, requirements, engineering, and risk modeling using systems or interdisciplinary engineering practices can enable rapid transformation and improve the likelihood of success.

Key Words: Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Safety, Failure Analysis, Reliability, Security, Model-Driven Development.

Paper can be found at: http://bit.ly/MKO_SoSEngineering_Oct2014
Presentation can be found at: http://bit.ly/MKOC_ProcessSafetyCtr_Oct2014 Show less

Global changes, exponential growth in population, safety, security and environmental protection issues are continuously increasing the need for more complex. efficient and better-integrated energy systems. Life cycle processes, best practices and modeling approach originating from systems engineering discipline will enable the design and deployment of more effective energy management systems. This paper includes not only describes a systems engineering approach to energy systems but also… Show more

Global changes, exponential growth in population, safety, security and environmental protection issues are continuously increasing the need for more complex. efficient and better-integrated energy systems. Life cycle processes, best practices and modeling approach originating from systems engineering discipline will enable the design and deployment of more effective energy management systems. This paper includes not only describes a systems engineering approach to energy systems but also discusses a demonstrated and proven way to simplify and automate this approach through some examples of where the solution has been applied. The approach and solution has been proven in the aerospace, defense, nuclear, oil / gas, medical and automotive industries. Show less

Highlights
We examine the licensing process challenges of modular nuclear facilities.
We compare the features of Small Modular Reactors and spent nuclear fuel repository.
We present the need of nuclear licensing simplification.
Part of the licensing is proposed to be internationally applicable.
Systems engineering and requirements engineering benefits are presented.

Recently, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) have attracted increased public discussion. While large nuclear power plant new build projects are facing challenges, the focus of attention is turning to small modular reactors. This paper is based on the PhD Dissertation "Licensing Model Development for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) - Focusing on Finnsh Regulatory Framework", approved in 2013.
The result of the study is a recommendation for a new, optimized licensing process for SMRs. The most… Show more

Recently, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) have attracted increased public discussion. While large nuclear power plant new build projects are facing challenges, the focus of attention is turning to small modular reactors. This paper is based on the PhD Dissertation "Licensing Model Development for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) - Focusing on Finnsh Regulatory Framework", approved in 2013.
The result of the study is a recommendation for a new, optimized licensing process for SMRs. The most important SMR-specific feature, in terms of licensing, is the modularity of the design. Here the modularity indicates multi-module SMR designs, which creates new challenges in the licensing process.
The application of the new licensing process is developed using Systems Engineering, Requirements Management, and Project Management practices and tools. Show less

A responsive organization is one whose engineering processes and platform can sense and respond with flexibility, accuracy, precision, and speed to macro trends impacting the energy industry, including increased complexity, rapid adoption of new technologies, increasing use of Engineering, Procurement and Contract Management (EPCM) companies, modularity, internationalization of supply chains, and new regulatory mandates, while constantly improving operations and capital efficiency. IBM has… Show more

A responsive organization is one whose engineering processes and platform can sense and respond with flexibility, accuracy, precision, and speed to macro trends impacting the energy industry, including increased complexity, rapid adoption of new technologies, increasing use of Engineering, Procurement and Contract Management (EPCM) companies, modularity, internationalization of supply chains, and new regulatory mandates, while constantly improving operations and capital efficiency. IBM has developed an engineering approach and platform that will improve the transformation to Digital Intelligent Energy. The approach and platform reuses best practices harvested from adjacent complex, safety-critical industries. This paper describes Model-Driven Development (MDD) for Safety-Critical Projects using analysis and assessment of instrumentation, control and embedded technologies. Show less

A new twist is the user-centered software driven, digital transformation of the energy infrastructure. Other changes to other infrastructures have been material and mechanical innovations traditionally. This paper deals with a methodology for designing a smarter power and energy management system, following the V-cycle. It focuses on building a model using systems modeling language (SysML). The application of systems engineering process in power and energy is presented in this paper as well as… Show more

A new twist is the user-centered software driven, digital transformation of the energy infrastructure. Other changes to other infrastructures have been material and mechanical innovations traditionally. This paper deals with a methodology for designing a smarter power and energy management system, following the V-cycle. It focuses on building a model using systems modeling language (SysML). The application of systems engineering process in power and energy is presented in this paper as well as the devices in the systems which are going to have a software com-ponent enveloping the digitization and proliferation of better, faster, and more effective ways of reusing our best practices in systems engineering. This paper introduces a system-of-systems engineering approach codified in client power management software needed for the urgent transformation of global power systems. Show less

Given the most competitive nature of global business environment, effective engineering innovation and
leadership is a critical requirement for all levels of product or systems lifecycle development. Sustainability of workforce and engineering competence skills are extremely important due to a general shortage of engineering talent and the need for mobility of highly trained professionals. This paper provides a motivation and quest for sustainable human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) approach… Show more

Given the most competitive nature of global business environment, effective engineering innovation and
leadership is a critical requirement for all levels of product or systems lifecycle development. Sustainability of workforce and engineering competence skills are extremely important due to a general shortage of engineering talent and the need for mobility of highly trained professionals. This paper provides a motivation and quest for sustainable human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) approach in complex systems design and development. Show less