Deidre Armstrong, director of operational excellence for Sinclair Oil Corp., predicted that wearables will become commonplace within the next five to seven years.
The challenge, she said, is “getting over that hurdle in the very beginning where people gain the confidence that it is something valuable and helpful to both their individual contributions to the organization and to the organization itself.”
Armstrong’s team at Sinclair is currently exploring its connected worker journey by implementing some wearables, while keeping in mind that it’s important to give people confidence this technology is not being deployed to track them in, for example, a “Big Brother” scenario.
“Rather, it’s to provide value,” she said. “How we’ve been able to approach that is by starting small and really getting people comfortable with technology and the devices.”
This concept, she said, goes back to the basics of the productivity of the connected worker.
“What is the connected worker? It’s connecting the worker to information without the worker having to go back to an office or a different location,” she explained. “Once they see that value and find that their life is a lot easier and they’re more effective, we can’t go fast enough.”
Discussing mobile device provisioning strategy and cybersecurity, Jonathan Perret, computing solutions manager for Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LP (CPChem), said that CPChem employs what it calls a “two-pronged strategy.”
“It’s a carpet strategy versus a concrete strategy. ‘Carpet’ means that in the administration buildings you have executives and managers with iPhones and Apple [devices],” he said. “The concrete strategy is all Android.
“We’re now on our third generation of the Android device, a [Class 1] safety device. Obviously, we use a management platform to manage a provision. Our devices have a kiosk mode and they are fully locked-down devices, so we have a series of controls in place to make sure that Android is safe for us to use.”
The connected worker transition accompanies a marked shift in personnel, Perret said.
“When we started 15 years ago, I had to go around and convince people that mobile computers would make their jobs better, and now that’s really changed,” he said. “Now, they really want the next thing and to push forward because they see the impact these devices are having on their jobs.”
Connecting with the connected worker trend
Perret recommended anyone who wants to ensure they achieve maximum success with their connected worker initiatives to “start small” and measure along the way.
“If you try to start off with a multiple-facility project, use an agile methodology to be more productive,” he said. “Focus on delivering the minimum viable product.”
It is important to have buy-in from all levels of the organizational chart in support of any new initiative, Perret said, with the understanding that leadership is usually a foregone conclusion.
While different facilities have different processes, in some cases it’s not just technology that’s the problem.
“Unifying those processes across the facilities that [each started off in] different organizations a long time ago changes people’s senses of how they work,” he said. “That’s been a big challenge, so you’ve got to not only have your IT hat on — you’ve also got to have your business hat on.”
Perret added, “And you really need to think about the user experience.”
One of the steps Sinclair took to enhance its connected worker journey was allowing users, rather than IT, to pick their devices.
“We created a power-user scenario that we advocated for at each facility, for each application. These were business people who were part of whatever organization at the facility, and they took on the role of helping select their device,” he said. “And now they’re picking our next-generation device, so they own [the choice]. IT is just the mechanism.”
