Regardless of the industry number, the important thing here is the noticeable shift from a focus on smart technology to one that recognizes the importance of the human factor in adopting technology. As the energy transition continues, the spotlight will be on the integration of digital tools and human interactions to forge a powerful collaboration: a harmonized balance of cognitive computing and human intelligence. Selecting technology that enables more autonomous operations but with humans in the loop is a fundamental building block to ensuring successful digital transformation for the energy industry.
What is Industry 5.0?
- A vision of industry that puts humans back at the center of digital adoption, instead of removing them to enable purely technological autonomy of industrial production processes.
- A complement to the existing Industry 4.0 but with a stronger emphasis on the importance of human-centric technology that supports sustainability and empowers workers.
The hard part about keeping humans in the loop is making sure that new digital ways of working are adopted by everyone – and that will require change. Change is hard. In fact, a McKinsey report showed that 70% of all transformations fail. One approach to making sure that digital transformation doesn’t fail is applying technology that works with people and for people, not against them.
Industrial software that embeds human expertise along with cutting-edge technology provides a solution that is intuitive, reliable, and perfectly positioned for a smarter, safer, and greener industry.
Here’s how digital twins can improve efficiency and enhance sustainable operations in a way that enables humans at the center of technology to remain responsive to the challenges of the energy transition.
Data is democratized and made human-centric
One of the biggest challenges in the industry continues to be data silos. Think of data silos as islands of information, scattered across numerous systems that operate in isolation with no links to connect the thousands of data points in each – and no way to understand how this data fits into the broader context of daily operations. With digital twin technology, data from typically separated systems can be integrated into a single source of truth that is designed to connect all this information and make it valuable to the humans who play an integral role in operating these systems.
Kognitwin’s approach to data:
Our digital twin solution Kognitwin reduces the complexity of data by using your organization’s many data sources to build a realistic virtual representation of your physical facility and its behavior. That means standard APIs are used to connect existing applications as data sources, presenting all the information you need in just one environment. Users can join forces with this reliable source of information to leverage digital twin capabilities like:
- 3D navigation
- Virtual measurements
- Visualization of work orders, notifications, activities, and operations in 2D and/or 3D over a user-selected timeframe
- Access to historical and real-time data
- Hybrid machine learning for planning and ‘what-if’ scenarios
- Data-driven predictions of performance decline of existing assets/equipment
- Energy usage forecasts and emissions tracking
Kognitwin allows you to measure data transparently, report emissions with confidence, and reduce emissions towards net zero.
Digital technology is embedded in the work culture
To form part of the organizational structure, an effective digital tool should support the creation of a trustworthy environment where employees can learn by doing and understand how to achieve digital success (and not disruption!). Our digital twin solution Kognitwin is not just another tool in your toolbox. It’s a user-centric work companion, powered by the latest and greatest technology – but without barriers to adoption that require intensive periods of upskilling and re-skilling.
Here’s an example close to home:
During one Go Live experience, Kongsberg Digital trained more than 80 superusers and end users on our digital twin Kognitwin during interactive training modules. Due to the intuitive, user-friendly interface of Kognitwin, users were able to follow along and mimic task workflows with no training beforehand. After each feature demo, users were asked to replicate tasks in the digital twin and take screenshots of the outcomes. These screenshots were then shared with KDI employees, allowing our training instructors to see exactly how well users understood workflows in Kognitwin and where they needed help. Through this experience, users were able to:
- Self-correct and optimize digital ways of working in an environment that encouraged them to learn while doing.
- Understand in a tangible way what digital twin technology can mean for an individual in their various roles.
- Gain confidence in the ability of technology to empower reliable data-driven decision-making and get familiar with executing daily processes in a new digital work surface.
- Increase their digital competency and see first-hand how a digital twin unlocks new possibilities for cross-team collaboration, even when working remotely.
End-to-end workflows are optimized
Industry 5.0 highlights the challenge of creating technology that not only understands but actively works to solve user pain points across the industry like dealing with vast amounts of data, collaborating cross-functionally, and operating in a sustainable way. Identifying processes and work activities for improvement helps overcome traditional processes focused on outcomes, creating a renewed focus on the twin’s ability to establish new ways of working end-to-end for every individual – and this is a concept that will remain even as the industry number continues to change.
What that looks like in Kognitwin:
Operators are often stuck with time-consuming tasks like manually updating systems, work orders, inventories, and contracts. Approval flows such as Permit to Work approvals take up valuable time, and employees at all levels find it difficult to navigate through data and derive value to inform confident decision-making. Our digital twin technology assembles industrial knowledge in one place and introduces automation where possible to eliminate repetitive process tasks, freeing up time for humans to utilize the twin’s data-driven insights and apply these using their domain knowledge.
As a provider of leading digital twin technology for the energy industry, we focus on user empathy and designing with the human in mind so that users can identify with the way technology operates and make it personal to their own ways of working.
Learn more about kognitwin
Imagine having access to all real-time data from the oil & gas asset in one place through a simple virtual interface.
We call it Kognitwin®.
