Allen Wright & Rob Smith July 2008 1/24 Edinburgh Pilot Projects Meeting 2008 A VO end-to-end A...

Allen Wright & Rob SmithJuly 2008 1/24

Edinburgh Pilot Projects Meeting 2008

A VO end-to-endA chemicals industry scenario and some same-

shaped problems

New requirements for Virtual Organisations

Allen Wright, Rob SmithSchool of Chemical Engineering and advanced materials

Newcastle University



Principles of GOLD

● Highly dynamic virtual organisations– Everything can be expected to change throughout a VO’s lifetime

● Very diverse range of participants– Different technologies, cultures, practices, processes, priorities…– Different understandings of the problem, motivations, management

styles…

● Highly integrated but loosely-coupled– Ultra-low setup cost, but high levels of integration

● Focus on bringing new aggregations of knowledge, skills, expertise and resources to bear on novel problems

– How can decisions be made in this kind of environment?– How do you know when there’s a problem? How do you diagnose it? And

how do you work out how to come together to solve it?



An infrastructural approach

HubHub

Security Trust ResourceCoord

Domain-specific services and business rules

Portal

Hub

Hub

Hub

Hub

Hub

Hub



Profile of a GOLD VO

● An ill-defined problem● High and wide boundaries between organisations,

characterised as difference– Different motivations– Different understandings of the problem– etc.

● Unexpected external and internal events● An emphasis on solving problems rather than automating well-

understood tasks● A need for agility: nobody knows what the problems are likely

to be or how organisations might come together to solve them● Problem spaces mutually and iteratively linked to markets

– Solutions change markets, which change solutions– Market imperatives and legacy circumstance have a profound

effect on what is done, how it is done, how decisions are made etc.



EU

Basic40%

Ag-chem5%

Pharms27%

Specialty28%

European companies

Fragrance & Cosmetics

8%

Detergents & Soaps

5%Others15% Organics

15%

Fertilizers2%

Inorganics5%

Plastics, Rubber

13%

Fibres2%

Agrochemicals3% Dyes

3% Paint, Ink6%

Pharmaceutical23%

A chemicals industry scenario



Chemical Industry case study

● Based on a real, current chem dev project – not research

● Multiple partners

● Distributed management

● Conversion of a batch process to a continuous process



High level project tasks

1Reaction engineering

investigationsSeparation trials

2Modelling and Pilot

plant design

3Build and operate pilot

plant

4Design and build

process plant



Task analysis: disturbances

Alternative Name Description

A Conversion not feasible

The process is not suitable for conversion to a continuous process, this may be due to a fundamental feature of the chemical reactions involved

B Major external event

The supplier of a key raw material significantly increases the price due to local conditions (e.g. material obtained from a natural source)

CDownstream processing

problems

The new operating conditions unexpectedly affect the downstream recovery of the catalyst. A new separation method must be found



Highly dynamic project



Continuous Process Flowsheet



Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials

Eau de Chem

Europe

USA

AsiaCatalyst Separation Technology

???

Filtration Services

Centrifuge



Project dynamics phase 1

solid arrows indicating relatively fixed relationships

and dashed arrows representing more uncertain ones

Decision made to move to Phase 2

Structure at the end of phase 1– Chemistry worked

– Separation of catalyst by filtration a problem



Project dynamics phase 2-3

RECLaboratory Services

Simulation Services

Eau de ChemAcquisitions

New Cat 1New Cat 2

New Cat…n

EV1

Eau de Chem R&D

PPD

EV2

Eau de ChemCapitol Dev

Transfer from R&D to Capital budget - different managers in different countries

Commence pilot plant design and build- different equipment vendors, design engineers, safety specialists …

Catalyst no longer available- new catalyst suppliers, new chemistry testing

Initiate Centrifuge trials- new equipment vendors

Company acquisition - additional managers from VC company



Relationship dynamics

● Attitudes to the project change very much, although it’s the same project

● Relationship with the company becomes very different. Now contributing to the future of the company.

● Time constraint – people become more concerned about project milestones, and risks. Accountability changes.

● Previously trust operated ie people getting on and doing their jobs, now the basis of trust changes, have to be accountable to different people for different things

● Your own status / ability becomes much more scrutinised ● Accountable to people you have and never will meet. eg

the Board of Directors● Project termination?



Scalability

● The same managers were involved in many other projects– Each project at a different stage of its lifecycle– With different partners (internal and external)– With dependencies

This is the norm



A new set of VO requirements

● When you consider a VO from conception to end as a dynamic business process, a number of new requirements become apparent that are not often considered

● These include the tacit and latent needs that are part of every business activity

● They will differ – often greatly – from VO to VO– It is not easy to cater for them explicitly– An infrastructural approach is needed, which

allows protagonists (including infrastructure and service providers) to co-build solutions



How requirements inform design

● We began GOLD with the understanding that VOs would be highly dynamic

– We underestimated how dynamic they were likely to be in practice

● We expected differences in technology and processes– We didn’t realise how important differences would be in less

tangible areas like motivation, management style, attitude to risk etc.

● We understood that automation of difficult and time-consuming tasks was important

– We didn’t understand how strongly market and legacy forces influence what might be achievable

● We considered what would happen when a project ended– We underestimated the various possible outcomes of projects.

What happens to tacit outcomes of a project when it disbands? How can knowledge, expertise, skills and resources that are artefacts of a set of relationships be preserved for future use?



Tacit and latent needs

● One of the most important lessons learned is that an organisation’s tacit and latent needs often trump the explicit ones

● Companies don’t generally know what they want in a VO solution because they don’t know what it can do for them

● We don’t know how to build VO solutions because of this

● Need to engage and educate stakeholders in the development process

Workability of REACH Consortia

Analysis of an industry stakeholder

workshop

School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, Newcastle University

REACHReady

Lancaster University Management School

The Chemistry Innovation KTN



REACH Legislation – Imposing VO’s

● Registration of substances ≥ 1 tonne/yr

● Evaluation of substances

● Authorisation for substances of high concern

● Registrants

– Manufacture of substances, Import of raw materials and preparations

Volume of substance(per manufacturer)

Registration period (existing substances)

≥ 1,000 tonnes p.a. CMR or PBTs/vPvB > 100t p.a.

2007 - 2010

100 – 1,000 tonnes p.a. 2010 - 2013

10 – 100 tonne p.a. 2013 - 2018

1 tonne p.a. 2013 - 2018



Forming REACH consortia

● Need to cooperate, coordinate, collaborate to complete registration

● Saving on registration fees● Managing the registration process

● Consortia receive higher priority in registration– Time to market

● Large overhead - £150,000 must be minimised

● Restrictions on import/export● Need for communication along the supply chain



Challenges for the future

● The e-Science initiative has made great leaps towards new, virtual ways of working– This will have a positive impact on sustainability,

competitiveness and ethical manufacture through agile approaches to resource deployment

● This will not be fully realised until we can do the same with knowledge, skills, expertise etc.– This needs to be as dynamic and on-demand as

the access to resources we’ve all been working towards for nearly a decade



Challenges for the future

● To achieve this, we need:– Education– Infrastructure– Killer apps– Critical mass

● This is the problem of bringing emerging technologies to emerging markets

● It’s not so much a problem of education as one of raising consciousness



What we are doing next

● A VO killer app: REACH● Commercialisation● Funding – looking for consortia● Speaking to research councils, trade

associations, KTNs, commercial organisations…● Lots of opportunity, but under-resourced

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