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It’s a new year and a new decade (depending on whether you think the decade starts with year zero or year 1), but manufacturing security challenges continue to grow and include, but are not limited to, digital transformation, less availability of workers, globalization and how to manage safety and security risks.
We live in an era where technology is rapidly transforming the security landscape. Our access to information is broader than ever, but obtaining this information brings new risks. In addition, how we use this new information to understand why and when safety outages occur and how to improve safety and productivity dramatically transforms our operational arrangements.
Unlike previous generations of workers, a changing workforce of younger and less experienced workers often exhibits a difference when it comes to how they perceive risks and use information, and have different expectations of their environment of work. This poses the challenge of finding, training and retaining these younger workers.
As we enter the year 2020, we’ve put together a list of 10 tips to help you overcome these challenges and realize immediate improvements in safety and productivity.
Focus on improving security maturity
Security maturity is a combination of culture (behavior), compliance (policies and procedures), and use of capital (technologies). Numerous studies have shown that 20 percent of manufacturers achieve greater than 5 to 7 percent OEE, less than 2 to 4 percent unscheduled downtime, and less than half the injury rate of average manufacturers. And the best manufacturers are expanding their lead.
Best-in-class manufacturers view safety as a key facet of their quest for operational excellence. To achieve it, they take advantage of modern security methodologies. For example, an LNS research survey revealed that 75 percent of industrial companies responded that they had achieved operational improvements as a result of using advanced security technology. This allows us to understand why these companies have also confirmed that they are willing to pay for more connected, intelligent and secure machines.
Security maturity is the result of evolution rather than revolution. It is the result of progress related to the improvement of culture, procedures and processes in the area of security, as well as the use of technology to achieve greater productivity and security. It’s the result of realizing that security and productivity are not mutually exclusive, but complementary, and taking steps to improve both.
How do you improve security maturity? First, assess your own security maturity and determine where improvements are needed to reach your goals. Knowing your level of performance and areas that need improvement is essential to optimizing security.
Protection risks are security risks
Very often security is considered “an IT issue”. It is not.
As industrial operations become increasingly connected, attack surfaces inherently increase. Hackers are increasingly attracted to industrial control systems, and a disgruntled employee who gains access to their systems can wreak havoc on them.
An overpressured pipeline, misaligned valves, or an unforeseen change in machine operation present a safety risk to personnel, the environment, and your company’s reputation.
Safety and security assessments should be carried out as part of any comprehensive management program. Security professionals (EHS and engineers) must collaborate with IT to ensure risks to physical assets are mitigated to help protect workers, equipment, and intellectual property residing in industrial control systems. Unfortunately, the inherent consequences of security with respect to protection risks are too often neglected.
Improve collaboration
A key aspect of many important business aspects of security includes a collaborative approach to security.
The primary responsibility of the EHS team is employee safety, but this team only directly controls important, though less effective, methods of machine safety: awareness, training, procedures and personal protective equipment. Engineers focus on technical standards, but are also in control of more effective machine safety methods: design to eliminate hazards, guarding, monitored access, and interlock devices. These two departments often view each other with suspicion, resulting in reduced safety and productivity.
A key element of the aforementioned security maturity is the collaboration between these two departments, along with the operations department. In fact, a recent LNS research study showed that in organizations where there is collaboration between these three departments, the median incident rate is 15 percent lower.
Perform Risk Assessments Early in the Design Process
The design process is a critical stage for machinery that optimizes safety and productivity. Specifically, designing a machine to eliminate risks, rather than building it and then trying to improve it to make it safer, is an essential aspect of these goals.
While most companies conduct a risk assessment at a certain point in time, timing is key. Should it be done during the design process when risks can be eliminated? Or once it’s designed, built and ready to ship?
It is essential to perform a risk assessment early in the design process and later after it is installed on site to help verify compliance, safety and productivity. Studies have revealed that between 60 and 70 percent of security incidents occur outside of normal operating mode (during maintenance, repairs, etc.).
Ergonomic machinery design
The changing workforce in our industry demands new considerations when it comes to safety. Younger workers with less experience suffer a higher rate of acute injuries. Older workers experience a higher rate of musculoskeletal and repetitive strain injuries, which often become chronic or career-destroying. A more diverse workforce means machinery must be able to accommodate a variety of workers.
Learn how to mitigate risks and improve labor productivity for an evolving workforce.
To get the most out of every available worker, you need to build machines to suit a wider range of workers. This includes ambidextrous features and configurations geared towards reducing repetitive motion, lifting, and awkward body positions.
As the global workforce continues to evolve, modern machinery design techniques and safety systems must be taken into account not only to mitigate risks, but also to increase worker productivity.
Find out how to design your security system for more uptime.
Use of alternative measures to reduce LOTO and improve productivity
Security doesn’t have to come at the expense of productivity. Modern machinery design allows for minor lockout tagout (LOTO) service exceptions when procedures are routinely and repetitively performed and are essential to operating the equipment. This is critical to optimizing both security and productivity.
When used correctly, alternative measures can improve productivity by reducing LOTO-related downtime while maintaining regulatory compliance. In some cases, these measures can mean the difference between simple regulatory compliance and operational excellence.
Inclusion of security in The Connected Enterprise
The power of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) can greatly improve security performance and compliance.
Digital transformation gives security professionals the ability to understand in real time the behavior of workers, the regulatory compliance of machinery, the causes of interruptions or stoppages for security reasons, as well as anomalies and security trends. It can also help you recruit, train, and retain employees.
Security: an integral element of your control system
Your control system must include safety-classified inputs, logic, and output devices to mitigate risk, improve productivity, and provide feedback to key stakeholders.
It can be challenging to design effective security systems that improve productivity. But security design tools can speed development and help confirm and document compliance.
For example, RASWin software can help to consistently manage and document the security lifecycle. Safety Automation Builder® software can help you design your safety system.
Safety functions documents can also help you implement machinery safety functions and include calculations for safety performance, wiring, programming, verification and validation.
The Safety Automation Builder software tool is now integrated into the RASWin evaluation software to help engineers through the steps of the machine safety life cycle in a single environment, providing documentation showing regulatory compliance with international standards.
Implementation of intelligent security systems
New designs and smart safety devices can reduce wiring, design costs, and unscheduled downtime. For example, they allow you to capture smart device interactions to create predictive maintenance feedback and other information.
Intelligent systems control every layer: from intelligent sensing, safety and motor control devices that predict their own maintenance, to flexible control systems that optimize safety, protect intellectual property, improve operations and provide information to customers. analytical systems that provide detailed insight to help leaders make decisions and set the right course for their organization.
Smart systems help restrict access to machines to only authorized and trained personnel to improve productivity, safety and security.
Intelligent systems control each layer.
Expanding your knowledge in the area of security
You need engineers, system integrators, and machine builders with experience in today’s safety standards, a proven track record in safety system manufacturing, and in-depth knowledge of safety system design processes and technologies that improve productivity.
If your plant staff does not have this experience, turn to our partners. Rockwell Automation employs almost half of the security professionals certified by TÜV Rheinland.
Our alliances include recognized system integrators and solution partners with security expertise. These organizations have met rigorous requirements, including a rigorous multi-month evaluation and training process, to become members of our PartnerNetwork™ program. Read more about the Rockwell Automation® Security System Integrator Program.
