Leadership Insights: Enabling Digital Transformation at Owens Corning
The success of any digital innovation strategy relies primarily on the workforce adopting and implementing those changes and processes. Empowering those on the frontline and enabling them to make informed decisions is crucial for organizations seeking long-term wins in their digital transformation projects. This is where the role of digital leaders shifts gears, moving from merely enabling technology to driving change within the organization, and from workforce development to strategic innovation.
“Every decision we make should revolve around adding value in the flow of work,” says Brian Perlstein. “If we fail to do so and neglect to consider the impact on the individuals affected by these changes, no matter how innovative the solution may be, it won't succeed.” As the Digital Manufacturing Innovation Leader at Owens Corning, a global building and construction materials leader, Brian understands the need for leaders today to be more visionary, proactive, and human-centric in their approach to digital transformation.
Ahead of our upcoming Connected Worker Summit in Chicago, from 7-9 October, we caught up with Brian to learn more about his vision for change. Read as he shares valuable insights on how digital technology has transformed manufacturing processes at Owens Corning and how digital leaders can prioritize effectively within the current landscape.
Maryam Irfan, IQPC: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your work at Owens Corning?
Brian Perlstein: I would describe my role as that of a pragmatic disruptor, aiding Owens Corning in identifying the right digital capabilities to address scalable business opportunities. Leveraging nearly 30 years of experience in technology and business operations, I help the organization understand whether to utilize existing in-house capabilities or explore new technologies in the industry.
My goal is to help the organization deliver operational excellence. This is done through various initiatives such as improving knowledge capture and consumption to accelerate our employees' decision-making processes and enhance overall efficiency. Within the manufacturing industry, digital transformation is fundamentally about operational transformation, and our emphasis is on improving the efficiency, quality, and sustainability of our processes and products.
Another aspect of my role is to help foster a culture of innovation and collaboration across our teams and help eliminate the knowledge silos that exist in our operations.
FIND OUT: Brian's Involvement at The Connected Worker Summit, Chicago
Maryam Irfan, IQPC: As the Digital Manufacturing Innovation Leader, in what ways have you led or developed a vision for change within Owens Corning?
Brian Perlstein: Influencing change involves encouraging innovation, risk-taking, and experimentation with new capabilities and approaches to work. Moreover, empowering and enabling our frontline workforce, our organization's most critical asset, is of high importance to us. Since COVID-19 and the rapid adaptation of remote working, we at Owens Corning have had to improvise with solutions to help provide critical frontline workers with the tools and information they need to do their jobs safely, yet effectively. As an example, I led a program where we were able to provide remote expert support and guidance to plant operators and technicians, improving troubleshooting and problem-solving using hands-free devices.
One of my first initiatives at OC was early warning diagnostics, which led to the development of remote monitoring and diagnostics capabilities. With this program, we prioritized shop floor transparency along with real-time data visibility and accessibility for better decision-making and work prioritization.
Another area of focus is enhancing knowledge management by creating platforms to facilitate and simplify knowledge capture, sharing, and learning among employees. This program is making it easier to help capture and retain intrinsic knowledge during those transitions.
Our third area of focus was safety improvement, and our new program, "Safer Together," helps leaders collaborate with our employee health and safety organization to identify solutions, such as drones, sensors, and mobile devices for information sharing.
Finally, we have increased our focus on finding ways to use digital as an enabler for our operating methodology, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). Combining the power of digital with our work processes, in a way that makes doing the right thing a bit easier to do, has improved overall adoption and effectiveness of the program. This approach will help us accelerate our progress toward our goals of eliminating losses, optimizing equipment reliability, and reducing costs.
Maryam Irfan, IQPC: How has digital technology transformed the manufacturing process at Owens Corning?
Brian Perlstein: To understand how digital technology has transformed manufacturing processes at Owens Corning, it’s important to acknowledge the vitality of operational transparency. Offering visibility into our manufacturing processes and operations empowers our workforce, the core of our organization, to make more informed decisions on the frontline. This transparency extends to quality management, utilizing advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI capabilities to detect, and prevent and mitigate anomalies in the process. So, by identifying issues before they escalate, we optimize production efficiency and drive operational excellence across our operations. For us, visibility breeds innovation, as a clear understanding of current processes encourages our people to innovate and trial changes more effectively.
On the technological front, additive manufacturing has been a game-changer, accelerating the prototyping and trialling of new capabilities, while advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI contribute to our data-driven approach.
Drones play a role in inspections and audits, not only within our plants but also in supporting our partners, suppliers, and resellers, enhancing speed and accuracy in information gathering.
Cloud platforms have helped accelerate our ability to analyze information and solve problems on an enterprise scale by simplifying how we connect our experts to the information they need to support our plants. These platforms also make it easier to aggregate information across multiple source systems. For example - being able to combine data from connected sensors and process historians, we’ve now created better transparency for our operational teams, both on-site and at our remote monitoring and diagnostics center, so they can better understand how assets are performing.
Furthermore, when onboarding new team members or upskilling existing ones, we utilize digital tools to ensure our workforce is qualified and capable of safely performing their roles in our organization. So overall, our focus on data, information, and contextual knowledge enables us to operate our plants more efficiently.
Maryam Irfan, IQPC: Can you talk to us about the Centre of Excellence and how it has helped drive digital transformation within the organization?
Brian Perlstein: We have dedicated Centers of Excellence (CoEs) within each business division focused on driving operational excellence. Within some of these divisions, we are also aligning and collaborating with the maintenance matrix set of resources to help solve business problems and identify more efficient ways to accelerate work processes.
In some of our regional businesses, we have regional resources analyzing information and data and then providing those insights back to our plants, enabling them to better prioritize their workload. This approach helps improve plant efficiency over the next 24, 48, and 72 hours, ensuring that we consistently produce high-quality products in the market.
Maryam Irfan, IQPC: What benchmarks do you use to evaluate and measure the success of your digital transformation initiatives? And how do you view failures as learning opportunities?
Brian Perlstein: When measuring and evaluating the success of digital transformation initiatives at Owens Corning, we look at both general usage KPIs and business metrics. Key business metrics such as cost of goods sold, EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes), and productivity are the end game, and the goal is to determine if our operations are running more efficiently and if we're creating the necessary capacity for our workforce to perform their tasks safely.
Additionally, specific contributions of digital transformation can be gauged by assessing factors like increased workforce capacity, tool adoption, and solution utilization. There are also softer metrics to consider, such as the overall sentiment of the workforce. Are they more engaged, feeling safer, and viewing themselves as partners in the process? Examining turnover rates can provide insights into the success of onboarding strategies, particularly for newer hires who may be accustomed to digital tools in their daily lives.
For failures, it’s important to view them as learning opportunities by analyzing the problem, evaluating what could have been done better, and determining whether to pivot or persevere. One example of this is our early warning diagnostics program which we introduced without considering the plant’s ability to consume the information we were providing. Learning from this, especially during the constraints imposed by COVID-19 when we could not bring subject matter experts into the plant, allowed us to take a step back and reassess. This opportunity enabled us to pivot and initiate a Sprint around remote monitoring and diagnostics.
The key was recognizing that our plant resources were overwhelmed and that they could not take on the data analysis. By moving the analysis to central and regional SMEs and then allowing the plants to review and prioritize information and actions as they see fit. This change in approach led to increased engagement as the plant leaders felt empowered to assess and act on the insights provided. Over time, we observed a positive shift in their willingness to consume and leverage data, moving away from a firefighting mentality to a more proactive engagement with the information at hand.
Maryam Irfan, IQPC: How do you foresee the role of digital leaders evolving in the next 5-10 years?
Brian Perlstein: Digital leaders are not just responsible for identifying, managing, and executing digital products; they play a pivotal role in influencing organizations with the right strategy for continuous innovation.
The evolving digital landscape means that leaders now need to be more involved with business processes, understanding customer needs, and staying abreast of market trends within the industry. Beyond technical expertise, leadership in the digital realm now requires honing soft skills related to change management and organizational change.
Over the next 5 to 10 years, digital leaders will be expected to work closely with various business units, including R&D, product development, and customer service. The focus will be on partnership building and identifying the right digital opportunities, shifting from a reactive to a proactive and more strategic approach.
Maryam Irfan, IQPC: What are you most looking forward to at the Connected Worker Chicago Summit?
Brian Perlstein: I am genuinely excited about connecting with other professionals leading digital transformation within their organizations. I find immense value in learning from their experiences and insights, especially how they've navigated and overcome challenges. This learning process is not just about gathering knowledge but will serve as a catalyst for accelerating our initiatives at Owens Corning.
