20/20 foresight

Hindsight may indeed be 20/20, but world-class organizations would be better served by improving the clarity of their foresight-something that requires them to effectively plan for and manage risk in an era of unprecedented global uncertainty. When they can foresee potential downtime, accidents, regulatory violations, and other critical disruptions, companies can more effectively mitigate risks and drive company-wide improvements. Without this level of visibility, ongoing sustainment of revenue, earnings and shareholder value becomes nearly impossible.

Most companies compile an immense amount of operational data-on everything from asset performance, incidents, compliance obligations, and emissions data to information about material and parts usage, safety performance, and quality conformance. Yet this information is often siloed within companies' operating units and is not gathered using consistent enterprise-wide processes. Subsequently, it is not easily accessible to make strategic, risk-informed decisions, which can have a significant impact on corporate performance.

For example, if a gas turbine breaks down at one facility in Chile, predictive indicators, lessons learned, or solutions that emerge from that experience could be quickly deployed to every turbine the company operates, anywhere in the world. This would prevent unexpected downtime from reoccurring, reducing operational expense and driving up the certainty that assets will perform as expected in the future.

As many leading companies have implemented integrated, enterprise-wide management systems to guide their policies and procedures, there is often no standard information technology in use to underpin and support the consistent application of these processes and thus no collection and use of information to support these processes. This leaves no simple way to get the foresight needed to make enterprise decisions.

Companies can sharpen their foresight by leveraging their investment in enterprise information management systems that underpin and enable standardized processes within their enterprise management systems-such as operational excellence management systems. Asset-intensive businesses that require significant levels of operational capital, for example, can utilize these systems to identify and act upon latent risks and opportunities in a powerful way. Through better use of analytics, companies can extract the insight needed to drive sustainable improvements and achieve new levels of performance.

IHS helps organizations pursue operational excellence by bringing their management system to life, underpinning their global operational excellence management system with enterprise software, content, and analytics. Armed with an intimate knowledge of their operations at every level, world-class organizations gain the insight needed to address critical risks and act upon predictive indicators to drive behavioral changes and improve operational performance. Everyone from the CEO to the plant operator shares in the rewards from improved foresight clarity, including better access to capital, enhanced corporate sustainability, and greater long-term shareholder value.

Scott Lockhart Senior Vice President, IHS Operational Excellence & Risk Management
Connect with Scott on LinkedIn