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Willem (00:00)
Welcome to the ITOT Insider Podcast. Today we have David, of course, and we also brought somebody along, David. ⁓ Could you tell us who you found in some conference somewhere?
David (00:11)
Yes. ⁓
Yes, yes, we found Raf at a conference at a short talk and I immediately knew like, okay, we need to have this guy on our podcast. ⁓ So yeah, we are ⁓ joined today by by Raf Swinnen He worked in in operations. So that’s really interesting to have the operational side here on the podcast. He worked at Procter & Gamble, the Kellogg company Danone, ⁓ where he also led digital projects. ⁓ And now we self employed so well.
Willem (00:23)
Absolutely.
David (00:42)
definitely talk about his journey ⁓ as well. So thank you. ⁓ Yeah, thank you for joining. Let’s start maybe with a short intro.
Raf Swinnen (00:52)
Yes, so I’m Raf, as you briefly mentioned, basically I have a background in operations, ⁓ grew into what we then call the digital program management roles. Always trying to be the glue, actually, between IT, OT, automation, ⁓ lean operations, and try to keep people within their expertise, so I’m not the expertise on all the fields, but try to bring a unified vision, something that is…
coherent for end users and that technology is basically being put at service of frontline employees.
David (01:28)
Yeah, being the glue that is exactly what we want to do at the ITO, insider as well. So ⁓ now that’s perfect. ⁓ Okay, so lots of things to talk about. I’m sure we’ll talk about that glue more. But so let’s go back to the early days of your career. So you really started in operations.
Raf Swinnen (01:52)
I started actually as a, well, basically the step up or starter position as a process engineer, ⁓ optimizing production lines, talking to people, setting the standards, making sure that we had a shift handover, the morning meeting. And very soon, ⁓ maybe that’s where P&G at that days already were quite advanced, quite digital, quite data driven, and started…
Basically, my first role already trying to harmonize data, how can we simplify, streamline data and make sure that people actually use the data, which could be stops, which could be other data from digital systems. But always trying to see like, how can we get value and how can it drive insights and actions for people. ⁓ Grew up to program or first department manager, rolled into the lean ⁓ function. ⁓
got into operational roles and then did a dissertation during my MBA around digital manufacturing. And that’s basically how we got started at the regional program in Kellogg’s talking about how can we transform with the background of lean operations and the advantages of technology, how can we bring it together? And that’s how I ended more in the digital space.
Willem (03:16)
Okay, I personally am very interested about everything that touches with Lean. ⁓ So I’m a bit curious, you came really from that Lean background, production background, and then during the MBA worked on the role of digital in there. Could you give me like the short summary of your conclusion there?
Raf Swinnen (03:37)
The short summary, I’m trying to keep it short because I can’t…
David (03:40)
Is there a short
summary?
Willem (03:41)
Is there a… or it’s just going to be
Raf Swinnen (03:43)
I-I-I-
Willem (03:43)
OPC UA as a solution or something like that?
Raf Swinnen (03:46)
No,
I think, first of all, lean is a philosophy. Lean is way of working, often seen on the shop floor with lots of standards, forms, ways of working. And in the early days in the 70s, 80s, it’s basically discipline driven. People needed to have a lot of discipline to execute the tools and user tools.
Some of the tools I think are still better to be used handwritten, but most of ⁓ our other tools are reporting, information sharing, one-point lessons, the way communication flows can be sped up using technology. that’s a bit like traditional lean implementations. They stick to what they’ve seen in the past and what has worked so far.
But technology cannot be neglected at the same time. So feels like we can merge them and need to pick technology where it adds value and where it can streamline some of the processes that otherwise are cumbersome or hard to execute or takes a lot of time. And that is there where you always, in my point of view, you always put the shop floor first.
you can use technology in your favor.
Willem (05:12)
I can imagine also the change management with the team if they’re like, guys, you need to do this boring job a hundred times every week. Maybe they’ll do it in the beginning, but after a while, usually it gets forgotten. It’s not done so well and the rest starts to suffer also now.
Raf Swinnen (05:31)
Yeah, and I think that this is where technology especially can help them. It’s kind of digital tools can reinforce behaviors because in the end, it’s systems or tools bring systems to life. You can make your ⁓ theory, your way of working, put it in writing. You can try to impose it on your people or force it and then people will do it whilst you’re there. But if it’s not simple, if it’s not easy to be used,
⁓ People will only do it because they have to. Once it’s made easier and people truly start to see the value, they start using it. Technology can be that prompt, be that guide, can be that person on the shoulder whispering what to do and guiding people truly through that maze of expectations. Because you cannot know everything, but if you trigger at the right moment, the right
troubleshooting you the right information, prompt the latest insights. ⁓ It’s a big step up whilst you would otherwise expect people to go and look for information. Information can come to you and that is a huge difference. Still in line with the philosophy of Lean, ⁓ but where technology then is helping you to drive that way of working.
David (06:54)
I read on your LinkedIn profile, I talk lean to the tech team and I talk tech to the lean team. please make this, take us into an actual conversation you had where you talked lean to tech and tech to lean.
Raf Swinnen (07:15)
It’s always the way I’ve experienced and my colleagues will know is what is actually we’re trying to solve. And we can come up with great technical solutions. But then I’ll be there to say like, hey, but this is not how operations works or this is not how we serve the people on the shop floor. This tool is great in
from a technical point of view, but it’s not practical implemented. So I’ll be a counterpart to say like a watch out because adoption is key. What I did in the past or have often done is always be the voice of the people on the floor and see, it really adding value? I remember one day we were about to introduce a new way of working.
new tool. We did the training in the weekend teams, in the night shift we saw. We were planning to go live ⁓ on Monday morning, so I was seeing the night shift, we had fixed night teams. And the training on Saturday night, people said like, hey Raf, this is not going to work. And it was technically working well and it passed all of the other teams.
But people all of a sudden said it’s not practical and for this reason, ⁓ it’s not going to be ⁓ implemented or it’s not going to add value. And that’s the moment you go back to your tech team and say, like, hey, we kind of missed something and challenge what we as a team always did or tried to implement. The other way around as well is challenge the people who are working on paper and say, like, hey, but this is where technology can add value. ⁓ Is it?
⁓ transferring data from one system to another on a whiteboard instead of why don’t we implement a big television screen on the shop floor where data automatically flows in? How can we make sure that information is pushed to people based on triggers from your ⁓ OT or MES tech? Because that’s how do you spark and get people a notification rather than just a QR code where people need to go and scan. People still need to…
take an action if the system can guide them it brings that lean philosophy to life and the other way.
David (09:40)
But to come back to this example, so you said like, okay, we were already in the training process. And that’s also something interesting you mentioned because you just say like, it’s during night shifts or during weekend shifts, which is super common in operations because those are the, I would say the times that your workload is a bit less, but not well understood by many tech providers. Anyways, what I…
what I immediately thought was, okay, so you were already in the training process and only at that point, some red flags were, I would say, were erased. what did you, I imagine that the next time you would go like, okay, this was actually too, maybe too late in the process.
Raf Swinnen (10:25)
Well, we
had a way of working with which we call digital ambassadors. So these were people across shifts, across departments who gave input, we tested applications, we tested tools, we tested technologies. And we passed all of the normal tests. But all of a sudden, someone in the night shift was awake. And he said like, hey, this…
this is an edge case or this is something which happens more often than you would expect or potentially it’s not always coming to the surface during office hours, but this is something we face and it’s kind of, you’re always well prepared because otherwise you don’t start training, but ⁓ listening to your people and challenging back your technology or your way of working is then a strength.
because this is the buy-in from your people and this is how people will start adopting that new way of working because they have a voice they’ve been listened to and at the same time you work with the tech team to make sure that their way of working is being supported.
Willem (11:36)
Raf, think in the intake before we hit the record button, ⁓ you mentioned something in that domain. It was linked to change management and how you handle implementations and that communication with the people on the shop floor, which isn’t always easy. You can’t just send an email and expect that you get all the answers. So you mentioned something about reporting. So could you tell a bit about that?
Raf Swinnen (12:02)
Yeah, one of the things for instance, we have a lot of data, both in the IoT world. And again, this is where Lean uses those data. Lean is not something empty. It’s using the data to drive their processes, its content they use. And a common use tool, of course, or BI solutions. In our case, it was Power BI. We wanted…
David (12:19)
Mm-hmm.
Raf Swinnen (12:30)
to start using it more because ⁓ it helps to, of course, visualize, simplify ways of working. We picked a few people in the different departments with knowledge of their domain. That’s important because otherwise you have to talk to a data analyst or translate the problems you want to have. So we said like, people interested in learning Power BI, come along, start playing with it. They started playing with it. ⁓
started making their own dashboards. And you can imagine it goes from left to right, different styles, different look and feels. Once we had the feeling that there was enough proficiency within the users, we kind of pushed a big pause button and said, now let’s sit together. Let’s now define how a dashboard looks like, what are the commonly used tables or filters so that we can get consistency in those dashboards.
We had weeks of discussion on whether it’s a graph or a gauge or how do we visualize things because in the end, it’s people or we thrive on routine. So if there’s a new dashboard coming in from safety, from quality, from maintenance, from OT, doesn’t really matter. You want actually end users to use it. And if the layout is different,
people will start to analyze the layout. So what we said is we’re going to standardize the layout. The content will be different, but people are much easier adopting and adapting to the content if the layout is the same. So the big pause button, started writing standards, started writing ⁓ common tables for filtering in terms of lines, departments, bit of the UNS or ISA 95 filters button, made sure that it was consistent across all of the Power BI reports.
And then you could start releasing ⁓ new dashboards without having to explain where can you find it. Always start with the KPIs, then the trend lines, and then the details at the bottom. And this is how we started using the same look and feel. People could take over each other’s dashboards as well. So we could step in for different departments. And it just made sure that adoption was going 10 times faster because of that kind of standardization and that’s…
Again, thing like Linus standards is about consistency. It’s about training people and making sure they embrace that way of working. But then you need to make sure that your technology is following in that sense.
Willem (15:01)
And you were doing that while you were in that more lean role, I assume.
Raf Swinnen (15:05)
At that moment I was program manager digital manufacturing but I’m background and lean definitely helps to be the voice of the end users.
Willem (15:09)
Okay.
Because it sounds like that you were driving the driving force there was not so much a technology but more the process people.
Raf Swinnen (15:27)
I always see that kind of tech to the back is making sure that technology is serving and data process. And if we put technology first, then we can enforce a process. But there comes a bit sometimes attention like something created ⁓ at an office or something co-created with end users, employees.
frontline operators, technicians, that’s a different way of working. And I always say, like, even if we get it 80 or 90 % right, even with the input of end users, the moment you go live, ⁓ things will change in digital or in lean or lean is all around progressive insights, capability building, deeper details and customers, internal customers in that sense, or moving targets.
So you get new insights, you need to be able to ⁓ adapt to it and you need to have the tools to support that new way of working because otherwise you have delivered a project but it’s not a program and that is the big difference between a whole transformation or just digitalizing your current practices.
Willem (16:41)
I think you can see it in a lot of cases where they say the technology first and the people will follow. think several… OEE for example is one that comes to mind just because you install a package and that lets people select from a drop down of 500 different things and they need to fill out 17 different failure modes ⁓ is not going to be the recipe for success.
Raf Swinnen (17:06)
No, it’s also there initially because when we started both in Danone and in Kelloggs it’s either already an established ⁓ landscape of solutions. ⁓ What we started to do is basically simplify things and make sure that we could get coherence between what we were doing. I always call it the three Cs. You bring clarity, what’s the direction you want to go after.
Is it clear on the path we’re following and the vision you have? Consistency, and this is where digital can definitely help. Are we walking the talk? Are we reinforcing what we want to do? But then the coherence, and that’s where App Sprawl comes in. A lot of new applications, people don’t see the connection between them anymore, and it’s getting very hard to get up to speed with all of the different applications.
So moving in that area, getting that coherence and then the adoption is key. then going back to the point of OEE, we initially had an OEE application. It was reporting, data came in. We improved it. So we took away most of the manual work because most of the stops were recorded automatically. But then still you still have issues that either need to be manually qualified.
David (18:04)
Yeah.
Raf Swinnen (18:28)
And together with this is one of the tools that we were using then, is implementing it or linking it to the logs, the logbook, the issues from the past, the resolutions they had in the past, videos, conversations, action planning. And it’s from a static OEE application to something embedded in the daily routines. And that is always the difference between the same with data or the same with documents.
Documents are not sitting at the side. Documents need to live. People need to give input. People need to be able to ⁓ share their knowledge, make it alive, make it part of what we do because that is ultimately where digital then again can come in handy to support the philosophy and the continuous improvement mindset of people.
David (19:18)
This is an episode full of quotes. We already have tech to the back. So I guess it’s gonna be the title of these episodes. And then we have the three Cs, which I really, really like. It’s gonna be easy to extract some quotes from this one. ⁓ But you’re right. ⁓ It’s interesting to see how this balance between, ⁓
culture, people, and tech is really important. I wanted to come to maybe just to rewind a bit because you mentioned that you were leading a ⁓ digital program or you were a program manager. ⁓ This obviously resonates with the work we’ve been doing around corporation models where, I would say…
when you were doing that, was your starting point really a more siloed approach or was there already cooperation? And why did you choose to go for a program ⁓ and not whatever other thing you might think about? I’d like to do a bit more deep dive in this organization stuff.
Raf Swinnen (20:32)
It’s quite funny because when I was appointed digital manager, especially in my last role, I was alone So whatever smelled a bit like digital they said like a that’s for that
David (20:43)
You are now… You know computers? Yes, okay.
Willem (20:49)
So you were the program
manager of your own program.
Raf Swinnen (20:52)
At the beginning, yes, they had a vision on transforming the plant with the experience from the previous company that I joined, ⁓ Dunlom at that time. I was alone and ⁓ started again also there with that clarity, vision, ⁓ trying to understand what do we have and started…
building, forming the team. It helps having a lean background or operational excellence background. Back in the days in Procter & Gamble, they called it integrated work systems. And I think the integration is key still today. You’re not working in silos within safety, within quality, they all touch in the end your production. ⁓ And it helps, of course, that I’ve seen and worked in operations, seeing all of the inputs ⁓ and needs from others.
So I could easily talk to everyone and show them how we could connect the dots. And the moment you start explaining, visualizing and putting into first practice, but also just paint the picture of the future, ⁓ you get people on board it. ⁓ And we started with a project engineer or helping to implement.
siloed projects. Always start with something that adds value. Don’t start with a big program, start adding and that’s a curve here. You know, start with something where you have a pain, where you’re struggling with something you haven’t solved in the past. Show, give confidence that you can tackle and support a new way of working and very soon you can start adding it. The important point or where we started was we already knew ⁓
We didn’t have a detailed plan, but we knew we need to make a connection between the dots. So we talked about the unified interface for operators. We talked about basically a central place repository data lake or operations way of collecting all the OT data. And then we had ⁓ our BI solution in terms of visualization and integration with reporting. ⁓
Having that vision in mind always helps not to be distracted by inputs or by new trends, but always challenge the tech people in that sense, like, how is this helping build my vision? How is this helping to get things to life and AI or vision? One of the things we, for instance, we talked about in the past was introducing AI systems.
to talk about scrap on the production lines. ⁓ it’s mainly one of the challenges we had was ⁓ implementing or using the wrong material. A common ⁓ problem, I would say, because things are moving. High speed production lines, a couple of hours or minutes can create a lot of waste. So people said, like, we can…
implement vision systems, we can check all their packing materials. ⁓ But it wasn’t scalable. It was implementing all sensors across all of the production lines, across all of the ⁓ whole ⁓ department. And it wasn’t addressing basically the root cause, because the root cause was once you have a pallet, once you’re moving or using materials ⁓ in that pallet, in that ⁓ batch, you’re not going to get all of a sudden wrong material. It’s the moment people put it on the line.
that things go wrong. So we said like, use a tablet, scan the code, it’s linked to your MES solution, and it will give you a green or red light. And by enforcing that behavior, and that routine of you need to check it, and the system will help you. People always, because in the past they had to write it down on a piece of paper, we said we can digitize it. It supports them because sometimes it’s only two, three letters that are different. it’s a different language on your product, so it cannot be solved.
⁓ introducing that way of working was scalable because it’s mobile, it was a better way than implementing, a faster way than implementing sensors across the lines. You didn’t have to train the system and that is kind of how you always start to look at challenges and problems.
Willem (25:17)
Yeah.
David was talking about your organizational sites. Where were you located? Were you within IT? Were you within operations? And how did you interact with each other? Because the things that you’re saying sound very smart, both for operations and IT sites. So I can’t really figure out where you were positioned.
Raf Swinnen (25:45)
I was a new role. wasn’t… Yeah, actually I was. ⁓ I joined the management team. So they introduced a new function. And also there we, from the beginning, said like initially, potentially we need to grow the department ⁓ to get people into that way of thinking. And then later on we can, when capabilities have been built, can go back to their original roles.
but let’s put a team together. It’s hard to influence people who report to someone else. They might be motivated, if there’s a reporting line. Initially, we changed the reporting lines to myself. ⁓
Willem (26:31)
So you
had people who were in IT reporting to you and had people in operations reporting to you?
Raf Swinnen (26:36)
OV, data analysts, operations
projects, yeah. We brought them together because that way they started talking together. There’s nothing as good as putting physically people together because that always helps. And always with the intent like what’s the value, what are we driving? People started being creative and looking for different ways of working. ⁓
David (26:49)
Yeah, so important.
Raf Swinnen (27:05)
took them out of their ⁓ day-to-day or normal departments, yet they had their expertise in the background so they could use it, but it helped them to start thinking differently. And that is then a way to start supporting both the departments and driving digital programs.
David (27:26)
Was there already an end game? ⁓ Because when you start a program, typically if you start a program with the idea in mind that at a certain point the program also should dissolve into something permanent, then that’s typically a very…
Willem (27:48)
Very good idea, by the way. That’s already a very good idea, because that’s one of the failure modes, is forgetting
your endgame.
Raf Swinnen (27:54)
Yes,
we started and did because it took me three to six months writing the vision, writing the end state, writing a path towards success. And of course, it takes time to influence, to convince people, to show what the future can be like. But then you stick to it and we called it our compelling business needs, we visualized it, we…
David (28:11)
Yeah.
Raf Swinnen (28:21)
In every communication, we came back to the three strategies. As said, the unified interface, ⁓ all OT data centralized, so we can have a data hub from there and then our reporting. ⁓ And then that always helps to challenge new projects or to explain why we are taking steps we’re taking because we had those end goals in mind. They weren’t clearly spelled out in terms of how they needed to look like because again, progressive insights, things…
David (28:50)
Yeah.
Raf Swinnen (28:50)
things
evolve, ⁓ but it kept us on a certain path forward. ⁓ And the moment people, I always said the moment I feel stressed, that’s a good sign. That means I’m not pushing anymore, but people are pulling and that they are enthusiastic and driving the change themselves. And that’s a tipping point if other people start to say like the clarity, no, this is the path, this is how I contribute.
David (29:07)
Yeah.
Raf Swinnen (29:18)
This is what I do from my function. You make a change and you start indeed having a cultural transformation in your teams.
David (29:30)
And how did the organization as such evolve? Did it remain a separate program or did it ⁓ get absorbed by the existing functions?
Raf Swinnen (29:42)
⁓ It got partially absorbed. ⁓ Partially you still have a central team like your lean team as well. You keep a bit but ⁓ also you try to rotate more people, get them kind of a broadening assignment, get them involved in a different way of thinking, flow them back to the line but then at least they have seen a different way of working and that is I think always a challenge.
David (29:59)
Yeah.
Raf Swinnen (30:09)
a mutual understanding of what others are doing or other challenges that people are facing. If you experience things yourself, ⁓ you can better talk and ⁓ come to conclusions or next steps with your colleagues.
Willem (30:25)
Plus I think you’re also creating networks of people like, I still know that guy who worked in that. Let me talk to him. I think that really lowers the barrier ⁓ and changes you from complaining about something to let me call the guy. I know he can help us.
David (30:31)
⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah.
Raf Swinnen (30:42)
That’s indeed what we also did with the digital ambassadors. So these were, we only had one characteristic, enthusiasm. Didn’t really matter how long they were in the company, whether they were digitally fluent, yes or no. We wanted to have people who had the drive to make changes. The fact that we saw them every two weeks, so every two weeks, we tried to see the night weekend teams, the week teams, of course, as well. They had…
a line of contact, they had a communication line and whenever we did an implementation or they were stuck, knew, people on the shop floor, knew, I can go to a person because that person talks to the project or the program team. And either we could say like, hey, understand your concerns, but this is not what we can do because of constraints, barriers, limits in resources or thanks for the input, start working on it and we can feedback. ⁓
And that is indeed like how you change from a one-person man to a small team and then trying to influence the whole operations way of working.
David (31:51)
The rotation is really clever. ⁓ Because if you don’t do that, after a couple of years… Well, you have this initial speed up, but after a couple of years, you’re again going to slow down because, well, people are still stuck. Well, they might have started something new, but then after a while, they get stuck again in their way of thinking.
Raf Swinnen (32:11)
And
I think maybe that does the lean background because lean as well as this capability program, it makes sure like implement something but implemented in the routines. If you don’t have the routines and it sticks with just knowledge, then things are not changing. If you can embed your ways of working digital in what you do, then it becomes the norm and then people…
see it as what they do in their day-to-day lives. And that is the difference between a data project and a program. it implemented, people walk away and then we don’t care about it anymore? Or no, no, this is continuous improvement, continuous evolution, and we know and we have the tools. And again, that’s why I came back or initially said like, you need to have the tools or the platforms to adopt to your needs. ⁓ If you don’t have that.
then you’re kind of lost because then you’re flattened out. But if you have tools and if you especially work on protocols, it makes it a bit vanderagnostic and you can evolve and things can come in ⁓ very, very easy.
Willem (33:24)
I think also the advantages is also exposing people in IT to production, to operations, which is not always possible. mean, you can come as IT and say, hello, I’m here. I mean, if you don’t have anything to do in the plant, except maybe fixing the wifi, you will not learn. But in a program like yours, you bring somebody in and they get really close to one of the core aspects of the company.
Raf Swinnen (33:49)
I remember the initial conversation when we had data analysts with an IT background, starting reporting to me. And he, at beginning, said, I’m a new manager and what can you learn me? Because you don’t have a background in IT. I said, it’s true. But let’s see. And when I decided to sort out employees, like, this must have been a…
one of the best times because you challenged me, you explained the value I can bring from my expertise. You didn’t know how to solve things, but that was kind of a benefit because I had to find things myself. You enabled or put a part towards more training and self-discovery. And it forced me to talk to people because jointly we can talk.
about solutions and I think that that’s indeed sometimes the power. Lean is the same, it don’t solve problems for people, explain people how they can learn to solve problems and that is a mindset again that needs to come to life.
David (35:00)
That’s all super interesting. And I think we should do a bit more about Lean or talk a bit about and write a bit more about Lean on R because it is true. The two are interlinked more than people probably imagine.
Willem (35:15)
I think they could be interlinked more. think if you look at the whole DevOps movement that started 15 years ago, in Belgium by the way, ⁓ I think that whole movement was a sort of embracement of off-line principles in IT where they discovered like, hey, those ideas and concepts work actually really well in our world. And you see it also in organizations that…
David (35:21)
Hmm, yeah.
Yes.
Willem (35:44)
embrace this and start to think more about continuous improvement instead of only capex projects with a finite end. ⁓ You get that interaction also more easily. I think it’s harder for you to do your job rough if your whole idea organization would be working in a completely different way than operations.
Raf Swinnen (36:06)
Yes, it’s true and it’s indeed companies need to be ready for it or you need to have the right people on board or within your team. But there are ways to start moving them and it’s a bit what we recently started to see as well, especially maybe from my time in Makos is we call it the plant collective memory. People leave fast, we have the silver tsunami, you don’t have the experience anymore. But all the inputs and that
David (36:32)
Yeah, yeah.
Raf Swinnen (36:35)
that was one of the triggers for the OEE combination with Logbook and Action Planning is how do we ensure that both the formal knowledge hidden in policies, I quickly said, ⁓ they shouldn’t be static, they should become more dynamic, but also all of your informal inputs in Logbook, in chats, in comments, how can you push that back and triggers based on triggers, because also these triggers, if your line is down, do this, ⁓ if that situation happens, these are the checklists.
But use it to prompt, use it to push things, use your ecosystem in a way that you guide people and then people can build on that knowledge and it doesn’t really matter again, whether you are very experienced or whether you add a small, tiny addition to the whole community because if there are ways to capture that knowledge and push it back to enthusiasm at the time they need it, this is the same philosophy, Lina, and going back to your initial question where
digital definitely can help because it can, with contextualized data, visualize things and help and guide people in problem solving, in resolution, or just sticking to a standard, just getting the latest updates ⁓ at their fingertips. And that is where the two nicely merge together because you have content, but you have your infrastructure and your tool set around it as well.
Willem (37:59)
I think
also like if both your organizations accept it as a way of working, and I think that you could say like if you have an IT that really knows how to work agile and not only the people, but also the organization, which is not always a given, I think it will give a very natural match with the way of working and thinking and being. It’s going to be a much more pleasant
implementation and cooperation than if one of those two is working in a very different way.
Raf Swinnen (38:36)
Yes, I think it’s rewarding for people as well. the end, people want to come to work and add value. It’s of course, but sometimes we see a neat implementation of tools because they have to. But if people can feel they make a difference, if they feel like they add value and a small thank you for the work people have done, it just helps.
Willem (38:41)
Absolutely.
David (38:44)
Yeah, of course. Yeah. ⁓
Willem (38:54)
Exactly.
David (39:03)
Yeah.
Raf Swinnen (39:04)
to make a change in behavior and what we do.
David (39:08)
No, and you make it their project. It’s not about yet another training or yet another meeting about another user interface or whatever. No, it’s their project.
Raf Swinnen (39:21)
Yeah,
and it’s a bit what I said, it might be an advantage that I don’t know the details and being the glue. But by that you indeed get your experts more in touch with your enthuses and you kind of force ownership. But at the same time you give reward and recognize people if they do things right. And if you give them a clear path forward, it’s easier for them to maneuver as well because they say like,
We’re here to work on something bigger and you naturally, well naturally is always, but you create ways of working in collaboration which weren’t seen before. But the elements can be there.
David (40:01)
⁓
I’m ⁓ gonna end this episode with one final question, Raf. ⁓ This wasn’t prepared, but I think you know what is coming. On your LinkedIn profile, you use the word industry 5.0. Now you know what I think about the term industry, about that term.
Raf Swinnen (40:08)
Yes.
Yes.
Willem (40:23)
I think it’s all data, we should have 6.0.
David (40:26)
Let’s go for seven. So why did you use the words industry 5.0? makes it important for you?
Raf Swinnen (40:37)
Well, it’s,
it’s what makes it important. This is mainly a talking point. A trigger began, I was at Hannover Messe and then someone looked at my card and said industry 5.0 And he asked, is this a joke? No, it’s an actual term. And especially in the U S I think they’re more like stick to 4.0. Europe is using it in their formal programs to say like, we need industry 5.0
I don’t think there’s a fifth industrial revolution yet because we didn’t have the fourth one. It’s more, thank you. It’s for me more a school of thought and to emphasize like put people first. And yes, we can do that with technology. And I think that the two will merge somehow at 4.5 probably. But it’s more the trigger to…
Willem (41:09)
Yeah
David (41:10)
Thank you. Thank
you.
Yeah.
Raf Swinnen (41:32)
to have a talking point and explain a different angle and that lean going in position is and that user or human centric but not centric in isolation to all of the individual functions but centric as let them work around in an ecosystem to support it.
David (41:50)
Yeah.
Willem (41:51)
You
sound like an architect, Raf.
Raf Swinnen (41:54)
For the rest, doesn’t really matter. You can call it 6.0 because it’s even better. But ⁓ it’s more like a trigger and a starting point. Once you go into the conversation, people start to understand, okay, there’s a different way of viewing ⁓ things. And that is important. All the rest is indeed like terminology.
David (42:13)
I’ve already been in a meeting where we were talking about industry 6.0. if people want to know more, can they contact you? What are the types of things you’re offering today?
Raf Swinnen (42:17)
There you are.
They can contact me via LinkedIn. As I said, I support makers ⁓ in their way of working, enrolling out to customers, advising them on digitalization as a whole. But they can reach out to me on LinkedIn and we can continue the conversation. If this was an interesting episode, they can be in touch.
David (42:49)
I’m sure they will. So, ⁓ all right. So this is again a wrap off of this episode. Raf, thank you so much for sharing this insights and all these super interesting stories from the shop floor, Willem also thank you for joining me. And of course to our listeners again for tuning in. If you enjoyed the conversation, don’t forget to subscribe at itotinsider.com ⁓ and why don’t you discover our newly launched ITOT.Academy
Raf Swinnen (42:55)
Thank you.
David (43:16)
where we offer you a live online training on these topics. So that’s it for now. Thank you very much. ⁓ And until we meet again, bye bye.
Raf Swinnen (43:25)
Bye bye.
Willem (43:26)
Goodbye.