Gail N Petersen

View Original

Evolving Materials.

From Wood to Steel - a dramatic improvement in technology & application of materials.

Let's take the example of the Wheel - a significant invention for mankind. The Wheel changed everything. It allowed man to cross boundaries and explore unknown territory. It introduced the impossible along with massive efficiencies enabling vast loads to be moved from one location to another using beasts of burden to provide the force needed to propel the load. It was innovative. It was disruptive.

Including the invention of the wheel we've experienced dramatic improvements in design, technology, and materials.

from hand-forged iron and carved wood

to calibrated steel, electronics, moulded rubber

This evolution was accompanied by a migration from custom hand-forged parts and assets using primitive but functional tools to mass-production automated asset-intensive plants that produce sophisticated products and services with tightly coupled supply chain dependencies from one plant to another.

In tandem, these organizations evolved end-to-end processes to manage the mission-critical assets required to produce these products and services that were their source of revenue. These processes were likely defined during the build cycle and documented in a manual, but likely fell into an informal practice of word-of-mouth transfer of information after the asset was commissioned. Visibility, consistency, and rigour eroded.

This void led to the development of FORTIG, a starter kit that defines the end-to-end processes for all stages of the asset life cycle from the spark of a consumer need through design, build, commission, operate&maintain, rebuild, and decommission-recycle-reuse. FORTIG has a grand vision and noble purpose: to provide asset-intensive organizations with visibility, consistency, agility, performance, line-of-sight, and value. It's a differentiator.