The New CIO Business Leader and Change Management Expert
Today’s chief information officer (CIO) not only has to be knowledgeable about technology, but frequently, the CIO is called upon to align the strategic goals of senior management in addition to managing on-going, day-to-day technology issues—the technology that provides visibility in the decision-making process.According to the IBM survey Expanding the Innovation Horizon: The Global CEO Study 2006, of 765 global chief executive officers (CEOs), most are finding there is a gap in the integration of their business and their technology, which hinders customer satisfaction as well as speed and flexibility in managing the business.A survey sponsored by the Gartner Group, Cost Cutting in IT, states that “2008 represents an important year in the transformation of IT’s role. Executive expectations for IT will accelerate towards greater support for solutions that attract, engage, and retain customers.” Notwithstanding the progress made in the area of aligning business requirements with IT skills, the gap has still not narrowed significantly, as a generational shift has occurred: IT employees in their mid to late 30s have only ever worked in IT, and they may have not had the opportunity to grow inother areas within the organization. Many baby boomers, on the other hand, have been entrenched in one organization for a number of years, and possibly in a number of positions within several company facilities.
The IT Executive: The Best Seat in the House
Due to the fast pace of change in technology and in terms of new business regulations and market conditions globalization, the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act [SOX], etc.), the IT department has had to be configured to provide the company with the tools to capture the emerging trends related to commodity and currency rate valuations. In addition, these professionals have been expected to be able to deploy systems that are equally agile in the area of tracking order status. The ability to use analytic tools to develop strategies in an ever-changing business landscape requires that the IT leadership be less of a functional role and more of a specialist within the company.
IT Tools That Impact Organizational Performance
Given the IT department’s role as “agents for change” within an organization, perhaps one of the tools that is most vital for organizations to remain competitive is business intelligence (BI). The term business intelligence refers to technologies, applications, and practices for the collection, integration, analysis, and presentation of BI, and sometimes to the information itself as well. The purpose of BI is to support better business decision making.
As businesses began automating their processes and more data became available, the challenge became how to distribute that data to the correct channels for decision-making purposes. Prior to BI, many key business decisions were made intuitively. BI often uses key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess the present state of a business and to suggest a course of action. To do this, BI uses analytics (a combination of statistical analysis and data mining) to examine trends or subjects that fall outside of the user-defined, benchmarked parameters.
To further your knowledge of BI and key vendors of BI solutions, I suggest you visit www.technologyevaluation.com. Select the vendor showcase to review the complete list of vendors and to obtain white papers and comparison reports.
Being IT Savvy
The term “IT savvy” was coined in the mid-90s by a researcher at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology (MIT) to describe how organizations can invest in specific IT knowledge base areas, and receive a return on that investment in measurable results in that category (see Generating Premium Returns on Your IT Investments):
Characteristics of IT Savvy Companies
• IT for communication—high use of electronic channels, such as e-mail, intranets, and wireless devices, for internal and external communications and work practices.
• Digital transactions—a high degree of digitization of a firm’s repetitive transactions,
particularly sales, customer interaction, and purchasing.
• Internet use—more use of Internet architectures for key processes, such as sales force management, employee performance measurement, training, and post-sales customer support.
• Firm-wide IT skills—high capability of all employees to use IT effectively. There are strong technical and business skills among IT staff, strong IT skills among business staff, and an adequate market supply of highly skilled IT staff.
• Business management involvement—strong senior management commitment and championing of IT initiatives. There is also strong business unit involvement in IT decisions, resulting in a partnership between IT staff and businessunits to generate value from IT investments.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/03/25/progressive-it-management-strategies-the-it-manager%E2%80%99s-360-degree-view-of-business/
Thursday, July 29, 2010
LCMS Exposed! Understanding the Differences between Learning Management and Learning Content Management
The Cost of Learning—a Very Brief History
Training (or learning) has always been viewed as a cost center (representing a cost of doing business similar to other employee costs such as salary, commissions, and benefits). That’s why many organizations in the past have struggled with the challenge of justifying the cost of training in their budgets.
Today, organizations are making significant investments in technology—which includes solutions for training staff and further developing their career opportunities. Through e-learning, businesses can now reach many more people within their organization with a lot more content—for the same cost. It’s important to note, however, that while investments in e-learning do not reduce overall costs, they do allow these costs to be leveraged more efficiently across the organization.
HR to LMS, LCMS, and Beyond
Years ago, when an organization was put to the task of selecting software for training its employees, it would turn to the “run of the mill” human resource (HR)-type solution that included basic payroll and benefits. Some also offered a very basic training module that could handle administrative tasks, as well as track the learner’s courses, grades, etc. Today, however, training (or learning) has become so much more than what the HR systems of the past could offer.
Many of today’s organizations are moving away from the traditional HR solutions (with basic training modules) and implementing learning management solutions (LMSs) or suites instead, which often include learning content management (LCM)—either out-of-the-box or through a third-party provider. With a wide variety of solutions on the market to choose from, organizations can now put learning on their list of top priorities—right in line with their talent management initiatives.
What’s the Difference between an LMS and an LCMS?
An LCMS can be defined as “a multi-user environment where learning developers can create, store, re-use, manage, and deliver digital learning content from a central object repository.”
While LMSs deal with the management, tracking, and reporting of learning activities and learners, LCMSs are all about the development, management, and deployment of content (or learning objects). Understanding the difference between the two is often very confusing if you’re looking to purchase a solution, because most LCMS systems also have some limited built-in LMS functionality.
The primary role of an LCMS is to manage digital assets used for authoring, managing, and publishing course content. An LCMS
* stores content in a central database repository,
* manages course content,
* breaks courses up into learning objects,
* tags objects that are then placed into a database (for advanced searchability),
* represents or stores content as extensible markup language (XML),
* provides the capability to retrieve content for re-use across the entire enterprise.
The primary differentiator for LCMSs is that they offer reusability of learning content and are constructed using a learning object model. Typically, course content is stored as learning objects in a learning object repository database. The objects are described and tagged so these objects can be recalled and re-used by the course designer or others later on down the road.
Here are some key components of an LCMS:
* learning object repository
* dynamic delivery interface
* automated authoring application
* administrative application course catalogs
* document filing and history
* shareable content object reference model (SCORM) content manager with tools to disaggregate and re-aggregate courses
* version control tools and archiving capabilities to store previous versions of content
* check-out/check-in features
* ability to publish to LMS (interoperability with third-party LMSs)
* workflow
And here’s a partial list of key benefits of LCMS technology (from www.brandon-hall.com):
* increased efficiency – increases the efficiency of the content development and deployment process and leverages skilled resources across more and more content programs
* reusable content – stores and manages content from a single repository
* adherence to compliance – delivers content online with strict control over content versions and historical account of changes (i.e., SCORM and Aviation Industry CBT Committee [AICC])
* reduced training time – delivers dynamically more personalized content, such as prescriptive learning programs, to provide more relevant and customized training and reduce overall training time
* delivers learning on demand – organizes content into smaller pieces and enables search and delivery as needed to meet the demand for just-in-time content
E-learning—Effective Content Delivery
Content Authoring
Content authoring tools equip users with a way to integrate a variety of media in order to create professional, engaging, and interactive training content. Content is created one time and can be published to a number of blended learning output formats. How does the LCMS do this? It does this by separating the content logic from the presentation logic—often using meta-tagging—and by following widely-used content standards like SCORM, AICC, etc. (see http://www.brandon-hall.com/publications/lcmskb/lcmskb.shtml). The LCMS enables authors to
* rapidly develop content,
* quickly and easily edit content when materials change,
* republish content into printed materials and other forms,
* develop multilanguage versions from the same source,
* assign roles and responsibilities to content developers.
Content is created using an object model. Assets (i.e., images, text objects, animations, and video) are aggregated into pages, pages into lessons, lessons into modules, and modules into courses.
Course Authoring
The automation for course delivery in LMS has improved as SCORM and AICC standards have been established and widely adopted. Today, these standards dictate how content and learning systems should be designed so that content is sharable among disparate systems.
Most organizations need to develop their own proprietary courses. While most LCMSs provide the means for creating new courses, there are many stand-alone systems that do this as well. They are usually called course-authoring tools. They provide
* templates for creating courses;
* learning objects;
* text, graphics, video, presentations (e.g., slideshows with audio);
* animations and software simulations;
* different types of questions for exhibits and tests: single-correct, multiple-correct, fill-in-the-blank, graphical-choice, drag-and-drop, item-match, true/false, and essay;
* student course/lesson maps, for single-click access to any course location;
* feedback on a lesson-by-lesson basis;
* secondary windows for additional information, large graphics, animations, and demonstrations;
* Web publishing.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2009/05/12/lcms-exposed-understanding-the-differences-between-learning-management-and-learning-content-management/
Training (or learning) has always been viewed as a cost center (representing a cost of doing business similar to other employee costs such as salary, commissions, and benefits). That’s why many organizations in the past have struggled with the challenge of justifying the cost of training in their budgets.
Today, organizations are making significant investments in technology—which includes solutions for training staff and further developing their career opportunities. Through e-learning, businesses can now reach many more people within their organization with a lot more content—for the same cost. It’s important to note, however, that while investments in e-learning do not reduce overall costs, they do allow these costs to be leveraged more efficiently across the organization.
HR to LMS, LCMS, and Beyond
Years ago, when an organization was put to the task of selecting software for training its employees, it would turn to the “run of the mill” human resource (HR)-type solution that included basic payroll and benefits. Some also offered a very basic training module that could handle administrative tasks, as well as track the learner’s courses, grades, etc. Today, however, training (or learning) has become so much more than what the HR systems of the past could offer.
Many of today’s organizations are moving away from the traditional HR solutions (with basic training modules) and implementing learning management solutions (LMSs) or suites instead, which often include learning content management (LCM)—either out-of-the-box or through a third-party provider. With a wide variety of solutions on the market to choose from, organizations can now put learning on their list of top priorities—right in line with their talent management initiatives.
What’s the Difference between an LMS and an LCMS?
An LCMS can be defined as “a multi-user environment where learning developers can create, store, re-use, manage, and deliver digital learning content from a central object repository.”
While LMSs deal with the management, tracking, and reporting of learning activities and learners, LCMSs are all about the development, management, and deployment of content (or learning objects). Understanding the difference between the two is often very confusing if you’re looking to purchase a solution, because most LCMS systems also have some limited built-in LMS functionality.
The primary role of an LCMS is to manage digital assets used for authoring, managing, and publishing course content. An LCMS
* stores content in a central database repository,
* manages course content,
* breaks courses up into learning objects,
* tags objects that are then placed into a database (for advanced searchability),
* represents or stores content as extensible markup language (XML),
* provides the capability to retrieve content for re-use across the entire enterprise.
The primary differentiator for LCMSs is that they offer reusability of learning content and are constructed using a learning object model. Typically, course content is stored as learning objects in a learning object repository database. The objects are described and tagged so these objects can be recalled and re-used by the course designer or others later on down the road.
Here are some key components of an LCMS:
* learning object repository
* dynamic delivery interface
* automated authoring application
* administrative application course catalogs
* document filing and history
* shareable content object reference model (SCORM) content manager with tools to disaggregate and re-aggregate courses
* version control tools and archiving capabilities to store previous versions of content
* check-out/check-in features
* ability to publish to LMS (interoperability with third-party LMSs)
* workflow
And here’s a partial list of key benefits of LCMS technology (from www.brandon-hall.com):
* increased efficiency – increases the efficiency of the content development and deployment process and leverages skilled resources across more and more content programs
* reusable content – stores and manages content from a single repository
* adherence to compliance – delivers content online with strict control over content versions and historical account of changes (i.e., SCORM and Aviation Industry CBT Committee [AICC])
* reduced training time – delivers dynamically more personalized content, such as prescriptive learning programs, to provide more relevant and customized training and reduce overall training time
* delivers learning on demand – organizes content into smaller pieces and enables search and delivery as needed to meet the demand for just-in-time content
E-learning—Effective Content Delivery
Content Authoring
Content authoring tools equip users with a way to integrate a variety of media in order to create professional, engaging, and interactive training content. Content is created one time and can be published to a number of blended learning output formats. How does the LCMS do this? It does this by separating the content logic from the presentation logic—often using meta-tagging—and by following widely-used content standards like SCORM, AICC, etc. (see http://www.brandon-hall.com/publications/lcmskb/lcmskb.shtml). The LCMS enables authors to
* rapidly develop content,
* quickly and easily edit content when materials change,
* republish content into printed materials and other forms,
* develop multilanguage versions from the same source,
* assign roles and responsibilities to content developers.
Content is created using an object model. Assets (i.e., images, text objects, animations, and video) are aggregated into pages, pages into lessons, lessons into modules, and modules into courses.
Course Authoring
The automation for course delivery in LMS has improved as SCORM and AICC standards have been established and widely adopted. Today, these standards dictate how content and learning systems should be designed so that content is sharable among disparate systems.
Most organizations need to develop their own proprietary courses. While most LCMSs provide the means for creating new courses, there are many stand-alone systems that do this as well. They are usually called course-authoring tools. They provide
* templates for creating courses;
* learning objects;
* text, graphics, video, presentations (e.g., slideshows with audio);
* animations and software simulations;
* different types of questions for exhibits and tests: single-correct, multiple-correct, fill-in-the-blank, graphical-choice, drag-and-drop, item-match, true/false, and essay;
* student course/lesson maps, for single-click access to any course location;
* feedback on a lesson-by-lesson basis;
* secondary windows for additional information, large graphics, animations, and demonstrations;
* Web publishing.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2009/05/12/lcms-exposed-understanding-the-differences-between-learning-management-and-learning-content-management/
American Car Makers and Bad Management
In the news, and in a few publications, the Detroit (US) car makers have been blamed for “bad management.” I would like to clarify that definition and ask your opinion. But first, my thoughts…
An obligation of a business is to respond to customer demands. American customers demanded large SUVs, and gadgets for it that made the SUV a home away from home. What drove SUV sales is the North American safety requirements that require car seats for children under 60 pounds (about 25 kilos). SUVs tend to have individual seats per passenger and thus, each car seat takes up a dedicated spot in a SUV. A family of three children with groceries loaded in the trunk and with both parents cannot fit into the normally sized car. But the gasoline crunch that occurred last year, and that will re-occur, is giving the consumer second thoughts about SUV ownership and is forcing adoption of changing lifestyles.
Then there is the difference in lifestyles between America and Europe. In Europe, people live nearer to their work. The majority of family wage earners travel less than 50 miles (80km) each way. Also, as the cost of fuel is very much higher then that in the US, for the European, Asian, and African contents, a small car for travel to/from work and for the family is the more affordable option. Unlike the SUV with groceries locked in the rear, a roof rack is used to hold the groceries.
With the current worldwide credit crunch, American consumers are changing tactics. They want to live within their means. They want bank savings for their shaky economic futures. That translates into cutting expenses to the bone, purchasing and keeping the vehicle for 10 years, and no longer using the vehicle as a status symbol. That also means that the vehicle has to be reliable enough to last 10 years.
If foreign vehicles last more then 10 years, as they do, the message is clear to manufacturers – produce lower cost vehicles, much reduced fuel consumption vehicles, and more reliable vehicles. As this objective appears to be met in Europe, the same should be true for North America.
Is “bad management” the act of responding to consumer demands? Is “bad management” not realizing that with a financial crunch, sales cannot be sustained? Is “bad management” not anticipating this crunch, then according to my beliefs, we do not have to right to say that this current automobile manufacturing problem is due to bad management?
One the one hand, management knows that it can take three or more years to retool a plant. On the other, did they have the foresight to begin planning or integrating changes for the new paradigm? Is not recognizing the rapid change in energy costs, and the uncertainty of the economy “bad management”? Could they have predicted this situation? I believe not.
I do have one idea that can be applied to bad management decisions and that idea is the introduction of “value engineering” in the late 1950s. Value engineering is a methodology whereby the design of components is downgraded so as to function without breakdown throughout the warrantee period. Value engineering for the manufacturer is the application of the saying “a penny saved is a penny earned.” Where American manufacturers were skilled in this area, foreign manufacturers felt that component reliability builds a brand’s reputation, and their idea of “value engineering” was based on providing a 10-year lifespan for a part. The result was that for trivial increases in cost, foreign manufacturers share of the American car market was gained.
Remedies for American Car Makers
The car industry is divided into after-market and before-market selling. The after-market will be most affected favorably sometime in the future, when the repairs begin to increase and it is more advantageous to repair a car then to trade it in for a newer model.
Remedies have to improve the following areas:
* American car manufacturers have to tailor car manufacturing to match the quality of foreign products.
* Move away from the business model geared to building large, high-margin vehicles like trucks and SUVs rather than smaller, fuel-efficient cars.
* In the before market, we have the dealers, insurance companies, governments (sales taxes), and mechanics that are impacted badly. Here we need to realize that profit margins must be pruned to reduce vehicle costs. Some of the cost pruning must come from the manufacturer, some from distributors, and some from costs of ownership and the cost of use.
* GM and Chrysler claim the core problem is so-called “legacy costs” — meaning the pension and health-care obligations they owe current and retired United Auto Workers (UAW) workers. The new compensations have to be reined in and more realistic.
* Allow a line employee the right to do a reasonable number of multiple jobs. Union rules have to allow for more flexibility in deploying employees. In a union shop, an employee’s compensation is tied to his job description. He cannot switch jobs without bidding on it. Some rules for absenteeism replacement exist, but on the other hand, an employee who is lightly loaded is not allowed to concurrently do two jobs with two different pay rates. He cannot be given a small salary premium if he does them.
* Then we have the distribution system involved with vehicle shipments from factory to dealer. Dealer preparation costs are a tax on the consumer. A car from the factory should only require a gas fill-up and license registration. Computer systems today have done away with the manual paperwork that used to be required for each car sale.
* The car assembly line that integrates components made by hundreds of feeder businesses from the latter’s factories needs to be rethought. While just in time (JIT) and lean manufacturing is the norm, perhaps assembly lines are too much geared to mass production of a single vehicle model—a model that quickly fell out of popularity.
* Undo the virtual lockdown on credit. Loosen up the ability to purchase a vehicle, as opposed to leasing one. The tight credit squeeze by banks is hurting the domestic car industry.
Giving cash to the American Big three is not going to increase car sales. Consumers are not going to lose their uncertainties. What is required is to give incentives to consumers to purchase or lease a new car. Car manufacturers need customers, not handouts.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2009/01/16/american-car-makers-and-bad-management/
An obligation of a business is to respond to customer demands. American customers demanded large SUVs, and gadgets for it that made the SUV a home away from home. What drove SUV sales is the North American safety requirements that require car seats for children under 60 pounds (about 25 kilos). SUVs tend to have individual seats per passenger and thus, each car seat takes up a dedicated spot in a SUV. A family of three children with groceries loaded in the trunk and with both parents cannot fit into the normally sized car. But the gasoline crunch that occurred last year, and that will re-occur, is giving the consumer second thoughts about SUV ownership and is forcing adoption of changing lifestyles.
Then there is the difference in lifestyles between America and Europe. In Europe, people live nearer to their work. The majority of family wage earners travel less than 50 miles (80km) each way. Also, as the cost of fuel is very much higher then that in the US, for the European, Asian, and African contents, a small car for travel to/from work and for the family is the more affordable option. Unlike the SUV with groceries locked in the rear, a roof rack is used to hold the groceries.
With the current worldwide credit crunch, American consumers are changing tactics. They want to live within their means. They want bank savings for their shaky economic futures. That translates into cutting expenses to the bone, purchasing and keeping the vehicle for 10 years, and no longer using the vehicle as a status symbol. That also means that the vehicle has to be reliable enough to last 10 years.
If foreign vehicles last more then 10 years, as they do, the message is clear to manufacturers – produce lower cost vehicles, much reduced fuel consumption vehicles, and more reliable vehicles. As this objective appears to be met in Europe, the same should be true for North America.
Is “bad management” the act of responding to consumer demands? Is “bad management” not realizing that with a financial crunch, sales cannot be sustained? Is “bad management” not anticipating this crunch, then according to my beliefs, we do not have to right to say that this current automobile manufacturing problem is due to bad management?
One the one hand, management knows that it can take three or more years to retool a plant. On the other, did they have the foresight to begin planning or integrating changes for the new paradigm? Is not recognizing the rapid change in energy costs, and the uncertainty of the economy “bad management”? Could they have predicted this situation? I believe not.
I do have one idea that can be applied to bad management decisions and that idea is the introduction of “value engineering” in the late 1950s. Value engineering is a methodology whereby the design of components is downgraded so as to function without breakdown throughout the warrantee period. Value engineering for the manufacturer is the application of the saying “a penny saved is a penny earned.” Where American manufacturers were skilled in this area, foreign manufacturers felt that component reliability builds a brand’s reputation, and their idea of “value engineering” was based on providing a 10-year lifespan for a part. The result was that for trivial increases in cost, foreign manufacturers share of the American car market was gained.
Remedies for American Car Makers
The car industry is divided into after-market and before-market selling. The after-market will be most affected favorably sometime in the future, when the repairs begin to increase and it is more advantageous to repair a car then to trade it in for a newer model.
Remedies have to improve the following areas:
* American car manufacturers have to tailor car manufacturing to match the quality of foreign products.
* Move away from the business model geared to building large, high-margin vehicles like trucks and SUVs rather than smaller, fuel-efficient cars.
* In the before market, we have the dealers, insurance companies, governments (sales taxes), and mechanics that are impacted badly. Here we need to realize that profit margins must be pruned to reduce vehicle costs. Some of the cost pruning must come from the manufacturer, some from distributors, and some from costs of ownership and the cost of use.
* GM and Chrysler claim the core problem is so-called “legacy costs” — meaning the pension and health-care obligations they owe current and retired United Auto Workers (UAW) workers. The new compensations have to be reined in and more realistic.
* Allow a line employee the right to do a reasonable number of multiple jobs. Union rules have to allow for more flexibility in deploying employees. In a union shop, an employee’s compensation is tied to his job description. He cannot switch jobs without bidding on it. Some rules for absenteeism replacement exist, but on the other hand, an employee who is lightly loaded is not allowed to concurrently do two jobs with two different pay rates. He cannot be given a small salary premium if he does them.
* Then we have the distribution system involved with vehicle shipments from factory to dealer. Dealer preparation costs are a tax on the consumer. A car from the factory should only require a gas fill-up and license registration. Computer systems today have done away with the manual paperwork that used to be required for each car sale.
* The car assembly line that integrates components made by hundreds of feeder businesses from the latter’s factories needs to be rethought. While just in time (JIT) and lean manufacturing is the norm, perhaps assembly lines are too much geared to mass production of a single vehicle model—a model that quickly fell out of popularity.
* Undo the virtual lockdown on credit. Loosen up the ability to purchase a vehicle, as opposed to leasing one. The tight credit squeeze by banks is hurting the domestic car industry.
Giving cash to the American Big three is not going to increase car sales. Consumers are not going to lose their uncertainties. What is required is to give incentives to consumers to purchase or lease a new car. Car manufacturers need customers, not handouts.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2009/01/16/american-car-makers-and-bad-management/
Document Management and Digital Asset Management Is There a Difference and What Might It Be
Everywhere you look within organizations, there is content. All this content needs to be managed. At first it was static information, and documents published on the Internet needed management solutions. As a result document management (DM) emerged as the mechanism or process to create, capture, manage, store, and deliver these documents to the right departments and individuals.
Digital Assets
Today, electronic media is more then just on-line text. Organizations are using images, video, and audio files and other digital formats within organizations that need to be managed as well. Digital assets are often time consuming to create, but they are valuable to organizations because digital assets attract the attention of clients, whether internal or external to the organization.
Digital assets require a format and management process that enables re-use. When looking for a solution, one question that faces organizations is whether a DM system is capable of supporting their needs or if a digital asset management (DAM) solution it more appropriate.
To determine this answer, an organization must understand the difference between the two solutions. This is a difficult task because there is confusion in the market between DM and DAM solutions. This article will investigate what is unique to a DAM solution and why organizations need a DAM to manage other types of data instead of just text documents.
Document Management
Organizations use document management to assist with the management, creation, workflow, and the storage of documents within different departments. A DM solution uses databases for storage, and workflow engines to design and support workflows, including business rules and metadata.
Document management systems are often used in industries where there are high volumes of documents, such as in the insurance, health care and government industries. Increasingly DM solutions are evolving into Web content management (CM) systems.
Digital Asset Management
Digital asset management (DAM) solutions are also referred to as media asset management (MAM), entertainment media asset management (EMAM), brand resource management (BRM), marketing content management (MCM), and asset management (AM). DAM focuses on organizations specifically with digital assets, such as the entertainment or advertising industry, and is used in situations where asset reproduction is important. Often organizations combine a DAM solution with a CM solution to maintain their web site. Consequently, DAM and CM vendors acquire one or the other to combine their solutions into an integrated solution.
Different Views on DM and DAM
Even though there is a variety of acronyms for DAM, and there are slight differences in functionality for each category. This article, however, will focus mainly on regular DAM functionality, including rich media files and types.
Magan Arthur of Arthur Consulting Group, explains that organizations can take three different approaches when contrasting DM and DAM:
* Tools and processes
* File and content types
* Business use
This article will leverage these approaches to explore the difference between DM and DAM.
Tools and Processes
Both DM and DAM use functionality common to content management solutions. These functionalities include the repository, metadata indexing, search capabilities, user- and role-defined accessibility, and workflow.
The repository stores the content and can either be a relational database or a simple file system. It includes standard features, such as check in and check out, versioning, and taxonomy. It will also allow metadata to be defined, so it includes all relevant descriptions of the different documents and files. This metadata then can be used by the search engine for indexing. The workflow takes care of the different tasks and roles that are involved within the process, whether serial or parallel.
Besides these similarities, there are essential differences in the respective tools and processes of DM and DAM.
DM, on one hand, focuses on capturing text content through optical character recognition (OCR), it is integrated with text processing tools, and is able to define different elements within a document as content. DM is capable of reusing this content either in parts or as the whole document. In the repository, DM can store document elements in different formats, such as extensible markup language (XML).
DAM, on the other hand, integrates with applications that focus on the creative design of assets, such as Quark, AutoCAD, Flash, and three dimensional animation. DAM solutions are capable of linking, disassembling, and reassembling complex and combined assets. DAM is also able to change images directly by either resizing or changing colors, and can handle large files, especially video files. Its search capabilities extend beyond standard search to permit visual searches using image recognition. Besides text indexing, which DM solutions also provide, DAM is able to index speech-to-text videos, closed caption videos, and more.
File and Content Types
The tools, as described above, allow different file types to be stored, which is another way to differentiate DM with DAM. DM files are mostly text based such as, paper documents, files from office tools, PDF, HTML files etc. DAM systems capture rich media files which can be images; logos; audio; video; CAD; animation (including GIFs and Flash); and design files.
DM systems are often capable of storing these kinds of files as well, but provide little more than storage, which is not sufficient for organizations that handle large quantities of digital asset files.
Business Use
Each solution can also be used for different types of business processes. Business processes are automated by these solutions, which help with the creation, collaboration, review, and approval of content throughout different departments within the organization. Below are some examples of the business processes in which DM and DAM can be used.
DM is often used in contract negotiations, documentation creation, policy and procedures, articles, reports, or statement processes. DAM solutions focus on the collaboration and management of advertising or marketing material, multimedia kits, corporate presentations, or video on demand. Libraries created by the system include image libraries, video libraries, and font and logo libraries.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/document-management-and-digital-asset-management-is-there-a-difference-and-what-might-it-be-18316/
Digital Assets
Today, electronic media is more then just on-line text. Organizations are using images, video, and audio files and other digital formats within organizations that need to be managed as well. Digital assets are often time consuming to create, but they are valuable to organizations because digital assets attract the attention of clients, whether internal or external to the organization.
Digital assets require a format and management process that enables re-use. When looking for a solution, one question that faces organizations is whether a DM system is capable of supporting their needs or if a digital asset management (DAM) solution it more appropriate.
To determine this answer, an organization must understand the difference between the two solutions. This is a difficult task because there is confusion in the market between DM and DAM solutions. This article will investigate what is unique to a DAM solution and why organizations need a DAM to manage other types of data instead of just text documents.
Document Management
Organizations use document management to assist with the management, creation, workflow, and the storage of documents within different departments. A DM solution uses databases for storage, and workflow engines to design and support workflows, including business rules and metadata.
Document management systems are often used in industries where there are high volumes of documents, such as in the insurance, health care and government industries. Increasingly DM solutions are evolving into Web content management (CM) systems.
Digital Asset Management
Digital asset management (DAM) solutions are also referred to as media asset management (MAM), entertainment media asset management (EMAM), brand resource management (BRM), marketing content management (MCM), and asset management (AM). DAM focuses on organizations specifically with digital assets, such as the entertainment or advertising industry, and is used in situations where asset reproduction is important. Often organizations combine a DAM solution with a CM solution to maintain their web site. Consequently, DAM and CM vendors acquire one or the other to combine their solutions into an integrated solution.
Different Views on DM and DAM
Even though there is a variety of acronyms for DAM, and there are slight differences in functionality for each category. This article, however, will focus mainly on regular DAM functionality, including rich media files and types.
Magan Arthur of Arthur Consulting Group, explains that organizations can take three different approaches when contrasting DM and DAM:
* Tools and processes
* File and content types
* Business use
This article will leverage these approaches to explore the difference between DM and DAM.
Tools and Processes
Both DM and DAM use functionality common to content management solutions. These functionalities include the repository, metadata indexing, search capabilities, user- and role-defined accessibility, and workflow.
The repository stores the content and can either be a relational database or a simple file system. It includes standard features, such as check in and check out, versioning, and taxonomy. It will also allow metadata to be defined, so it includes all relevant descriptions of the different documents and files. This metadata then can be used by the search engine for indexing. The workflow takes care of the different tasks and roles that are involved within the process, whether serial or parallel.
Besides these similarities, there are essential differences in the respective tools and processes of DM and DAM.
DM, on one hand, focuses on capturing text content through optical character recognition (OCR), it is integrated with text processing tools, and is able to define different elements within a document as content. DM is capable of reusing this content either in parts or as the whole document. In the repository, DM can store document elements in different formats, such as extensible markup language (XML).
DAM, on the other hand, integrates with applications that focus on the creative design of assets, such as Quark, AutoCAD, Flash, and three dimensional animation. DAM solutions are capable of linking, disassembling, and reassembling complex and combined assets. DAM is also able to change images directly by either resizing or changing colors, and can handle large files, especially video files. Its search capabilities extend beyond standard search to permit visual searches using image recognition. Besides text indexing, which DM solutions also provide, DAM is able to index speech-to-text videos, closed caption videos, and more.
File and Content Types
The tools, as described above, allow different file types to be stored, which is another way to differentiate DM with DAM. DM files are mostly text based such as, paper documents, files from office tools, PDF, HTML files etc. DAM systems capture rich media files which can be images; logos; audio; video; CAD; animation (including GIFs and Flash); and design files.
DM systems are often capable of storing these kinds of files as well, but provide little more than storage, which is not sufficient for organizations that handle large quantities of digital asset files.
Business Use
Each solution can also be used for different types of business processes. Business processes are automated by these solutions, which help with the creation, collaboration, review, and approval of content throughout different departments within the organization. Below are some examples of the business processes in which DM and DAM can be used.
DM is often used in contract negotiations, documentation creation, policy and procedures, articles, reports, or statement processes. DAM solutions focus on the collaboration and management of advertising or marketing material, multimedia kits, corporate presentations, or video on demand. Libraries created by the system include image libraries, video libraries, and font and logo libraries.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/document-management-and-digital-asset-management-is-there-a-difference-and-what-might-it-be-18316/
Service Parts Planning for Maintenance Management
Whether you have a small network with a couple of printers and a fax machine, or a sophisticated shop floor using robots, cranes, etc., you have to make sure your assets are functioning properly. One of the main challenges is finding the right spare part to repair your equipment.
There are two facts that are certain in the enterprise asset management (EAM) world: 1. your equipment will break sooner or later; and 2. it will eventually become obsolete. It is common knowledge that when your equipment becomes obsolete, you need to replace it and when they break, they need to be repaired. Furthermore, one would expect companies to always have spare parts available for repairs, but it is not always the case. Let’s take a look at why this may happen.
Why is it so hard to have the right part at the right time?
First of all, it doesn’t make sense to store parts in your inventory mainly because of the investment required. This investment can be used in more important areas of your business. Mind you, this may not be a bad idea for extremely important assets—sometimes it’s better to invest in inventory and parts storage, which will let you repair assets right away, thus reducing disruption to the minimum. As a general rule though, companies will not have spare parts in their inventory for low or medium importance assets.
The second reason could be that your suppliers are not reliable enough to deliver on time. Let’s say that you can afford to stop your production line but only for a few hours. If your spare parts provider can deliver in one hour and it takes you an hour to repair, you’re fine. But if they can’t or they deliver the wrong part, you will surely lose money and some sensitive equipment may even get damaged if its not repaired quickly.
Another important reason would be that you did not plan your repairs well—if the manufacturer of your asset tells you that you have to do an inspection every six months and you do it every eight months, the chances that the tool will break are greater. And if you don’t do your maintenance on time, the manufacturer might not even cover the expenses to repair it.
And the worst case scenario is when you have the part but you cannot find it, either because you have several warehouses or several inventory management systems that do not communicate with each other.
How can you address these challenges?
The magic word is: planning—inventory planning, maintenance planning, demand planning for parts, etc. And as much as you like Excel or your in-house-made application to track inventory, only business software conceived for this need will efficiently help you. Here’s why:
• It brings visibility across multiple locations and warehouses and provides information not only about the spare part’s location, but also estimated time of arrival if the part is not in stock or if the equivalent part can be used to replace the one you need.
• It gives you history and forecasting for inventory. You can define minimum and maximum stock quantities, which makes it easier for you to understand which part you need and when. This will allow you to have the parts without investing too much into dormant inventory
• It makes collaboration with partners and suppliers easier, which will make it easier for you to order, track, and receive parts on time for the repair. If you do not have control over what you ordered, where and when it will be delivered, it will be impossible for you to plan and execute repairs.
• It offers integration with other solutions like enterprise resource planning (ERP) or EAM, which will give you a full picture of your inventory but also your asset life cycle and maintenance operations
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2010/07/08/service-parts-planning-for-maintenance-management/
There are two facts that are certain in the enterprise asset management (EAM) world: 1. your equipment will break sooner or later; and 2. it will eventually become obsolete. It is common knowledge that when your equipment becomes obsolete, you need to replace it and when they break, they need to be repaired. Furthermore, one would expect companies to always have spare parts available for repairs, but it is not always the case. Let’s take a look at why this may happen.
Why is it so hard to have the right part at the right time?
First of all, it doesn’t make sense to store parts in your inventory mainly because of the investment required. This investment can be used in more important areas of your business. Mind you, this may not be a bad idea for extremely important assets—sometimes it’s better to invest in inventory and parts storage, which will let you repair assets right away, thus reducing disruption to the minimum. As a general rule though, companies will not have spare parts in their inventory for low or medium importance assets.
The second reason could be that your suppliers are not reliable enough to deliver on time. Let’s say that you can afford to stop your production line but only for a few hours. If your spare parts provider can deliver in one hour and it takes you an hour to repair, you’re fine. But if they can’t or they deliver the wrong part, you will surely lose money and some sensitive equipment may even get damaged if its not repaired quickly.
Another important reason would be that you did not plan your repairs well—if the manufacturer of your asset tells you that you have to do an inspection every six months and you do it every eight months, the chances that the tool will break are greater. And if you don’t do your maintenance on time, the manufacturer might not even cover the expenses to repair it.
And the worst case scenario is when you have the part but you cannot find it, either because you have several warehouses or several inventory management systems that do not communicate with each other.
How can you address these challenges?
The magic word is: planning—inventory planning, maintenance planning, demand planning for parts, etc. And as much as you like Excel or your in-house-made application to track inventory, only business software conceived for this need will efficiently help you. Here’s why:
• It brings visibility across multiple locations and warehouses and provides information not only about the spare part’s location, but also estimated time of arrival if the part is not in stock or if the equivalent part can be used to replace the one you need.
• It gives you history and forecasting for inventory. You can define minimum and maximum stock quantities, which makes it easier for you to understand which part you need and when. This will allow you to have the parts without investing too much into dormant inventory
• It makes collaboration with partners and suppliers easier, which will make it easier for you to order, track, and receive parts on time for the repair. If you do not have control over what you ordered, where and when it will be delivered, it will be impossible for you to plan and execute repairs.
• It offers integration with other solutions like enterprise resource planning (ERP) or EAM, which will give you a full picture of your inventory but also your asset life cycle and maintenance operations
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2010/07/08/service-parts-planning-for-maintenance-management/
How Effective Project Management Leadership Enabled the Logistics Industry to Reap Large Rewards
Just one generation ago, the courier industry was essentially nonexistent. Today, in 2008, it is one of the largest means of transporting daily shipments for all industry sectors. According to the US Department of Commerce statistics, air freight accounted for nearly 40 percent of all international trade merchandise in 2007, equaling about $4.8 trillion (US), with express delivery accounting for 20 percent (or $2.4 trillion) of that amount
What Is Driving the Courier Industry’s Growth?
Business shifts, including globalization, cost reduction, and consumer demand, have driven the courier industry’s rapid growth. Additionally, the shift of businesses manufacturing more in developing nations has meant an increase in the need for the international shipping of packages and documents.
Many organizations now also outsource their logistics and supply chain requirements to companies that provide complete, seamless logistics solutions. Such solutions or services may include distribution, vendor-managed inventory services, merchandise returns and order fulfillment, and replenishment activities. Managing the supply chain has become a strategic part of C-level discussions in corporate boardrooms.
The Role of Technology in Driving the Logistics Industry
Technology has played a major role in successfully building the supply chains of most organizations. Today, through the Internet, customers can place orders, calculate rates, schedule pickups, track shipments, and verify deliveries. What now seems to be commonplace functionality is actually the evolution of several technologies and philosophies fused into a unified set of solutions.A generation ago, simple material resource planning (MRP) evolved into MRP2. This evolution was an early introduction to the integration of other business applications, such as accounting with finance, finance with procurement, procurement with manufacturing, manufacturing with distribution, distribution with marketing, and marketing with sales. Thus, MRP2 morphed into today’s ERP, which covers the basic functions of an enterprise. Even non-manufacturing businesses, nonprofit organizations, and governments all now use an ERP system. For a complete list of available ERP systems, white papers, and articles on distribution and ERP for services, visit www.technologyevaluations.com.
Project Management as the Change Agent in SCM’s Evolution
“The future ain’t what it used to be.”—Yogi Berra, US baseball player, coach, and manager.
The above quotation is a humorous reminder of how far technology has evolved, not just in our workplace, but in our personal lives as well. Recently, I was at home reading the newspaper when my teenage daughter walked into the living room with one of her friends. She took out her video MP3 player, and her friend was using the wireless PC to do her homework. I looked around and I thought, “if only they had the Internet when I was in college, how much easier my life would have been.” Perhaps I was being overly simplistic, but this illustrated to me just how—within a period of a single generation—some technological changes have impacted our day-to-day lives.
The dynamic environment that brought about these changes also illustrates some of our constraints. Change, as we know, is not only about technology; it is about managing people and processes through that change. In terms of enterprise solution implementation in an organization, many of us know firsthand how difficult it is to come to a consensus on a particular strategy or a process. Project managers have been, and will continue to be, at the forefront of the technological changes in the enterprise environment, as they are the group responsible for executing the vision of how to improve a key business process by the integration of a technological solution.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/03/04/how-effective-project-management-leadership-enabled-the-logistics-industry-to-reap-large-rewards/
What Is Driving the Courier Industry’s Growth?
Business shifts, including globalization, cost reduction, and consumer demand, have driven the courier industry’s rapid growth. Additionally, the shift of businesses manufacturing more in developing nations has meant an increase in the need for the international shipping of packages and documents.
Many organizations now also outsource their logistics and supply chain requirements to companies that provide complete, seamless logistics solutions. Such solutions or services may include distribution, vendor-managed inventory services, merchandise returns and order fulfillment, and replenishment activities. Managing the supply chain has become a strategic part of C-level discussions in corporate boardrooms.
The Role of Technology in Driving the Logistics Industry
Technology has played a major role in successfully building the supply chains of most organizations. Today, through the Internet, customers can place orders, calculate rates, schedule pickups, track shipments, and verify deliveries. What now seems to be commonplace functionality is actually the evolution of several technologies and philosophies fused into a unified set of solutions.A generation ago, simple material resource planning (MRP) evolved into MRP2. This evolution was an early introduction to the integration of other business applications, such as accounting with finance, finance with procurement, procurement with manufacturing, manufacturing with distribution, distribution with marketing, and marketing with sales. Thus, MRP2 morphed into today’s ERP, which covers the basic functions of an enterprise. Even non-manufacturing businesses, nonprofit organizations, and governments all now use an ERP system. For a complete list of available ERP systems, white papers, and articles on distribution and ERP for services, visit www.technologyevaluations.com.
Project Management as the Change Agent in SCM’s Evolution
“The future ain’t what it used to be.”—Yogi Berra, US baseball player, coach, and manager.
The above quotation is a humorous reminder of how far technology has evolved, not just in our workplace, but in our personal lives as well. Recently, I was at home reading the newspaper when my teenage daughter walked into the living room with one of her friends. She took out her video MP3 player, and her friend was using the wireless PC to do her homework. I looked around and I thought, “if only they had the Internet when I was in college, how much easier my life would have been.” Perhaps I was being overly simplistic, but this illustrated to me just how—within a period of a single generation—some technological changes have impacted our day-to-day lives.
The dynamic environment that brought about these changes also illustrates some of our constraints. Change, as we know, is not only about technology; it is about managing people and processes through that change. In terms of enterprise solution implementation in an organization, many of us know firsthand how difficult it is to come to a consensus on a particular strategy or a process. Project managers have been, and will continue to be, at the forefront of the technological changes in the enterprise environment, as they are the group responsible for executing the vision of how to improve a key business process by the integration of a technological solution.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/03/04/how-effective-project-management-leadership-enabled-the-logistics-industry-to-reap-large-rewards/
Talent (Human Capital) Management and Sports? Sign Me Up, Please! – Part 1
Sure, by now most of us have heard about the importance of strategically managing talent and human capital, but how many of us are convinced that companies truly buy into those lofty concepts in droves? Some of us will even have read McKinsey’s now classic study from the late 1990 that coined the term “the war for talent.”
In other words, now in the new millennium, we find ourselves in the talent age. The article’s authors claimed that in an environment where competition has become global and capital is abundant (well, at least it was 10 years ago, well before the recent collapse of banking investment giants, and the US and German government interventions), “…all that matters is talent. Talent wins.”
Conversely, during the agricultural and brick-and-mortar age of the 19th century, the economy was based on land, and on truly physical and very tangible assets, whereas people were regarded as a mere labor expense. The industrial age of the 1930 followed with a manufacturing-driven economy and a need for specialized workers. Then came the automation age of the 1960 that introduced the concept of human resources (HR) management. Still, higher business performance was derived through the most effective use of factories and distribution networks, i.e. physical assets, much more than via staff.
The knowledge age of the 1980s moved the basis of economic value to information and knowledge assets through integrated communications and computer technology. That era introduced the concept of “knowledge workers” and people being regarded as “assets” (rather than a necessary evil and expense). Now, post Y2K, the competitive battlefront is for the best people because they are the true creators of value. Nowadays, we are in the age of talent management and human capital management (HCM). Right?
Well, during these days of Wall Street crumbling and “main street” companies struggling to compete globally, it is easy to be cynical about concepts like HCM, while watching on cable TV how ten thousands of former employees are carrying boxes and vacating once coveted premises. Moreover, many of us have also in the past worked for (and with) jerks and felt unimportant and unappreciated by our employers.
How believable are then these platitudes about “people (or their skills, at least) being the most valuable corporate asset?” Yeah right!
True Mavericks Do Succeed
But, like mediocre individuals, mediocre and average companies resort to the usual “hire-and-fire” practices (not to use the currently politically loaded “more of the same” mantra). One such all-too-common practice is to layoff a number of folks in a knee-jerk fashion (many of whom might be potential talent gems) during the tough times, based on outmoded thinking that equivalent replacements will be readily available in the job market when times improve.
Little do these companies know (or think about) whether they have ever properly aligned their strategic business objectives with the current talent pool and employees’ performances. Do they know who the best performers are (and why, based on which metrics?), and who can smoothly replace whom in case of a departure (as a way of life)? Moreover, workforce planning at such organizations is based on past staff profiles, without the ability to project the needed skills’ requirements and shifts in the future. This makes forecasting workforce supply and demand almost impossible (if even intended).
On the other hand, analyst research has time and again proven that organizations using talent management strategies and solutions exhibit higher performance than their direct competitors and the market in general. For instance, Taleo’s own research shows that from Fortune 100 global enterprise recruiting and performance management to small and medium business, leading companies invest in talent management to select the best person for each job because they know success is powered by the total talent quality of their workforce.
According to Taleo Research and the Human Capital Institute (HCI), over the past two decades, the enterprise value vs. book value of publicly traded companies has increased fivefold. This value “delta” can be justified by the value of their brands, but also by the value of their assembled workforce. At the same time, the tangible vs. intangible assets ratios changed from 62/38 percent in 1982 to 15/85 percent in 2002.
Many of us have heard stories about the hipster companies like Google or Apple nurturing and pampering their talented employees in order to get the best innovativeness out of them. More examples of such environments can be found in William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre’s acclaimed book entitled “Mavericks at Work”. Perhaps the maverick concept could also work in politics too, but let’s first discern who the real maverick is? But I digress…
Anyway, for ordinary mortals, the chance to work at such a privileged company seems equal to their chance of dating a movie star. Therefore, it is easy to go back to being cynical and dismissing HCM and talent management as just the latest fads.
The Need for Talent Management Seems Real
But, at the recent Taleo World 2008 conference, I was able to witness first-hand that the talent management is a vibrant enterprise software market, and a battleground for both software providers and user companies (employers). In fact, the extraordinary (maverick) companies do not look for ordinary mortals but rather for a talent that is hard to find.
According to sources like The Gallup Management Journal, the United States (US) Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the United Kingdom (UK) Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Hewitt Associates, and Taleo, there are many challenging workforce issues confront HR departments, including:
* Heightened competition for skilled workers — sure, there is a record high unemployment figure in the US these days, but some sectors have severe shortages of skills such as nurses, petrochemical engineers, renewable energy (green) experts, or stem cell researchers, to name a few. Some stats are showing the figure of 10 million more available jobs than available skilled workforce in highly demanded sectors;
* Impending retirement of the “baby boomer” generation — the folks that are 65 and older, whose number is expected to double in a few years time from currently 35 million to 70 million. While this could be a good sign for senators McCain or Clinton’s voter constituency down the track (in 2012, say), it is definitely not for the US economy and innovative companies hungry for talent and knowledge;
* Low levels of employee engagement – with only 14 percent of employees being highly engaged (feeling fulfilled by and keen on their job), 62 percent moderately engaged, and 24 percent actively disengaged from their job (i.e., looking for something else, while this mundane job beats unemployment and helps with paying bills). This is not surprising, since acording to research published in 2005 by business management scientists and balanced scorecard pioneers David Norton and Robert Kaplan, a mind-boggling 95 percent of employees don’t understand the strategic goals of the company that employs them;
* Acknowledgement of the high cost of turnover – with a whopping 40 percent in the US, whereby 23 percent belongs to voluntary departures. Some stats show the cost to replace an employee going up to one and half of the employee salary. In fact, I recently learned that Starbucks could save US$120 million a year if it could only reduce employee turnover by 10 percent. Now I know what else contributes to my coffee drink price (besides the fair trade beans and employees’ benefits), and will start paying attention to see how long my neighborhood barristas stay at work;
* Arduous demands of managing dispersed global workforces, bundled with offshoring and outsourcing trends; and
* Importance of succession planning, which is a consequence of many other abovementioned issues.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/10/07/talent-human-capital-management-and-sports-sign-me-up-please-%E2%80%93-part-1/
In other words, now in the new millennium, we find ourselves in the talent age. The article’s authors claimed that in an environment where competition has become global and capital is abundant (well, at least it was 10 years ago, well before the recent collapse of banking investment giants, and the US and German government interventions), “…all that matters is talent. Talent wins.”
Conversely, during the agricultural and brick-and-mortar age of the 19th century, the economy was based on land, and on truly physical and very tangible assets, whereas people were regarded as a mere labor expense. The industrial age of the 1930 followed with a manufacturing-driven economy and a need for specialized workers. Then came the automation age of the 1960 that introduced the concept of human resources (HR) management. Still, higher business performance was derived through the most effective use of factories and distribution networks, i.e. physical assets, much more than via staff.
The knowledge age of the 1980s moved the basis of economic value to information and knowledge assets through integrated communications and computer technology. That era introduced the concept of “knowledge workers” and people being regarded as “assets” (rather than a necessary evil and expense). Now, post Y2K, the competitive battlefront is for the best people because they are the true creators of value. Nowadays, we are in the age of talent management and human capital management (HCM). Right?
Well, during these days of Wall Street crumbling and “main street” companies struggling to compete globally, it is easy to be cynical about concepts like HCM, while watching on cable TV how ten thousands of former employees are carrying boxes and vacating once coveted premises. Moreover, many of us have also in the past worked for (and with) jerks and felt unimportant and unappreciated by our employers.
How believable are then these platitudes about “people (or their skills, at least) being the most valuable corporate asset?” Yeah right!
True Mavericks Do Succeed
But, like mediocre individuals, mediocre and average companies resort to the usual “hire-and-fire” practices (not to use the currently politically loaded “more of the same” mantra). One such all-too-common practice is to layoff a number of folks in a knee-jerk fashion (many of whom might be potential talent gems) during the tough times, based on outmoded thinking that equivalent replacements will be readily available in the job market when times improve.
Little do these companies know (or think about) whether they have ever properly aligned their strategic business objectives with the current talent pool and employees’ performances. Do they know who the best performers are (and why, based on which metrics?), and who can smoothly replace whom in case of a departure (as a way of life)? Moreover, workforce planning at such organizations is based on past staff profiles, without the ability to project the needed skills’ requirements and shifts in the future. This makes forecasting workforce supply and demand almost impossible (if even intended).
On the other hand, analyst research has time and again proven that organizations using talent management strategies and solutions exhibit higher performance than their direct competitors and the market in general. For instance, Taleo’s own research shows that from Fortune 100 global enterprise recruiting and performance management to small and medium business, leading companies invest in talent management to select the best person for each job because they know success is powered by the total talent quality of their workforce.
According to Taleo Research and the Human Capital Institute (HCI), over the past two decades, the enterprise value vs. book value of publicly traded companies has increased fivefold. This value “delta” can be justified by the value of their brands, but also by the value of their assembled workforce. At the same time, the tangible vs. intangible assets ratios changed from 62/38 percent in 1982 to 15/85 percent in 2002.
Many of us have heard stories about the hipster companies like Google or Apple nurturing and pampering their talented employees in order to get the best innovativeness out of them. More examples of such environments can be found in William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre’s acclaimed book entitled “Mavericks at Work”. Perhaps the maverick concept could also work in politics too, but let’s first discern who the real maverick is? But I digress…
Anyway, for ordinary mortals, the chance to work at such a privileged company seems equal to their chance of dating a movie star. Therefore, it is easy to go back to being cynical and dismissing HCM and talent management as just the latest fads.
The Need for Talent Management Seems Real
But, at the recent Taleo World 2008 conference, I was able to witness first-hand that the talent management is a vibrant enterprise software market, and a battleground for both software providers and user companies (employers). In fact, the extraordinary (maverick) companies do not look for ordinary mortals but rather for a talent that is hard to find.
According to sources like The Gallup Management Journal, the United States (US) Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the United Kingdom (UK) Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Hewitt Associates, and Taleo, there are many challenging workforce issues confront HR departments, including:
* Heightened competition for skilled workers — sure, there is a record high unemployment figure in the US these days, but some sectors have severe shortages of skills such as nurses, petrochemical engineers, renewable energy (green) experts, or stem cell researchers, to name a few. Some stats are showing the figure of 10 million more available jobs than available skilled workforce in highly demanded sectors;
* Impending retirement of the “baby boomer” generation — the folks that are 65 and older, whose number is expected to double in a few years time from currently 35 million to 70 million. While this could be a good sign for senators McCain or Clinton’s voter constituency down the track (in 2012, say), it is definitely not for the US economy and innovative companies hungry for talent and knowledge;
* Low levels of employee engagement – with only 14 percent of employees being highly engaged (feeling fulfilled by and keen on their job), 62 percent moderately engaged, and 24 percent actively disengaged from their job (i.e., looking for something else, while this mundane job beats unemployment and helps with paying bills). This is not surprising, since acording to research published in 2005 by business management scientists and balanced scorecard pioneers David Norton and Robert Kaplan, a mind-boggling 95 percent of employees don’t understand the strategic goals of the company that employs them;
* Acknowledgement of the high cost of turnover – with a whopping 40 percent in the US, whereby 23 percent belongs to voluntary departures. Some stats show the cost to replace an employee going up to one and half of the employee salary. In fact, I recently learned that Starbucks could save US$120 million a year if it could only reduce employee turnover by 10 percent. Now I know what else contributes to my coffee drink price (besides the fair trade beans and employees’ benefits), and will start paying attention to see how long my neighborhood barristas stay at work;
* Arduous demands of managing dispersed global workforces, bundled with offshoring and outsourcing trends; and
* Importance of succession planning, which is a consequence of many other abovementioned issues.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/10/07/talent-human-capital-management-and-sports-sign-me-up-please-%E2%80%93-part-1/
A Unique Product Lifecycle Management Tool for Private Label Retail
Software solutions provided via an exchange network over the Internet have been especially enticing to retailers and their suppliers. About five years ago, we witnessed the emergence of the Worldwide Retail Exchange (WWRE). Headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia (US), this Internet-based, business-to-business (B2B), retailer e-marketplace was founded by a consortium of seventeen international retailers. The idea was to operate an independent company that would benefit its members through a common commitment to openness, leading edge technology, retail industry process efficiencies, and transaction information confidentiality. The perceived benefits included B2B standards setting, collaborative activities, value-added services, participation in a global networked community, shared technology investments, and business process formulation and standardization.
At about the same time, the Global NetXchange (GNX), headquartered in Chicago, Illinois (US) and with a significant presence in Europe, was founded by eight of the world's largest retailers. It provided a supply chain collaboration suite to connect retailers and manufacturers via a jointly developed, Web-enabled technology platform for the global retail community. The similarities of the GNX and WWRE business models and solutions were such that a meeting of the minds was inevitable. Thus, it comes as no surprise to learn that WWRE and GNX have come to terms for a merger.
As announced in April and finalized in mid-November 2005, GNX and WWRE have combined their complementary product sets and re-branded the companies as Agent for Retail Integration and Collaboration Solutions (Agentrics LLC). The company is aptly named given its background and desire to shed any reference to being solely a B2B exchange. Agentrics' vision is to leverage common capabilities for retail trading partners as clients, and to drive global practices and standards for information sharing and collaboration between retailers and manufacturers.
Today, Agentrics has close to 50 major retailers and over 250 suppliers as primary customers, as well as over 50,000 participating registered auctioning suppliers. Moreover, twenty-three global retail industry leaders have demonstrated their commitment to the shared platform by serving as board members and as equity owners. Agentrics' "sweet spot" is clearly the retail market and its trading partners that are willing to share a platform and its inherent efficiencies. A partial list of "anchor" clients include Sainsbury's, Safeway, Sears, CVS, Metro Group, Walgreens, Albertsons, Tesco, Carrefour, Kingfisher, Kroger, Colesmyer, SCA, and Groupe Casino.
The consolidated solution suite offers global sourcing and procurement, global supply chain collaboration, global data synchronization, and product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions to the retail industry via a subscription-based platform. Specific capabilities include
* Global sourcing
o On-line auctions
o Integrated sourcing
o Consortium buying
o Trading partner discovery
o Consulting and program management
* Global supply chain collaboration
o Promotions management
o Point of sale (POS) data exchange
o Three-tier collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment (CPFR)
o Supplier performance management
o Consulting and program management
* Global data synchronization
o Global data pooling of item data attributes
o Item data quality services and synchronization
o Consulting and program management
Product Lifecycle Management Tool Emerges as a Unique Opportunity
Partly due to its March 2004 acquisition of QSA Software, a UK-based retail industry supplier of new product development and introduction (NPDI) software, Agentrics is marketing a PLM solution for the retail private label niche. The ProductVine PLM solution enables retailers to secure brand integrity of their private (or "house") brand label goods throughout the PLM process, from introduction to retirement. Agentrics' initial sales and marketing strategy targets food and grocery retailers; examining opportunities in other retail subsegments is a lower priority. ProductVine's food and grocery-centric database was designed based on years of industry best practice experience and was engineered to facilitate the NPDI process. ProductVine includes project management, critical paths, workflow, and collaboration capabilities. It aims to fulfill the retail private label market's need to manage product information, such as product specifications, pack copy, compliance, regulatory, and supplier data. This market's requirements also include ideation management (i.e., strategic alignment), range and category briefing, product idea collation, test evaluations, issue management, and quality management for production and supplier audits.
Agentrics' global analysis of the retail private label market indicates that there is a varying degree of sophistication and tiering of private labels across mature, emerging, and immature markets around the globe. The bottom line is that while there is significant country by country variation in private label maturation, retail private labeling is growing and maturing across most territories, including larger Western European countries, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.
The ProductVine solution portfolio was built according to the "stage gate" approach, where individual modules are engineered to work either together or independently. Its three-tier architecture, which includes project and category management (for marketing criteria management and market team use), product data management, and quality management (for non-conformance audits), can be used in different ways. For example, Marks and Spencer uses the project and category management capabilities extensively for private label category management, while Brinker International, a company with multiple restaurant brands like Chili's and On The Border, uses quality management functionalities to perform supplier non-conformance audits and to ensure brand integrity.
ProductVine's seven-stage, "stage gate" approach to the baseline time-to-market period is typical of the retail private label NPDI staging process. It includes
* Product brief and invitation to tender
* Testing and auditing
* Final decision and negotiations
* Design phase
* Print phase
* Launch phase
* Follow-up phase
The ProductVine solution is fully hosted on a Microsoft n-tier platform. Its pricing model is based on subscribers paying an annual fee based on their overall transaction volumes, the number of products and suppliers, and the number of modules utilized. More companies are experiencing ProductVine's capabilities firsthand as Agentrics is witnessing an increased level of customer adoption.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/a-unique-product-lifecycle-management-tool-for-private-label-retail-18314/
At about the same time, the Global NetXchange (GNX), headquartered in Chicago, Illinois (US) and with a significant presence in Europe, was founded by eight of the world's largest retailers. It provided a supply chain collaboration suite to connect retailers and manufacturers via a jointly developed, Web-enabled technology platform for the global retail community. The similarities of the GNX and WWRE business models and solutions were such that a meeting of the minds was inevitable. Thus, it comes as no surprise to learn that WWRE and GNX have come to terms for a merger.
As announced in April and finalized in mid-November 2005, GNX and WWRE have combined their complementary product sets and re-branded the companies as Agent for Retail Integration and Collaboration Solutions (Agentrics LLC). The company is aptly named given its background and desire to shed any reference to being solely a B2B exchange. Agentrics' vision is to leverage common capabilities for retail trading partners as clients, and to drive global practices and standards for information sharing and collaboration between retailers and manufacturers.
Today, Agentrics has close to 50 major retailers and over 250 suppliers as primary customers, as well as over 50,000 participating registered auctioning suppliers. Moreover, twenty-three global retail industry leaders have demonstrated their commitment to the shared platform by serving as board members and as equity owners. Agentrics' "sweet spot" is clearly the retail market and its trading partners that are willing to share a platform and its inherent efficiencies. A partial list of "anchor" clients include Sainsbury's, Safeway, Sears, CVS, Metro Group, Walgreens, Albertsons, Tesco, Carrefour, Kingfisher, Kroger, Colesmyer, SCA, and Groupe Casino.
The consolidated solution suite offers global sourcing and procurement, global supply chain collaboration, global data synchronization, and product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions to the retail industry via a subscription-based platform. Specific capabilities include
* Global sourcing
o On-line auctions
o Integrated sourcing
o Consortium buying
o Trading partner discovery
o Consulting and program management
* Global supply chain collaboration
o Promotions management
o Point of sale (POS) data exchange
o Three-tier collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment (CPFR)
o Supplier performance management
o Consulting and program management
* Global data synchronization
o Global data pooling of item data attributes
o Item data quality services and synchronization
o Consulting and program management
Product Lifecycle Management Tool Emerges as a Unique Opportunity
Partly due to its March 2004 acquisition of QSA Software, a UK-based retail industry supplier of new product development and introduction (NPDI) software, Agentrics is marketing a PLM solution for the retail private label niche. The ProductVine PLM solution enables retailers to secure brand integrity of their private (or "house") brand label goods throughout the PLM process, from introduction to retirement. Agentrics' initial sales and marketing strategy targets food and grocery retailers; examining opportunities in other retail subsegments is a lower priority. ProductVine's food and grocery-centric database was designed based on years of industry best practice experience and was engineered to facilitate the NPDI process. ProductVine includes project management, critical paths, workflow, and collaboration capabilities. It aims to fulfill the retail private label market's need to manage product information, such as product specifications, pack copy, compliance, regulatory, and supplier data. This market's requirements also include ideation management (i.e., strategic alignment), range and category briefing, product idea collation, test evaluations, issue management, and quality management for production and supplier audits.
Agentrics' global analysis of the retail private label market indicates that there is a varying degree of sophistication and tiering of private labels across mature, emerging, and immature markets around the globe. The bottom line is that while there is significant country by country variation in private label maturation, retail private labeling is growing and maturing across most territories, including larger Western European countries, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.
The ProductVine solution portfolio was built according to the "stage gate" approach, where individual modules are engineered to work either together or independently. Its three-tier architecture, which includes project and category management (for marketing criteria management and market team use), product data management, and quality management (for non-conformance audits), can be used in different ways. For example, Marks and Spencer uses the project and category management capabilities extensively for private label category management, while Brinker International, a company with multiple restaurant brands like Chili's and On The Border, uses quality management functionalities to perform supplier non-conformance audits and to ensure brand integrity.
ProductVine's seven-stage, "stage gate" approach to the baseline time-to-market period is typical of the retail private label NPDI staging process. It includes
* Product brief and invitation to tender
* Testing and auditing
* Final decision and negotiations
* Design phase
* Print phase
* Launch phase
* Follow-up phase
The ProductVine solution is fully hosted on a Microsoft n-tier platform. Its pricing model is based on subscribers paying an annual fee based on their overall transaction volumes, the number of products and suppliers, and the number of modules utilized. More companies are experiencing ProductVine's capabilities firsthand as Agentrics is witnessing an increased level of customer adoption.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/a-unique-product-lifecycle-management-tool-for-private-label-retail-18314/
An Introduction to E-learning and Learning Management Systems (LMS)
classes at a university or college with hundreds of other coffee-stoked students, or by signing up for what used to be called “distance” learning (or even before that, “by correspondence,” as though courses consisted of a series of letters exchanged between the student and the professor, and delivered by the Pony Express). Distance courses still exist, of course, but increasingly, even these programs are undergoing drastic change because of their use of technology.
Over the past decade or more, a new style of education has been emerging for traditional in-class college and university programs as well, changing the ways instructors and professors teach and students learn. Humanism—the philosophy originally espoused by universities—has always held that technology could and should be used, along with rationality, ethical philosophy, and universal morality, towards improving the human condition. However, it seems that the balance is being tipped increasingly towards a privileging of technology over other means to that end.
Universities are jumping enthusiastically on the technology bandwagon, and it’s no longer uncommon for professors to supplement their lectures with PowerPoint presentations, or for students to take notes on their laptops (Acadia University, in Wolfville, Canada, has been offering “free” laptops to all first-year students for more than ten years). And an ever-growing number of professors set up course web sites that allow students additional opportunities to ask questions, or to access the course syllabus, should they have happened to lose that pesky, fly-away hardcopy version handed out the first day of class.
What does all this extra technology-based stimulation mean in practical terms (besides reducing the number of times the prof has to answer questions about when the term paper is due)? With PowerPoint replacing “old-school” photo slides and clunky overhead projectors, burnt-out bulbs interrupting lectures is no longer a concern. Students can use their laptops not only to take notes more speedily (most people type faster than they can write), but also to access dictionaries and other writing or reference tools in situ.
Course web sites can also offer students supplementary materials without the time-consuming hassle of going to the library (a decided benefit for students with physical disabilities). Graphic elements, such as art, diagrams, or photos, can help students who are visual rather than auditory learners. Chat rooms and other collaborative tools can help to maximize student participation in courses with ever-increasing enrollment caps.
The benefits of e-learning are not just for universities. Many elementary and high schools are also implementing learning management systems (LMS) in their classroom, for attendance tracking, creating and administering tests, e-mail, grade posting, and many other administrative and teaching tasks.
And certainly no less important—probably much more important to readers of this blog—is the fact that businesses of all sizes are changing the way they perform certain operations as a result of implementing e-learning and learning management (LMS) applications. Human resource managers are discovering how to optimize employee performance with e-learning or LMS software.
What Is a Learning Management System?
An LMS is a software technology that allows organizations, including corporations and educational institutions, to manage and schedule all aspects of teaching and training. An LMS can aid in creating course calendars and other material, in easing administration and communication, and improving tracking of student or trainee progress. An LMS can be implemented through the Internet with open source software, it can be licensed from a provider, or it can be purchased by an organization. The term e-learning refers to any training or learning that is done with an LMS application, or that is computer based.
Top Business Benefits of E-learning with an LMS
* Reduced costs associated with training fees, travel and accommodation expenses for workshop or course trainers, and lost employee work time
* Computer-based training can more effectively and actively engage the student and produce better test results and higher rates of retention, thereby improving on-the-job competency and efficiency
* Larger numbers of employees can receive training in shorter periods of time; employees can be exempt from certain courses or modules if they demonstrate competency by passing a pre-test
* Reduced administrative hassle for course registration, and course content, resulting in further reduced costs
* Greater volumes of employees can receive timely training, as a result of by-distance access to online training programs or courses
* Reduced employee turnover, as more efficient training and better test results can boosts employee confidence and performance
* Modules for employee training can assist organizations with compliance issues, partly due to more consistent or “centralized” course content
What Risks Do Business Managers Need to Consider before Implementing a Learning Management Solution?
* Align learning with business goals, as well as employees’ personal goals, to make sure time and resources are maximized.
* Develop a well-planned business case to win senior executives approve a proposed e-learning or LMS project.
* Identify the gap between actual or current training results and desired results, so that you can choose an e-learning or LMS solution that addresses your specific needs.
* Assess your company’s IT infrastructure to decide whether to implement a hosted or a licensed solution.
* Make sure you choose a solution that will integrate with your existing human resources (HR) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions.
Mitigate Risk with Online Software Selection Tools (Or, How an Online Software Selection Process Can Help You)
* Compare vendors offering LMS solutions with those offering content management system (CMS) solutions, to find out which best meets your needs.
* Evaluate vendors that provide modules for competency and performance management.
* Examine functionality that supports course content authoring or publishing tools.
* Determine which solutions satisfy your requirements for classroom or e-learning facilities.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/01/18/an-introduction-to-e-learning-and-learning-management-systems-lms/
Over the past decade or more, a new style of education has been emerging for traditional in-class college and university programs as well, changing the ways instructors and professors teach and students learn. Humanism—the philosophy originally espoused by universities—has always held that technology could and should be used, along with rationality, ethical philosophy, and universal morality, towards improving the human condition. However, it seems that the balance is being tipped increasingly towards a privileging of technology over other means to that end.
Universities are jumping enthusiastically on the technology bandwagon, and it’s no longer uncommon for professors to supplement their lectures with PowerPoint presentations, or for students to take notes on their laptops (Acadia University, in Wolfville, Canada, has been offering “free” laptops to all first-year students for more than ten years). And an ever-growing number of professors set up course web sites that allow students additional opportunities to ask questions, or to access the course syllabus, should they have happened to lose that pesky, fly-away hardcopy version handed out the first day of class.
What does all this extra technology-based stimulation mean in practical terms (besides reducing the number of times the prof has to answer questions about when the term paper is due)? With PowerPoint replacing “old-school” photo slides and clunky overhead projectors, burnt-out bulbs interrupting lectures is no longer a concern. Students can use their laptops not only to take notes more speedily (most people type faster than they can write), but also to access dictionaries and other writing or reference tools in situ.
Course web sites can also offer students supplementary materials without the time-consuming hassle of going to the library (a decided benefit for students with physical disabilities). Graphic elements, such as art, diagrams, or photos, can help students who are visual rather than auditory learners. Chat rooms and other collaborative tools can help to maximize student participation in courses with ever-increasing enrollment caps.
The benefits of e-learning are not just for universities. Many elementary and high schools are also implementing learning management systems (LMS) in their classroom, for attendance tracking, creating and administering tests, e-mail, grade posting, and many other administrative and teaching tasks.
And certainly no less important—probably much more important to readers of this blog—is the fact that businesses of all sizes are changing the way they perform certain operations as a result of implementing e-learning and learning management (LMS) applications. Human resource managers are discovering how to optimize employee performance with e-learning or LMS software.
What Is a Learning Management System?
An LMS is a software technology that allows organizations, including corporations and educational institutions, to manage and schedule all aspects of teaching and training. An LMS can aid in creating course calendars and other material, in easing administration and communication, and improving tracking of student or trainee progress. An LMS can be implemented through the Internet with open source software, it can be licensed from a provider, or it can be purchased by an organization. The term e-learning refers to any training or learning that is done with an LMS application, or that is computer based.
Top Business Benefits of E-learning with an LMS
* Reduced costs associated with training fees, travel and accommodation expenses for workshop or course trainers, and lost employee work time
* Computer-based training can more effectively and actively engage the student and produce better test results and higher rates of retention, thereby improving on-the-job competency and efficiency
* Larger numbers of employees can receive training in shorter periods of time; employees can be exempt from certain courses or modules if they demonstrate competency by passing a pre-test
* Reduced administrative hassle for course registration, and course content, resulting in further reduced costs
* Greater volumes of employees can receive timely training, as a result of by-distance access to online training programs or courses
* Reduced employee turnover, as more efficient training and better test results can boosts employee confidence and performance
* Modules for employee training can assist organizations with compliance issues, partly due to more consistent or “centralized” course content
What Risks Do Business Managers Need to Consider before Implementing a Learning Management Solution?
* Align learning with business goals, as well as employees’ personal goals, to make sure time and resources are maximized.
* Develop a well-planned business case to win senior executives approve a proposed e-learning or LMS project.
* Identify the gap between actual or current training results and desired results, so that you can choose an e-learning or LMS solution that addresses your specific needs.
* Assess your company’s IT infrastructure to decide whether to implement a hosted or a licensed solution.
* Make sure you choose a solution that will integrate with your existing human resources (HR) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions.
Mitigate Risk with Online Software Selection Tools (Or, How an Online Software Selection Process Can Help You)
* Compare vendors offering LMS solutions with those offering content management system (CMS) solutions, to find out which best meets your needs.
* Evaluate vendors that provide modules for competency and performance management.
* Examine functionality that supports course content authoring or publishing tools.
* Determine which solutions satisfy your requirements for classroom or e-learning facilities.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/01/18/an-introduction-to-e-learning-and-learning-management-systems-lms/
5 Things You Should Not Confuse Business Performance Management With
If you search for business performance management (BPM) on Google, you’ll get around 700,000 results. Out of this huge number of results, you will presumably refer to a popular source—Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, BPM is “a set of processes that help organizations optimize their business performance.” The same source affirms that some people see it as the next generation of business intelligence (BI). Both of these explanations—unfortunately—lack clarity.
Going back to the Google search, there are a few near-synonyms for BPM that one can choose from: business intelligence performance management, performance management scorecard, key performance indicators, and business performance metrics. Similarly, Wikipedia has four synonyms for BPM as well, including corporate performance management (CPM), enterprise performance management (EPM), operational performance management (OPM), and business performance optimization (BPO).
Confused? Is it BI, a set of processes, scorecards, performance indicators, metrics, or are all these equally valid parts of BPM? Since we intend to write a series of articles on BPM, we thought we might start this thread a bit differently and first try to explain what BPM should not be confused with.
1. Business Performance Management (BPM)
There is always a kind of confusion when using the same acronym (BPM) for different software packages (i.e., business performance management and business process management). In spite of the undoubted links between these two application types, they differ greatly for the majority of software users and IT professionals. Broadly speaking, a generic business process management system allows analysts and business managers to design and model business processes in a graphical and descriptive view, then execute them, monitor the processes, and finally, modify or optimize them.
There are similarities between business process management systems and enterprise application integration software and workflow automation solutions. By the way, notice yet another BPM abbreviation here: business process modeling, which is a substantial element of business process management. This is basically a business process capturing, visualizing, and description technique (or set of techniques) that provides companies a clear view on processes and helps them to analyze these processes in order to improve them.
2. Business Intelligence (BI)
Is BI part of BPM? Definitely! You can make any kind of business decision based on accurate information, and the efficient way to get that information is through a BI tool. Still, BI is not enough. The best BI tool in the world can give you the greatest dashboards, graphs, ad hoc reports, and so on, but they are completely useless unless you have a good idea of what to do with them.
It is safe to say that BI is the framework or the tool that will help you improve your business, but it will not complete this task for you. This is where BPM comes into play. A BPM provider should be able to support you in defining your business processes and objectives, as well as the metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) you need to follow. Furthermore, your BPM provider will assist you in building the tools you need in order to extract the right data from the right place and then interpret it according to the already defined objectives.
3. Balanced Scorecard, Business Process Measurement, and Key Performance Indicators
When talking about business performance management, we should clearly understand that it is possible to successfully manage “something” as long as that “something” can be measured. In other words, in order to estimate how well your business is doing, some formal methodologies, criteria, and metrics are required.
However, it is not enough to estimate your company’s achievements using financial criteria only. There are other important activities which (while difficult to quantify and evaluate) are necessary to compare and evaluate in order to have a more complete picture. Balanced scorecard, business process measurement, and KPIs were developed as a systematic approach to help managers of all levels effectively control the company or departments within the company and to be able to quickly react to market and environmental changes and challenges.
These three concepts are really closely related to each other, but represent different views of the same process. Balanced scorecard is used mostly by the top management level of a company to monitor overall business performance towards strategic goals of the company. Mid-level and operation management usually use business process measurement parameters to visually examine routine and day-to-day processes towards short-time or current goals of the department or organization. Both of these methods utilize KPIs as a metric to count and analyze countable and often uncountable criteria. Those indicators usually look like set of diagrams and graphs that fluctuate dynamically depending on how the numbers change. Sometimes these sets of diagrams are called dashboards (using the analogy of a car or plane dashboard with a number of gauges on them).
4. Total Quality Management (TQM), Lean, and Six Sigma
At a first glance, these mechanisms, methodologies, and concepts can be referred to as different types of business process management. They reflect different views of the same core business processes improvement and talk about product, process, customer satisfaction, quality, and practical techniques to plan, organize, and control this process. They all consider business processes improvement as a global strategic goal and, as a result, companies achieve better financial numbers.
Certainly they are not the same things. While there are plenty of books, articles, and Web sites available to help readers understand the concepts, at the same time the non-dedicated reader who isn’t a professional in these concepts can easily become confused in this ocean of information.
Generally speaking, total quality management, lean, and six sigma as methodologies are much wider and deeper in substance than business performance management—which is a very useful and helpful way to estimate the current business and financial situation of an organization, as well as providing food for thought for managers at all levels to assist them in optimal decision making.
5. Reporting and Analytics
An in-depth explanation of the difference between BI versus reporting and analytics exceeds the scope of this post. So we’ll make this part short but sweet: analytics is complex reporting, while BI is a sophisticated reporting and analytics tool.
Most accounting, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), product lifecycle management (PLM), solutions offer reports, and most of them even allow you to do analysis on sales, purchases, productivity, and more. As our jobs are becoming very information-intensive, reporting, analytics, and BI are essential to today’s workforce.
Reporting and analytics tools do not always provide data in a format that can be used by a BPM product. Oftentimes, information comes from a variety of sources and—just to make things worse—different tools are used to extract it. A BPM tool should be able to gather all the required data from all available sources and convert it into a format that can be used in the decision process.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2009/04/24/5-things-you-should-not-confuse-business-performance-management-with/
Going back to the Google search, there are a few near-synonyms for BPM that one can choose from: business intelligence performance management, performance management scorecard, key performance indicators, and business performance metrics. Similarly, Wikipedia has four synonyms for BPM as well, including corporate performance management (CPM), enterprise performance management (EPM), operational performance management (OPM), and business performance optimization (BPO).
Confused? Is it BI, a set of processes, scorecards, performance indicators, metrics, or are all these equally valid parts of BPM? Since we intend to write a series of articles on BPM, we thought we might start this thread a bit differently and first try to explain what BPM should not be confused with.
1. Business Performance Management (BPM)
There is always a kind of confusion when using the same acronym (BPM) for different software packages (i.e., business performance management and business process management). In spite of the undoubted links between these two application types, they differ greatly for the majority of software users and IT professionals. Broadly speaking, a generic business process management system allows analysts and business managers to design and model business processes in a graphical and descriptive view, then execute them, monitor the processes, and finally, modify or optimize them.
There are similarities between business process management systems and enterprise application integration software and workflow automation solutions. By the way, notice yet another BPM abbreviation here: business process modeling, which is a substantial element of business process management. This is basically a business process capturing, visualizing, and description technique (or set of techniques) that provides companies a clear view on processes and helps them to analyze these processes in order to improve them.
2. Business Intelligence (BI)
Is BI part of BPM? Definitely! You can make any kind of business decision based on accurate information, and the efficient way to get that information is through a BI tool. Still, BI is not enough. The best BI tool in the world can give you the greatest dashboards, graphs, ad hoc reports, and so on, but they are completely useless unless you have a good idea of what to do with them.
It is safe to say that BI is the framework or the tool that will help you improve your business, but it will not complete this task for you. This is where BPM comes into play. A BPM provider should be able to support you in defining your business processes and objectives, as well as the metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) you need to follow. Furthermore, your BPM provider will assist you in building the tools you need in order to extract the right data from the right place and then interpret it according to the already defined objectives.
3. Balanced Scorecard, Business Process Measurement, and Key Performance Indicators
When talking about business performance management, we should clearly understand that it is possible to successfully manage “something” as long as that “something” can be measured. In other words, in order to estimate how well your business is doing, some formal methodologies, criteria, and metrics are required.
However, it is not enough to estimate your company’s achievements using financial criteria only. There are other important activities which (while difficult to quantify and evaluate) are necessary to compare and evaluate in order to have a more complete picture. Balanced scorecard, business process measurement, and KPIs were developed as a systematic approach to help managers of all levels effectively control the company or departments within the company and to be able to quickly react to market and environmental changes and challenges.
These three concepts are really closely related to each other, but represent different views of the same process. Balanced scorecard is used mostly by the top management level of a company to monitor overall business performance towards strategic goals of the company. Mid-level and operation management usually use business process measurement parameters to visually examine routine and day-to-day processes towards short-time or current goals of the department or organization. Both of these methods utilize KPIs as a metric to count and analyze countable and often uncountable criteria. Those indicators usually look like set of diagrams and graphs that fluctuate dynamically depending on how the numbers change. Sometimes these sets of diagrams are called dashboards (using the analogy of a car or plane dashboard with a number of gauges on them).
4. Total Quality Management (TQM), Lean, and Six Sigma
At a first glance, these mechanisms, methodologies, and concepts can be referred to as different types of business process management. They reflect different views of the same core business processes improvement and talk about product, process, customer satisfaction, quality, and practical techniques to plan, organize, and control this process. They all consider business processes improvement as a global strategic goal and, as a result, companies achieve better financial numbers.
Certainly they are not the same things. While there are plenty of books, articles, and Web sites available to help readers understand the concepts, at the same time the non-dedicated reader who isn’t a professional in these concepts can easily become confused in this ocean of information.
Generally speaking, total quality management, lean, and six sigma as methodologies are much wider and deeper in substance than business performance management—which is a very useful and helpful way to estimate the current business and financial situation of an organization, as well as providing food for thought for managers at all levels to assist them in optimal decision making.
5. Reporting and Analytics
An in-depth explanation of the difference between BI versus reporting and analytics exceeds the scope of this post. So we’ll make this part short but sweet: analytics is complex reporting, while BI is a sophisticated reporting and analytics tool.
Most accounting, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), product lifecycle management (PLM), solutions offer reports, and most of them even allow you to do analysis on sales, purchases, productivity, and more. As our jobs are becoming very information-intensive, reporting, analytics, and BI are essential to today’s workforce.
Reporting and analytics tools do not always provide data in a format that can be used by a BPM product. Oftentimes, information comes from a variety of sources and—just to make things worse—different tools are used to extract it. A BPM tool should be able to gather all the required data from all available sources and convert it into a format that can be used in the decision process.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2009/04/24/5-things-you-should-not-confuse-business-performance-management-with/
Acquisitive Vendor Expands Its Enterprise Asset Management Potential
Swedish enterprise applications company, has had a mixed record of mergers and acquisitions in the past few years. While at first attempting to diversify, the company has lately opted to consolidate its product offerings, shedding a computer-aided design (CAD) application from its roster. And so it may have been a surprise to some that IFS Defence Ltd., a joint venture between IFS and BAE Systems, acquired Information Science Consultants (B) in July 2007. Its enterprise asset management (EAM) solution already strong, with this latest acquisition, IFS hopes to bolster its reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) capabilities for the aerospace and defense (A&D) industries.
IFS—an EAM Force
But to come back to IFS, its EAM solution is just one component of the broad IFS Applications suite used globally by customers such as the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), Three Gorges in China, and NuCor Steel in the US, to name but a few asset-intensive ones. IFS Applications provides extended enterprise resource planning (ERP) functionality, including customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), product lifecycle management (PLM), corporate performance management (CPM), EAM, and maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) capabilities. Translating these into major business processes, these solutions for engineering, manufacturing, service management, asset management, and so on, seamlessly work together to enable companies to employ lean enterprise concepts, control costs, manage projects, measure performance, and increase efficiencies in their supply chains.
Amongst its many EAM and MRO parts and parcels, IFS has created an asset lifecycle management (ALM) solution to take control of available asset information from design, engineering, operations, and maintenance, permitting quick information retrieval and informed decisions throughout the entire asset life cycle. A collaborative asset information repository and document management system supports sharing of information for many functional business areas and enterprise processes, such as purchasing, project management, inventory management, operations, and maintenance.
A close partnership with Bentley Systems (which acquired the former IFS Plant Design set of CAD modules in 2004) supports special integration tools for automatic import and export of plant and asset design documents to and from the repository. For example, once data is entered into the common database, it immediately becomes available to the other IFS Applications modules; as a result, information can be recycled, and it remains consistent and updated, never having to be re-entered. Also, the CAD modules provide designers with a drawing tool for process and instrumentation design, while predefined forms and the convenient lookup functionality are further examples of features that benefit all design disciplines. This integration permits instant population of the asset database upon acceptance of a new or updated plant design, along with capabilities to update the design documents to reflect “as built” changes.
To the benefit of its customers, IFS has shown a strong commitment to standards such as those created by the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), NORSOK (Norsk Sokkels Konkuranseposisjon), and the Swedish pulp and paper industry’s technical—and meticulous—cooperative standards organization, SSG Teknik AB. For instance, SSG’s aim, according to its web site, is “to promote the standardization and development of process and plant technology,” and the administration of connected product and chemical databases.
Thus, many clients (especially a number of pulp and paper mills in Sweden) have reportedly realized significant productivity benefits from IFS’s integrated ALM solution; the implementation methodology handles the entire information flow, from engineering and design through planning and implementing maintenance, including managing related documentation and drawings.
IFS plans to espouse similar standards in other industries, such as chemical, oil and gas, energy, and metals and mining, to further promote the development and adoption of ALM by other forward-thinking customers worldwide. This effort might be helped by the recently announced partnership with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which will primarily target the project-driven manufacturing, chemical, energy, utilities, telecommunications, and oil and gas industries, increasing IFS's ability to deliver its EAM and service management functionality to larger enterprises in North America. Readers should keep their eyes open for further developments from TCS, as they become available.
What Else Does IFS Get with iSC?
In addition to the possibility of cross-selling reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) capabilities and expertise to thousands of its existing customers, IFS should benefit from iSC’s focus and expertise in the naval and maritime operations sector. On one hand, the area of RCM technologies is getting increased exposure and investments from a number of vendors, such as Lawson and Infor. This contrasts the usual tendency to leave RCM to small, specialized (or niche) companies such as Meridium or Ivara (see Lean Maintenance—Does It Impact Reliability? Lessons Learned and Best Practices).
On the other hand, the acquisition should entrench IFS's leadership within the defense industry sector, which is now also beginning to invest in IT to streamline operations. Vertical focus has been “the name of the game,” even in the EAM and MRO areas, as illustrated by Mincom’s long focus on and success in the mining sector, or Indus’s (now Ventyx) expertise in some sectors of the utilities industry (for example, nuclear power plants). While this acquisition will add value to IFS's overall defense offering, it is likely to be of particular tactical interest to maritime and naval operations, a domain in which IFS has about one dozen clients.
As for some potential caveats (in addition to the above-mentioned ownership- and responsibility-sharing arrangements between IFS and BAE [that is to say, for IFS Defence]), one should note that iSC’s technology is based on the Microsoft .NET Framework, which is not quite in tune with the IFS Applications’ Java-based architecture on the server side. This could create hurdles for the envisioned integration of the two complementary products and technologies, despite the fact that service-oriented architecture (SOA) should render the platforms moot. The fact is that any product performs best when written in a native uniform environment, as has been the case with IFS Applications.
To be fair, IFS is well versed in Microsoft technologies on the client side, and the IFS Intelligent Desktop initiative and the related IFS Business Analytics product (formerly IFS Smart Client for Excel) are good examples of this. In June 2007, IFS announced the North American launch of the IFS Business Analytics offering, an office business application (OBA) that makes the IFS Applications ERP software accessible to users of the Microsoft Office 2007 system. IFS will have to carefully consider how best to align the functionality of the two products.
There are some indications that two solutions will continue to be offered for the immediate future (though this might be somewhat deceiving, as IFS insists on having only one product; provided the clients pay maintenance, IFS will support their older releases). Logically, there could still be issues regarding support and integration, given that IFS has traditionally been a single product suite company.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/acquisitive-vendor-expands-its-enterprise-asset-management-potential-19292/
IFS—an EAM Force
But to come back to IFS, its EAM solution is just one component of the broad IFS Applications suite used globally by customers such as the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), Three Gorges in China, and NuCor Steel in the US, to name but a few asset-intensive ones. IFS Applications provides extended enterprise resource planning (ERP) functionality, including customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), product lifecycle management (PLM), corporate performance management (CPM), EAM, and maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) capabilities. Translating these into major business processes, these solutions for engineering, manufacturing, service management, asset management, and so on, seamlessly work together to enable companies to employ lean enterprise concepts, control costs, manage projects, measure performance, and increase efficiencies in their supply chains.
Amongst its many EAM and MRO parts and parcels, IFS has created an asset lifecycle management (ALM) solution to take control of available asset information from design, engineering, operations, and maintenance, permitting quick information retrieval and informed decisions throughout the entire asset life cycle. A collaborative asset information repository and document management system supports sharing of information for many functional business areas and enterprise processes, such as purchasing, project management, inventory management, operations, and maintenance.
A close partnership with Bentley Systems (which acquired the former IFS Plant Design set of CAD modules in 2004) supports special integration tools for automatic import and export of plant and asset design documents to and from the repository. For example, once data is entered into the common database, it immediately becomes available to the other IFS Applications modules; as a result, information can be recycled, and it remains consistent and updated, never having to be re-entered. Also, the CAD modules provide designers with a drawing tool for process and instrumentation design, while predefined forms and the convenient lookup functionality are further examples of features that benefit all design disciplines. This integration permits instant population of the asset database upon acceptance of a new or updated plant design, along with capabilities to update the design documents to reflect “as built” changes.
To the benefit of its customers, IFS has shown a strong commitment to standards such as those created by the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), NORSOK (Norsk Sokkels Konkuranseposisjon), and the Swedish pulp and paper industry’s technical—and meticulous—cooperative standards organization, SSG Teknik AB. For instance, SSG’s aim, according to its web site, is “to promote the standardization and development of process and plant technology,” and the administration of connected product and chemical databases.
Thus, many clients (especially a number of pulp and paper mills in Sweden) have reportedly realized significant productivity benefits from IFS’s integrated ALM solution; the implementation methodology handles the entire information flow, from engineering and design through planning and implementing maintenance, including managing related documentation and drawings.
IFS plans to espouse similar standards in other industries, such as chemical, oil and gas, energy, and metals and mining, to further promote the development and adoption of ALM by other forward-thinking customers worldwide. This effort might be helped by the recently announced partnership with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which will primarily target the project-driven manufacturing, chemical, energy, utilities, telecommunications, and oil and gas industries, increasing IFS's ability to deliver its EAM and service management functionality to larger enterprises in North America. Readers should keep their eyes open for further developments from TCS, as they become available.
What Else Does IFS Get with iSC?
In addition to the possibility of cross-selling reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) capabilities and expertise to thousands of its existing customers, IFS should benefit from iSC’s focus and expertise in the naval and maritime operations sector. On one hand, the area of RCM technologies is getting increased exposure and investments from a number of vendors, such as Lawson and Infor. This contrasts the usual tendency to leave RCM to small, specialized (or niche) companies such as Meridium or Ivara (see Lean Maintenance—Does It Impact Reliability? Lessons Learned and Best Practices).
On the other hand, the acquisition should entrench IFS's leadership within the defense industry sector, which is now also beginning to invest in IT to streamline operations. Vertical focus has been “the name of the game,” even in the EAM and MRO areas, as illustrated by Mincom’s long focus on and success in the mining sector, or Indus’s (now Ventyx) expertise in some sectors of the utilities industry (for example, nuclear power plants). While this acquisition will add value to IFS's overall defense offering, it is likely to be of particular tactical interest to maritime and naval operations, a domain in which IFS has about one dozen clients.
As for some potential caveats (in addition to the above-mentioned ownership- and responsibility-sharing arrangements between IFS and BAE [that is to say, for IFS Defence]), one should note that iSC’s technology is based on the Microsoft .NET Framework, which is not quite in tune with the IFS Applications’ Java-based architecture on the server side. This could create hurdles for the envisioned integration of the two complementary products and technologies, despite the fact that service-oriented architecture (SOA) should render the platforms moot. The fact is that any product performs best when written in a native uniform environment, as has been the case with IFS Applications.
To be fair, IFS is well versed in Microsoft technologies on the client side, and the IFS Intelligent Desktop initiative and the related IFS Business Analytics product (formerly IFS Smart Client for Excel) are good examples of this. In June 2007, IFS announced the North American launch of the IFS Business Analytics offering, an office business application (OBA) that makes the IFS Applications ERP software accessible to users of the Microsoft Office 2007 system. IFS will have to carefully consider how best to align the functionality of the two products.
There are some indications that two solutions will continue to be offered for the immediate future (though this might be somewhat deceiving, as IFS insists on having only one product; provided the clients pay maintenance, IFS will support their older releases). Logically, there could still be issues regarding support and integration, given that IFS has traditionally been a single product suite company.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/acquisitive-vendor-expands-its-enterprise-asset-management-potential-19292/
Manage the Change or Change the Management during an ERP Software Selection: The Change
Change happens all the time—but why are changes in our personal lives similar to those in our professional lives? There are some major events that occur and change things forever. For an individual, such a change can be caused by marriage; for a company, by the selection of an ERP system. There is always a way out when relationships stop working (both between people and companies), but it can be painful—and stressful to go through.
Why are Changes in Our Personal Lives Similar to Those in Our Professional Lives?
Companies are made up of individuals who have similar behaviors—both at work and at home. Let’s take a look at the similarities between the two:
1. We usually have our initial meeting with our partner-to-be in a public place (restaurant, night club, concert, etc.). The same applies when meeting a software vendor (tradeshow, conference, expo, etc.). Either way, we try our best to make a good first impression.
2. On our first date, we’ll try hard to impress our partner-to-be, as the vendor will try to impress a potential customer during a product demo. In both cases, we tend to forget to mention our weaknesses—and put more emphasis on our strengths.
3. When we decide to take the big step, we need to really understand what the change (caused by both marriage and purchasing an ERP) entails. Most failures, in marriages and implementations, are caused by decisions that were not very well informed.
4. Finally, when things are not going very well with our partner or software vendor, we start looking elsewhere and (oftentimes) decide to change. This is perfectly normal; as long as we learn from our initial mistakes and try to do it right the second time.
You can take control of the change by following these simple steps:
1. Do not blindly following the others or let yourself be influenced: In both marriage and software selection, we sometimes tend to follow others because it seems like the right thing to do. You shouldn’t get married because all your friends are doing it and you shouldn’t look for or replace your current ERP system because everyone else in your industry is doing it.
2. Understand the disadvantages: It’s important to understand the disadvantages change will bring preferably before it happens. It is more important to understand the disadvantages of change, because it’s the weaknesses—not the strengths—that can make a relationship (personal or professional) fall apart, if not understood and dealt with accordingly.
3. Be reasonable and realistic: Do not expect a major change to happen and answer all your problems. A partner and a vendor can help you deal with problems and issues, but do not expect them to fight your wars or come up with miracle solutions to everything.
4. Do not try to hide the dirt under the carpet: Remember, there are always two parties involved in a major change such as software selection or marriage. Change can and will be less painful if the two communicate and share thoughts, feelings, etc. It can only be successful when everyone involved is aware of what’s happening and can contribute.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2010/02/18/manage-the-change-or-change-the-management-during-erp-software-selection-the-change/
Why are Changes in Our Personal Lives Similar to Those in Our Professional Lives?
Companies are made up of individuals who have similar behaviors—both at work and at home. Let’s take a look at the similarities between the two:
1. We usually have our initial meeting with our partner-to-be in a public place (restaurant, night club, concert, etc.). The same applies when meeting a software vendor (tradeshow, conference, expo, etc.). Either way, we try our best to make a good first impression.
2. On our first date, we’ll try hard to impress our partner-to-be, as the vendor will try to impress a potential customer during a product demo. In both cases, we tend to forget to mention our weaknesses—and put more emphasis on our strengths.
3. When we decide to take the big step, we need to really understand what the change (caused by both marriage and purchasing an ERP) entails. Most failures, in marriages and implementations, are caused by decisions that were not very well informed.
4. Finally, when things are not going very well with our partner or software vendor, we start looking elsewhere and (oftentimes) decide to change. This is perfectly normal; as long as we learn from our initial mistakes and try to do it right the second time.
You can take control of the change by following these simple steps:
1. Do not blindly following the others or let yourself be influenced: In both marriage and software selection, we sometimes tend to follow others because it seems like the right thing to do. You shouldn’t get married because all your friends are doing it and you shouldn’t look for or replace your current ERP system because everyone else in your industry is doing it.
2. Understand the disadvantages: It’s important to understand the disadvantages change will bring preferably before it happens. It is more important to understand the disadvantages of change, because it’s the weaknesses—not the strengths—that can make a relationship (personal or professional) fall apart, if not understood and dealt with accordingly.
3. Be reasonable and realistic: Do not expect a major change to happen and answer all your problems. A partner and a vendor can help you deal with problems and issues, but do not expect them to fight your wars or come up with miracle solutions to everything.
4. Do not try to hide the dirt under the carpet: Remember, there are always two parties involved in a major change such as software selection or marriage. Change can and will be less painful if the two communicate and share thoughts, feelings, etc. It can only be successful when everyone involved is aware of what’s happening and can contribute.
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2010/02/18/manage-the-change-or-change-the-management-during-erp-software-selection-the-change/
Project Management Strategies for a Challenged Economy
As recent media reports suggest, the dreaded “R” word—recession—is looming large across the horizon of most western and global economies. Many organizations have had to scale back their spending and reduce costs. Due to the cyclical nature of our economy, certain industries will fare better than others.
As a result of the savings generated by the cost reduction efforts, decisions on where to invest may determine which organizations emerge unscathed from a recession, and which organizations fall victim to it and implode. In a recent Business Week article, Bruce Nusbaum, assistant managing editor in charge of the magazine’s innovation and design coverage says, “Winners always emerge out of recessions, and they almost always beat their competition on the basis of something new.” Nusbaum cited Apple as a powerful example. During the last recession, Apple worked on its iTunes and iPod. When the recession was over, retail stores immediately did gangbuster business with these products, and the company’s stock soared. Apple’s competition is still singing the blues.
The Pro-active Project Manager
The need for a project manager (PM) to be” business savvy”, especially during a recession, is critical. The PM will have to become a crusader, a salesperson, and an influencer to fight for projects that enhance productivity and quality, or that shorten cycle times, or that have a shorter project life cycle to generate return on investment (ROI). When the economic cycle turns upward again—as it inevitably does—having invested in the improvement of quality and cycle time, within both manufacturing and product distribution, may result in a higher market share for a product. Once management has examined business processes as a way to bring about improvements, other areas of an organization’s infrastructure can be open for examination as well. The methodology that supports project management can be used in areas such as product design, by examining all aspects of a product’s features and benefits. This may result in improvements to product features unlike any of the competition’s product offerings, thus generating higher revenues for the organization.
Lean Strategies to Weather the Storm
1. Innovate to promote knowledge exchange by encouraging team-building and collaborative efforts through relationships with coworkers and vendors.
2. Generate competition among internal teams working toward to continous improvements.
3. Don’t cut back on meetings. Meetings for brainstorming and to fire up team members’ creativity are more important than ever when companies downsize.
4. Build new teams. Business pullbacks are excellent times to pursue new ideas and projects and to get them on the drawing board.?
5. Don’t insulate team members by cutting travel. Get them out in the world and exposed to new thinking. Send teams to trade shows and webinars, and encourage networking through associations, all to review costs with an eye toward eliminating unnecessary expenditures.
6. Introduce new technologies, such as business intelligence (BI) and enterprise resource planning (ERP), which will generate savings and add analytical visibility. For information on BI and ERP vendor solutions
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/06/16/project-management-strategies-for-a-challenged-economy/
As a result of the savings generated by the cost reduction efforts, decisions on where to invest may determine which organizations emerge unscathed from a recession, and which organizations fall victim to it and implode. In a recent Business Week article, Bruce Nusbaum, assistant managing editor in charge of the magazine’s innovation and design coverage says, “Winners always emerge out of recessions, and they almost always beat their competition on the basis of something new.” Nusbaum cited Apple as a powerful example. During the last recession, Apple worked on its iTunes and iPod. When the recession was over, retail stores immediately did gangbuster business with these products, and the company’s stock soared. Apple’s competition is still singing the blues.
The Pro-active Project Manager
The need for a project manager (PM) to be” business savvy”, especially during a recession, is critical. The PM will have to become a crusader, a salesperson, and an influencer to fight for projects that enhance productivity and quality, or that shorten cycle times, or that have a shorter project life cycle to generate return on investment (ROI). When the economic cycle turns upward again—as it inevitably does—having invested in the improvement of quality and cycle time, within both manufacturing and product distribution, may result in a higher market share for a product. Once management has examined business processes as a way to bring about improvements, other areas of an organization’s infrastructure can be open for examination as well. The methodology that supports project management can be used in areas such as product design, by examining all aspects of a product’s features and benefits. This may result in improvements to product features unlike any of the competition’s product offerings, thus generating higher revenues for the organization.
Lean Strategies to Weather the Storm
1. Innovate to promote knowledge exchange by encouraging team-building and collaborative efforts through relationships with coworkers and vendors.
2. Generate competition among internal teams working toward to continous improvements.
3. Don’t cut back on meetings. Meetings for brainstorming and to fire up team members’ creativity are more important than ever when companies downsize.
4. Build new teams. Business pullbacks are excellent times to pursue new ideas and projects and to get them on the drawing board.?
5. Don’t insulate team members by cutting travel. Get them out in the world and exposed to new thinking. Send teams to trade shows and webinars, and encourage networking through associations, all to review costs with an eye toward eliminating unnecessary expenditures.
6. Introduce new technologies, such as business intelligence (BI) and enterprise resource planning (ERP), which will generate savings and add analytical visibility. For information on BI and ERP vendor solutions
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/06/16/project-management-strategies-for-a-challenged-economy/
Project Management Pitfalls
Through the implementation of enterprise wide systems many organizations have experienced success in transforming their enterprise from a reactionary task driven environment into a modern proactive, cohesive organization which can provide visibility to Senior Management and to customers and suppliers alike. ERP implementations are usually large, complex projects, involving large groups of people and other resources, working together under considerable time pressure and facing many unforeseen developments. Not surprisingly, many of these implementations turn out to be less successful than originally intended. The ERP system implementation in itself is not meant as a panacea for all of the company’s ills, but should be the logical starting point from which to document business processes to define and develop strategies towards managing the organizations resources in both a structured, strategic and collaborative framework.
Shifting Paradigms
In a recent study published by CIO Insight Magazine dated July 2006: What’s the Value of IT? At Many Companies, It’s Just Guesswork
a) I.T. Professionals responded that nearly 70% of Companies with less then $100, Million U.S.D. annual sales stated: The Pressure to place a dollar value on intangible or “soft benefits” from I.T. investments had increased in recent years.
b) In the same survey that 83% of firms with annual sales below$500 million U.S.D. that the results of the ROI analysis usually influence I.T. investment spending.
c) My firm’s CFO is demanding new and improved methods to measure that our I.T. Investment generates business value.
On the basis of this study the argument can be made that unless projects can deliver upon the stated objectives within the project deliverables and under budget then financial approval of not be likely. Furthermore the Project Manager and team have to orient their paradigms to be aligned more on a business model Beyond the technical aspects of technology deployment such as form, fit and function are related change management issues which if not managed as part of the Project Plan can threaten to derail a project in its entirety, the change management issues have become to be known as Critical Success Factors or (CSF’s)
Top Ten Critical Success Factors
In a recent article by the Dutch Consulting Firm Somers & Nelson a study was authored which featured a list of over 21 Critical Success Factors compiled and further ranked by
I.T. professionals in the U.S. whose firms had deployed an ERP system a year earlier Or were about to deploy an ERP system:
1) Management Support
Senior Management although providing the authorization for the funding, must be seen playing an active role in providing top –down leadership for the project and participate in key decisions related to the project. Senior Management also has to be viewed as a resource where the PM can turn to leverage stakeholder cooperation and a resource where by requests for resource management can be funneled.
2) Project Team Knowledge
Resources within I.T. fields are highly specialized and are scarce frequently resources are contracted for a specific period of time according to both skill set required and availability. The Project Manager has to be able to assess the relative skills sets required within and where they will be required in the project lifecycle. If resources are not available the P.M. has to be able to mentor and encourage and even teach new skills to reach the particular milestone.
3) Interdepartmental Cooperation
Most projects have a collaborative requirement and feel to them and the PM has to not only build teams but reach across other departments and conflicting schedules and constraints to generate the cooperation of the resources from other departments.
The paradox being that the goal in introducing technology is to introduce business functions across several departments in a seamless fashion.
4) Clear Goals & Objectives
In the project –mapping process a blueprint is defined and goes through an evolutionary process throughout the project lifecycle and as such goes through stages of identification, validation and refinement before acceptance as a business process model.
5) Project Management
The PM has to be aware of many different project management methodologies and may have to select from the particular model which is aligned to the nature of the project scope. The PM also has to have inter-personal skills which cam make decisions, motivate personnel to action and also be able to effectively communicate with all levels of company management. Furthermore the PM must be sensitive to cultural and global differences in work ethic and management styles.
6) Management of Expectations
This is an important part of activity throughout the project management lifecycle as expectations by the external vendor could be overstated or Senior Management that is not closely aligned to the project may interpret their own ideas as to what constitute an outcome.
7) Project Champion
This is a role usually someone which is on the company Senior Management Team i.e. C.I.O. that not only is the senior voice and face of the project but can champion ideas and deal with concerns that are addressed by the PM and can be communicated to Senior Executive Management for resolution.
8) Vendor Support
This is critical to the overall project management model and requires in-depth study as no RFP document can respond to this. The PM and team will have to consult with external users of the system and other client locations of the vendor to evaluate the level of support. Additionally the software vendor unbeknown to the RFP may choose to lower their costs by outsourcing that layer of the project to keep down their costs to optimize profits, This is critical that a stipulation be placed on the RFP which excludes the vendor to outsource that part of the mandate.
9) Vendor Selection
The pivotal piece of the Project Management puzzle as this is the solution that everyone has embarked upon and the enterprise is going to align their growth and manage their resources to. Reputation of being a stable product with few releases being produced, a large network of users to refer to and a product which is scalable and does not require a great deal of customization and can be deployed and support
10) Project Communication
In today’s project management world where code may be written in India and supported in central America and companies have applications that are used globally. The need to communicate effectively across several levels of management ,in different time zones and to be able to manage priorities is key. In order to adhere to the Project Schedule parts of the project may be outsourced across the globe and across many different departments.
To unite all these factions together is to hold a scheduled meeting that transcends as many as the time zones, this can be done using tools such as net meeting,or other telephone and visual tools where files can be shared and information across key decision makers can be shared and communicated with. The style of communicating has to also be positive and proactive as it has to always engender the spirit of cooperation and that everyone has a sense of ownership to the projects success
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/01/15/project-management-pitfalls/
Shifting Paradigms
In a recent study published by CIO Insight Magazine dated July 2006: What’s the Value of IT? At Many Companies, It’s Just Guesswork
a) I.T. Professionals responded that nearly 70% of Companies with less then $100, Million U.S.D. annual sales stated: The Pressure to place a dollar value on intangible or “soft benefits” from I.T. investments had increased in recent years.
b) In the same survey that 83% of firms with annual sales below$500 million U.S.D. that the results of the ROI analysis usually influence I.T. investment spending.
c) My firm’s CFO is demanding new and improved methods to measure that our I.T. Investment generates business value.
On the basis of this study the argument can be made that unless projects can deliver upon the stated objectives within the project deliverables and under budget then financial approval of not be likely. Furthermore the Project Manager and team have to orient their paradigms to be aligned more on a business model Beyond the technical aspects of technology deployment such as form, fit and function are related change management issues which if not managed as part of the Project Plan can threaten to derail a project in its entirety, the change management issues have become to be known as Critical Success Factors or (CSF’s)
Top Ten Critical Success Factors
In a recent article by the Dutch Consulting Firm Somers & Nelson a study was authored which featured a list of over 21 Critical Success Factors compiled and further ranked by
I.T. professionals in the U.S. whose firms had deployed an ERP system a year earlier Or were about to deploy an ERP system:
1) Management Support
Senior Management although providing the authorization for the funding, must be seen playing an active role in providing top –down leadership for the project and participate in key decisions related to the project. Senior Management also has to be viewed as a resource where the PM can turn to leverage stakeholder cooperation and a resource where by requests for resource management can be funneled.
2) Project Team Knowledge
Resources within I.T. fields are highly specialized and are scarce frequently resources are contracted for a specific period of time according to both skill set required and availability. The Project Manager has to be able to assess the relative skills sets required within and where they will be required in the project lifecycle. If resources are not available the P.M. has to be able to mentor and encourage and even teach new skills to reach the particular milestone.
3) Interdepartmental Cooperation
Most projects have a collaborative requirement and feel to them and the PM has to not only build teams but reach across other departments and conflicting schedules and constraints to generate the cooperation of the resources from other departments.
The paradox being that the goal in introducing technology is to introduce business functions across several departments in a seamless fashion.
4) Clear Goals & Objectives
In the project –mapping process a blueprint is defined and goes through an evolutionary process throughout the project lifecycle and as such goes through stages of identification, validation and refinement before acceptance as a business process model.
5) Project Management
The PM has to be aware of many different project management methodologies and may have to select from the particular model which is aligned to the nature of the project scope. The PM also has to have inter-personal skills which cam make decisions, motivate personnel to action and also be able to effectively communicate with all levels of company management. Furthermore the PM must be sensitive to cultural and global differences in work ethic and management styles.
6) Management of Expectations
This is an important part of activity throughout the project management lifecycle as expectations by the external vendor could be overstated or Senior Management that is not closely aligned to the project may interpret their own ideas as to what constitute an outcome.
7) Project Champion
This is a role usually someone which is on the company Senior Management Team i.e. C.I.O. that not only is the senior voice and face of the project but can champion ideas and deal with concerns that are addressed by the PM and can be communicated to Senior Executive Management for resolution.
8) Vendor Support
This is critical to the overall project management model and requires in-depth study as no RFP document can respond to this. The PM and team will have to consult with external users of the system and other client locations of the vendor to evaluate the level of support. Additionally the software vendor unbeknown to the RFP may choose to lower their costs by outsourcing that layer of the project to keep down their costs to optimize profits, This is critical that a stipulation be placed on the RFP which excludes the vendor to outsource that part of the mandate.
9) Vendor Selection
The pivotal piece of the Project Management puzzle as this is the solution that everyone has embarked upon and the enterprise is going to align their growth and manage their resources to. Reputation of being a stable product with few releases being produced, a large network of users to refer to and a product which is scalable and does not require a great deal of customization and can be deployed and support
10) Project Communication
In today’s project management world where code may be written in India and supported in central America and companies have applications that are used globally. The need to communicate effectively across several levels of management ,in different time zones and to be able to manage priorities is key. In order to adhere to the Project Schedule parts of the project may be outsourced across the globe and across many different departments.
To unite all these factions together is to hold a scheduled meeting that transcends as many as the time zones, this can be done using tools such as net meeting,or other telephone and visual tools where files can be shared and information across key decision makers can be shared and communicated with. The style of communicating has to also be positive and proactive as it has to always engender the spirit of cooperation and that everyone has a sense of ownership to the projects success
SOURCE:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/01/15/project-management-pitfalls/
Where is Oracle in the Product Lifecycle Management Software Market
Over the past ten years or so, most enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors have invested heavily in their product solution suites in order to extend their product portfolio beyond traditional integrated ERP components like financial accounting, human resources (HR), manufacturing resource planning, order management, inventory management, etc. Common application extension segments, generally built on the same technology platform as the ERP modules, include customer relationship management (CRM), supplier relationship management (SRM), supply chain management (SCM), and product lifecycle management (PLM).
At the ERP tier one level, which clearly includes SAP and Oracle, major efforts have been made to ward off the attempts of best-of-breed vendors to exploit revenue opportunities resulting from the gaps left by ERP. However, considerably different approaches have been taken by the two companies. SAP has taken the organic growth through internal development approach to application extensions, which can be time consuming and often results in a late-to-market outcry by clients in need. On the other hand, it often results in a product with the same look-touch-feel and process controls as the traditional ERP components and has better integration touch points. Oracle has taken a somewhat more risky and expensive "acquisition" approach for certain functional areas, as demonstrated by the acquisitions of Siebel for CRM, G-Log for multimodal transportation planning and execution, and Retek for unique retail applications and expertise. PLM, however, seems to be a more difficult puzzle for Oracle to solve. Internal development and commitment to the PLM solution set continues in earnest, while any speculation that their game plan may include a PLM acquisition alternative is just that, speculation.
Oracle PLM 11i.10
Oracle appears to have most of the key elements of a PLM suite. They provide the means for centralized product information, collaboration within and across the extended enterprise for product development, product configuration, and sourcing, as well as visibility and control of product portfolio management (PPM). They also offer a best-in-class Product Information Management (PIM) Data Hub product, and tout its PLM applications as providing the most advanced set of tools based on a single global product set repository. The current Oracle PLM Suite includes the following modules.
* Product Lifecycle Management is the core of the applications suite, with centralized product and component information within a single global catalog for product data management (PDM; items, structures, revisions, issues, change requests, roles, and project issues), as well as intellectual capital. Product change management and issue resolution is also addressed within this core module.
* Oracle CADView-3D provides visualization and mark-up capabilities for two dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D) modeling. Documents can have various formats, such as word-processing files, image files, computer-aided design (CAD) 2D or 3D drawing files, and other unstructured data formats.
* Project Management provides project planning, tracking, budgeting, and forecasting capabilities, as well as Project Collaboration software for reporting the project status to all stakeholders. Oracle Projects is integrated with the other relevant Oracle modules to manage projects like financials, HR, CRM, and procurement. It is geared toward new product development introduction (NPDI), with lifecycle phase gate product management. It also has built-in application programming interfaces (API) to Microsoft Project, Primavera, and Artemis, supporting a two-way interchange with desktop scheduling systems.
* Product Portfolio Management enables what-if analysis on product portfolio simulations, priority rankings based on investment, alternative cost and benefit analyses, and idea management.
* Oracle Sourcing integrates negotiation of supplier contracts with effective on-line management of the negotiation process as part of the PLM activities.
* Oracle Configurator manages customer needs with configuration rules for complex products and services as part of the sales cycle.
* Daily Business Intelligence manages the product data repository for analytics.
* Product Data Synchronization provides for Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN) or Uniform Code Council (UCC)net services.
The Oracle PLM suite is built on a single e-business suite data model and technology platform, providing for seamless process integration and business intelligence, which are two of Oracle's strengths among its general business applications. Oracle's PIM Data Hub extends the Oracle PLM solution to synchronize product data spread across diverse business entities. Oracle PLM also integrates with Oracle Content Services to provide for application-specific document and content management. Finally, Oracle PLM addresses most of the needs and nuances of NPDI and addresses all of the salient compliance issues for both discrete and process industries.
While the PLM suite outlined above seems relatively comprehensive, it has been brought together over time as a conglomeration of existing modules that were not necessarily developed with PLM in mind, although there was also considerable product development that did have a PLM focus. Given Oracle's legacy in database management, it is no surprise that the product data management, business intelligence, and decision support capabilities are the strongest parts of the PLM suite. These strengths, coupled with acquisitions for guided selling (Concentra in 1998) and CAD viewing technology (Assentive in 2001), and a heavy dose of integration work and internal development have helped bring Oracle PLM to the level where it is a viable solution for its installed base. In fact, the suite has several key high-technology clients, and really has gained momentum in other key Oracle verticals.
During its Oracle E-Enterprise Suite 11i.9 rollout, Oracle espoused a renewed interest and heavy investment in SCM and PLM. This version has essentially the same components as those listed above, but with more depth and tighter controls for product collaboration. The version 11i.9 release also offers a slew of new features aimed at a number of selected focus industries, such as the aerospace and defense (A&D), automotive, telecommunications, consumer packaged goods (CPG), government, high-technology, healthcare, and life sciences industries. However, the product is not as deep in certain verticals as the products of best-of-breed vendors focused on specific verticals.
Source:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/where-is-oracle-in-the-product-lifecycle-management-software-market-18393/
At the ERP tier one level, which clearly includes SAP and Oracle, major efforts have been made to ward off the attempts of best-of-breed vendors to exploit revenue opportunities resulting from the gaps left by ERP. However, considerably different approaches have been taken by the two companies. SAP has taken the organic growth through internal development approach to application extensions, which can be time consuming and often results in a late-to-market outcry by clients in need. On the other hand, it often results in a product with the same look-touch-feel and process controls as the traditional ERP components and has better integration touch points. Oracle has taken a somewhat more risky and expensive "acquisition" approach for certain functional areas, as demonstrated by the acquisitions of Siebel for CRM, G-Log for multimodal transportation planning and execution, and Retek for unique retail applications and expertise. PLM, however, seems to be a more difficult puzzle for Oracle to solve. Internal development and commitment to the PLM solution set continues in earnest, while any speculation that their game plan may include a PLM acquisition alternative is just that, speculation.
Oracle PLM 11i.10
Oracle appears to have most of the key elements of a PLM suite. They provide the means for centralized product information, collaboration within and across the extended enterprise for product development, product configuration, and sourcing, as well as visibility and control of product portfolio management (PPM). They also offer a best-in-class Product Information Management (PIM) Data Hub product, and tout its PLM applications as providing the most advanced set of tools based on a single global product set repository. The current Oracle PLM Suite includes the following modules.
* Product Lifecycle Management is the core of the applications suite, with centralized product and component information within a single global catalog for product data management (PDM; items, structures, revisions, issues, change requests, roles, and project issues), as well as intellectual capital. Product change management and issue resolution is also addressed within this core module.
* Oracle CADView-3D provides visualization and mark-up capabilities for two dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D) modeling. Documents can have various formats, such as word-processing files, image files, computer-aided design (CAD) 2D or 3D drawing files, and other unstructured data formats.
* Project Management provides project planning, tracking, budgeting, and forecasting capabilities, as well as Project Collaboration software for reporting the project status to all stakeholders. Oracle Projects is integrated with the other relevant Oracle modules to manage projects like financials, HR, CRM, and procurement. It is geared toward new product development introduction (NPDI), with lifecycle phase gate product management. It also has built-in application programming interfaces (API) to Microsoft Project, Primavera, and Artemis, supporting a two-way interchange with desktop scheduling systems.
* Product Portfolio Management enables what-if analysis on product portfolio simulations, priority rankings based on investment, alternative cost and benefit analyses, and idea management.
* Oracle Sourcing integrates negotiation of supplier contracts with effective on-line management of the negotiation process as part of the PLM activities.
* Oracle Configurator manages customer needs with configuration rules for complex products and services as part of the sales cycle.
* Daily Business Intelligence manages the product data repository for analytics.
* Product Data Synchronization provides for Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN) or Uniform Code Council (UCC)net services.
The Oracle PLM suite is built on a single e-business suite data model and technology platform, providing for seamless process integration and business intelligence, which are two of Oracle's strengths among its general business applications. Oracle's PIM Data Hub extends the Oracle PLM solution to synchronize product data spread across diverse business entities. Oracle PLM also integrates with Oracle Content Services to provide for application-specific document and content management. Finally, Oracle PLM addresses most of the needs and nuances of NPDI and addresses all of the salient compliance issues for both discrete and process industries.
While the PLM suite outlined above seems relatively comprehensive, it has been brought together over time as a conglomeration of existing modules that were not necessarily developed with PLM in mind, although there was also considerable product development that did have a PLM focus. Given Oracle's legacy in database management, it is no surprise that the product data management, business intelligence, and decision support capabilities are the strongest parts of the PLM suite. These strengths, coupled with acquisitions for guided selling (Concentra in 1998) and CAD viewing technology (Assentive in 2001), and a heavy dose of integration work and internal development have helped bring Oracle PLM to the level where it is a viable solution for its installed base. In fact, the suite has several key high-technology clients, and really has gained momentum in other key Oracle verticals.
During its Oracle E-Enterprise Suite 11i.9 rollout, Oracle espoused a renewed interest and heavy investment in SCM and PLM. This version has essentially the same components as those listed above, but with more depth and tighter controls for product collaboration. The version 11i.9 release also offers a slew of new features aimed at a number of selected focus industries, such as the aerospace and defense (A&D), automotive, telecommunications, consumer packaged goods (CPG), government, high-technology, healthcare, and life sciences industries. However, the product is not as deep in certain verticals as the products of best-of-breed vendors focused on specific verticals.
Source:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/where-is-oracle-in-the-product-lifecycle-management-software-market-18393/
APICS 2009 Preview Series, Session 1—Time Management and Master Scheduling
I listened to a webinar organized by The Association for Operations Management (APICS) for their upcoming International Conference and Expo,which will be hosted in Toronto, Ontario (Canada) from October 4th to 6th 2009. This is the first webcast in the series, and its title really got my attention: “Time Management and Master Scheduling: Built from the Same Cloth.” The speaker for this webcast was Donald H. Sheldon, the president of DH Sheldon & Associates. He described in this particular webcast the importance of time management within master scheduling.
He brought up few great time management concepts, linking them directly to how current master schedulers can use them for the benefit of the organization. When making decisions and determining what needs to be prioritized in the production line’s master schedule, master schedulers are influenced by many factors. For example, the customer might ask for a faster delivery of the product or a supplier might miss a critical delivery date.
Mr. Sheldon brought up the point that a master schedule of a production needs to have a firm time fence that is not longer than 48 hours. This way, production can be stabilized and the equipment, resources, and material can be used to their full capacity. As we know, when a master production schedule (MPS) is created with an objective in mind, more deliverables are accomplished, less time is wasted, and better communication happens amongst all parties involved. In the presentation, Mr. Sheldon provided an MPS test, which gave an idea of how critical or detrimental the situation could be for organizations not using master scheduling techniques as they should be used. If all or some of the processes listed below exist within your organization, it is suggested that you investigate how effective your planning and scheduling processes are.
* Your production is running 24/7
* Your scheduling process directly reports to production management
* Production line changeover time is above 40 minutes
* No or minimum preventative maintenance is scheduled for equipment (a lot of production downtime due to equipment malfunctioning)
* Your sales department has authority to change production scheduling
* Your master scheduler has no authority or decision power in his/her hands
* Your organization does not use firm time fences in the business process model or they are greater than 48 hrs
Usually, the major hurdle with the MPS is coping with unknown requests. When multiple authorized parties within an organization are determining the schedule, it becomes very difficult to prioritize needs and to know what the actual requirements are. The best way to control the issue of prioritization is by using the time management technique of categorizing each issue’s importance and then determining the sequence in which it needs to progress.
For example, if an individual has multiple tasks or activities to perform in a time horizon of 24 hours, he/she needs to categorize which items are important, most important, non critical, and critical (show stoppers); this will help the individual create a sequence in which all activities need to happen. This same concept applies to master production scheduling. In MPS, an organization can have a firm orders, replenishment orders, and urgent orders, each order type with its own requirements to fill. For example, the firm order needs to be delivered to the customer on the date committed by the sales team. For this type of order, an organization can either replenish that order through its actual lead time or through its on-hand replenishment inventory, which can be defined by the sales team and the master scheduler. All factors of prioritization need to be considered before a product gets prioritized in the MPS schedule.
Mr. Sheldon defined the process of MRP and pull in the webinar but he did not go into too many details of sales and operations planning (S&OP) and its link with MPS. He mentioned that the S&OP topic will be covered in detail at the APICS convention. For me, the most interesting part of the webinar was how he explained that there has to be accountability for master scheduling within all departments of the organization. He even outlined that performance review of master scheduling needs to happen on a weekly basis to identify actions by process owners and use standardized reporting methods to capture trends and changes in master scheduling. In my past experience, many organizations who failed to understand the trends of their sales cycle and supplier cycle lost profitability and brought inefficiencies into their processes.
source:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2009/08/24/apics-2009-preview-series-session-1%E2%80%94time-management-and-master-scheduling-built-from-the-same-cloth/
He brought up few great time management concepts, linking them directly to how current master schedulers can use them for the benefit of the organization. When making decisions and determining what needs to be prioritized in the production line’s master schedule, master schedulers are influenced by many factors. For example, the customer might ask for a faster delivery of the product or a supplier might miss a critical delivery date.
Mr. Sheldon brought up the point that a master schedule of a production needs to have a firm time fence that is not longer than 48 hours. This way, production can be stabilized and the equipment, resources, and material can be used to their full capacity. As we know, when a master production schedule (MPS) is created with an objective in mind, more deliverables are accomplished, less time is wasted, and better communication happens amongst all parties involved. In the presentation, Mr. Sheldon provided an MPS test, which gave an idea of how critical or detrimental the situation could be for organizations not using master scheduling techniques as they should be used. If all or some of the processes listed below exist within your organization, it is suggested that you investigate how effective your planning and scheduling processes are.
* Your production is running 24/7
* Your scheduling process directly reports to production management
* Production line changeover time is above 40 minutes
* No or minimum preventative maintenance is scheduled for equipment (a lot of production downtime due to equipment malfunctioning)
* Your sales department has authority to change production scheduling
* Your master scheduler has no authority or decision power in his/her hands
* Your organization does not use firm time fences in the business process model or they are greater than 48 hrs
Usually, the major hurdle with the MPS is coping with unknown requests. When multiple authorized parties within an organization are determining the schedule, it becomes very difficult to prioritize needs and to know what the actual requirements are. The best way to control the issue of prioritization is by using the time management technique of categorizing each issue’s importance and then determining the sequence in which it needs to progress.
For example, if an individual has multiple tasks or activities to perform in a time horizon of 24 hours, he/she needs to categorize which items are important, most important, non critical, and critical (show stoppers); this will help the individual create a sequence in which all activities need to happen. This same concept applies to master production scheduling. In MPS, an organization can have a firm orders, replenishment orders, and urgent orders, each order type with its own requirements to fill. For example, the firm order needs to be delivered to the customer on the date committed by the sales team. For this type of order, an organization can either replenish that order through its actual lead time or through its on-hand replenishment inventory, which can be defined by the sales team and the master scheduler. All factors of prioritization need to be considered before a product gets prioritized in the MPS schedule.
Mr. Sheldon defined the process of MRP and pull in the webinar but he did not go into too many details of sales and operations planning (S&OP) and its link with MPS. He mentioned that the S&OP topic will be covered in detail at the APICS convention. For me, the most interesting part of the webinar was how he explained that there has to be accountability for master scheduling within all departments of the organization. He even outlined that performance review of master scheduling needs to happen on a weekly basis to identify actions by process owners and use standardized reporting methods to capture trends and changes in master scheduling. In my past experience, many organizations who failed to understand the trends of their sales cycle and supplier cycle lost profitability and brought inefficiencies into their processes.
source:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2009/08/24/apics-2009-preview-series-session-1%E2%80%94time-management-and-master-scheduling-built-from-the-same-cloth/
IT Project Management Tools: MS Project and Its AlternativesIT Project Management Tools: MS Project and Its Alternatives-1
In a previous blog post, I wrote about the Project Manager’s role and some of the constraints that affect the daily life of a PM, namely: scope, time, and cost. This post will focus on some of the tools a PM uses on a day-to-day basis (and why), and some of the limiting factors that these tools present. In order to understand the use of PM tools it is essential to have an understanding of the PM’s role in the area of software deployment strategy, and the techniques used to realize the PM’s objectives.
The Project Manager’s Key Functions
The PM leads the planning and development of the project schedule, including defining the scope of all deliverables,
negotiating budgets and schedules, and managing resources to manage and complete a technical project. In order to
accomplish these tasks the PM is dealing with:
• Staffing the project team according to skill set required
• Providing the project blueprint and design changes
• Introducing business process changes
• Monitoring and communicating project progress
• Providing quality assurance and project documentation
• Serving as primary subject matter expert
• Providing post-project support and auditing
The diverse nature of these tasks requires a tool which can support the need to monitor progress and document the
evolution through each stage of the project.Inasmuch as project management has evolved, so have the tools to support these functions.
History of Project Management Tools
Project management as a discipline evolved from different fields of application, including construction, engineering
and defense, and manufacturing (and then subsequently, IT). The early tools used on an adhoc basis and still in use
today are:
• Gantt Charts
A popular type of bar chart that illustrates a product schedule featuring the start and end dates of a series of
top-level tasks and the subsequent related lower-level tasks in terms of a hierarchy which comprises the WBS (work
breakdown structure) of a project and the dependency between subsequent project tasks and phases.
• PERT(Program Evaluation & Review Technique)
A method to analyze the tasks in completing a project and the interval time to complete each project task by
calculating the optimal time to project completion. Its use is primarily in R&D projects where time rather then cost
is a mitigating factor in project completion.
• CPM (Critical Path Method)
Developed in the mid 1950s by US-based DuPont and Rand Corporation on the Polaris defense contract. Its primary
feature is the calculation of all time for all activities from the beginning to an end of a project. The process
determines the date by when an activity can start and end without making the overall project completion date
delayed.
The methodologies described above were refined and modified for use in MS Project. This product was developed in
1987 for Microsoft by a firm which was contracted to assist in managing software development production timelines.
Subsequently, Microsoft purchased this firm, and in 1990 released the product as part of MS Windows V3.
Uses and Limitations of MS Project
Speaking from personal experience, in almost every IT department I have worked over the past 15 years, in my various
roles as a business systems analyst, to project manager for both SMBs and large corporations, the MS suite of
products was used as the primary tool for documenting project management.
MS Project was used to manage project scope and milestones, track deliverables, and manage resources. MS Visio was
used to document and flowchart process models. MS PowerPoint was used for end-user training, as a tool to make
presentations to obtain project funding, and (once the project was under way) to communicate progress and highlight
constraints with senior management. In addition, MS Word was used to write user training guides and document project
changes and methodologies. Furthermore MS Excel was used in a variety of tasks planning, reporting and importing
information to update the project plan. The constraints that I experienced are no doubt limiting factors which
others have experienced in the utilization of MS Project:
sourec:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/02/13/it-project-management-tools-ms-project-and-its-alternatives/
The Project Manager’s Key Functions
The PM leads the planning and development of the project schedule, including defining the scope of all deliverables,
negotiating budgets and schedules, and managing resources to manage and complete a technical project. In order to
accomplish these tasks the PM is dealing with:
• Staffing the project team according to skill set required
• Providing the project blueprint and design changes
• Introducing business process changes
• Monitoring and communicating project progress
• Providing quality assurance and project documentation
• Serving as primary subject matter expert
• Providing post-project support and auditing
The diverse nature of these tasks requires a tool which can support the need to monitor progress and document the
evolution through each stage of the project.Inasmuch as project management has evolved, so have the tools to support these functions.
History of Project Management Tools
Project management as a discipline evolved from different fields of application, including construction, engineering
and defense, and manufacturing (and then subsequently, IT). The early tools used on an adhoc basis and still in use
today are:
• Gantt Charts
A popular type of bar chart that illustrates a product schedule featuring the start and end dates of a series of
top-level tasks and the subsequent related lower-level tasks in terms of a hierarchy which comprises the WBS (work
breakdown structure) of a project and the dependency between subsequent project tasks and phases.
• PERT(Program Evaluation & Review Technique)
A method to analyze the tasks in completing a project and the interval time to complete each project task by
calculating the optimal time to project completion. Its use is primarily in R&D projects where time rather then cost
is a mitigating factor in project completion.
• CPM (Critical Path Method)
Developed in the mid 1950s by US-based DuPont and Rand Corporation on the Polaris defense contract. Its primary
feature is the calculation of all time for all activities from the beginning to an end of a project. The process
determines the date by when an activity can start and end without making the overall project completion date
delayed.
The methodologies described above were refined and modified for use in MS Project. This product was developed in
1987 for Microsoft by a firm which was contracted to assist in managing software development production timelines.
Subsequently, Microsoft purchased this firm, and in 1990 released the product as part of MS Windows V3.
Uses and Limitations of MS Project
Speaking from personal experience, in almost every IT department I have worked over the past 15 years, in my various
roles as a business systems analyst, to project manager for both SMBs and large corporations, the MS suite of
products was used as the primary tool for documenting project management.
MS Project was used to manage project scope and milestones, track deliverables, and manage resources. MS Visio was
used to document and flowchart process models. MS PowerPoint was used for end-user training, as a tool to make
presentations to obtain project funding, and (once the project was under way) to communicate progress and highlight
constraints with senior management. In addition, MS Word was used to write user training guides and document project
changes and methodologies. Furthermore MS Excel was used in a variety of tasks planning, reporting and importing
information to update the project plan. The constraints that I experienced are no doubt limiting factors which
others have experienced in the utilization of MS Project:
sourec:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2008/02/13/it-project-management-tools-ms-project-and-its-alternatives/
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