Deltek has dedicated itself to one primary industry with many sub-groups: project-oriented business solutions for contractors and consultants. Originally known for its government contracting expertise, Deltek has expanded its product line to include several different enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to serve project-based businesses in different niches, and has created a leading position in additional sub-markets.
Deltek Vision, released in 2002 as a fully web-enabled product serves the professional services automation (PSA) market. The solution offers users all of the features they might require to manage the entire project life cycle from client acquisition and retention, to proposal generation, to project planning and management to billing and finally to back-end financial management.
Deltek and Deltek Vision have been successful because the company and product are focused on very specific market segments, offering users the technology, terminology, and functionality required only by the market segment.
Company History
Founded in 1983, Deltek (http://www.deltek.com) has expanded from its government contracting roots to compete in several allied markets. Revenue growth has been steady and significant, with 2004 revenue reaching $122 million (USD) and a 20 percent growth rate. The majority of growth in 2004 came from new customers.
New Mountain Capital purchased 75 percent of Deltek's shares in 2005 to recapitalize the company and allow it to further expand its product line, develop a broader channel particularly overseas, gain market share through significant increases in marketing programs, and continue its investment in technology.
In June of 2005, Kevin Parker, former co-president and chief financial officer (CFO) of PeopleSoft joined Deltek as its chief executive officer.
Core Product Line Summary
Deltek Enterprise, also known as Costpoint, is aimed at large organizations that provide project-oriented services as well as businesses that perform discrete manufacturing or build-to-suit project manufacturing. Currently serving 1,000 customers, Deltek Enterprise provides a complete range of application suites including customer resource management (CRM), financials, time/expense, resource and project planning, human resources (HR) and payroll, business process management (workflow and alerts), business performance management (business intelligence and planning solutions), and materials management.
GSC Premier, which serves approximately 1,200 government contractors, has similar functionality, and can leverage Deltek's recently released GovWin application, which manages complex government contracts. GovWin can also be used in conjunction with Deltek Enterprise.
Deltek Vision
One product in particular warrants further discussion: Deltek Vision. Released in 2002, Vision replaces to some extent earlier products serving the same PSA-focused market. Version 4 is scheduled for release in Q2 2006. Currently, Vision supports 800 clients and there is an additional 5,800 customers on Vision's predecessor products.
Deltek Vision is a fully integrated, browser-based solution designed specifically for professional service firms. Fifty percent of its customer base is comprised of firms with fifty or fewer employees. Deltek's target market is 100 percent small and medium businesses (SMB) with revenues from $2 million to $200 million (USD).
Deltek created Vision to meet the ERP needs of project-based professional services firms, including consulting firms, IT service system integrators, and architecture and engineering firms.
To better meet the needs of its target market, Deltek has identified three key challenges for PSA firms that it claims its products help them address:
* How to win new and repeat business
* How to improve project performance
* How to maximize project margins
Vision can be thought of as two suites of applications, both of which are fully integrated. The business management functions are aimed specifically at the PSA market and include Vision Dashboard, CRM, proposal automation, resource management, project planning, time and expense management, and billing.
Its more generalized back-end accounting functions include project and financial accounting, purchasing, inventory management (with version 4 is due out in the second quarter of 2006), human resources, multicurrency, reporting and configuration.
What Makes Deltek Vision Different
Because Deltek Vision has been designed from the ground up to serve the needs of a very specific market, the menu system reflects the typical project life cycle: marketing and client/project acquisition; opportunity management; proposal creation (including government proposal); project setup (including automatic conversion from opportunity to project); resource management which includes sophisticated resource definitions (people and outside consultants primarily); search capabilities to identify those resources a specific client or project requires; resource scheduling; and finally resource tracking and monitoring.
Deltek Vision also includes time and expense input and reporting, project planning, scheduling, management and budgeting, project billing, and business management control (accounting and financial reporting).
The solution does not compete in other markets, and has been architected to meet very specific requirements in a few selected fields. Project planning is fully integrated with accounting and supports a multilevel work breakdown structure, as well as sophisticated revenue and profit forecasting. In addition, Vision's project oriented CRM includes a robust proposal automation application.
Another notable feature is Vision's user interface (UI) and Vision Dashboard. Both are completely customizable Web pages. The UI acts as the portal through which all employees interact with the system. Even though these are Web pages, they have been designed to look and act like standard windows forms. Vision Dashboard contains as many dash parts (graphs and other data) as the user requires. As additional dash parts are added, the web page expands supporting automatic vertical and horizontal scrolling. Users can, for example, add different variations of a chart that shows data sliced in different ways or they can add multiple contact lists that represent different sort or select options. Standard user-defined menu options are displayed on the left-hand side of the screen, while key financial indicators (data as well as graphs) are displayed in the center section of the screen. These indicators can be modified to fit the needs of each user. The right-hand column displays alerts and workflow tasks and activities.
Vision CRM
Completing favorably with products such as Pivotal and SalesLogix, is Vision CRM, and its strength lies with the fact that it has been created specifically for project-driven businesses in terms of both functionality and language. It includes marketing and business development, client and prospect contact management, opportunity tracking, activity scheduling, and proposal development and tracking. Like many other CRM systems, Vision allows users to create additional tables and fields to suit their unique requirements.
On of the ways Vision separates itself from the competition is through its proposal automation suite. This unique subset allows users to create effective graphical proposals with content that addresses the prospect's specific requirements.
Users create and retrieve template proposals for private sector prospects, cost proposals, and RFP responses. In addition the applications support US government forms, including the SF330 form. One of the unique aspects of the proposal suite is Vision's ability to maintain resumes of key employees that will be included in a proposal or some other communication to a prospect. Once all of this information has been created for a specific proposal, it can be exported to Microsoft Word for fine tuning and final presentation.
Project Planning and Management
The key component for any project-oriented business is project planning and management. Deltek Vision starts with the project plan and then taps into resource management to populate the project with appropriate skill sets. Its resource management module also includes skills definitions, skill searches to identify resources that can be assigned to a project, resource utilization reporting, as well as over- and under-utilization alerts.
The project plan can be created in the opportunity stage and modified until the actual project has been awarded. All costs associated with both the active project as well as the opportunity can be assigned to the project letting managers assess the entire project, not just that part associated with revenue generation.
In addition to its project planning features, Vision also supports a top down budget tool based on a flexible three-level work breakdown structure that lets managers forecast and track labor, consultants, and expenses to any level. At any point, managers can access a summary as well as details for labor, expenses, consultants, and financial analysis.
Vision's pure project management functions are straight forward and powerful, supporting everything from task dependencies, earned value tracking, profit, and revenue forecasting, and more. It is being used by firms to manage extremely complex projects. Although this suite competes very favorably with other project management products, Deltek Vision also gives users the ability to integrate with these products if they so desire.
In addition to the aforementioned functions, Vision also offers the typical time/expense application features found in other PSA-oriented products. It includes resource (time) management, as well as cost management (travel, entertainment, purchased supplies, etc.). The resource management feature allows managers to create timesheets, which can include tasks assigned to each employee, increase timesheets entry speed, and reducing input errors. Once a timesheet has been completed, it is forwarded via the workflow engine to an appropriate supervisor for approval and from there to both payroll as well as the project itself. Moreover, timesheets are auto-populated based on the projects for which the employee is budgeted, thus ensuring more accurate and efficient time collection. Other templates include Vision's billing template, which lets users create template invoice formats, assign them to individual customers, define billing rates, and compete other setup tasks before an invoice needs to be billed. Once these tasks have been accomplished, the actual billing process is far easier because the manager only has to decide what needs to be billed. Vision has segregated this complexity into the setup routines thus making the billing process relatively easy.
While its product, Vision, supports standard financial reporting, Deltek recognizes that its customers are project-driven businesses and need to integrate project reporting with financial reporting. It therefore supports profit planning and budgeting as well as organizational reporting including any defined business unit or even individual employee. Project costing and profitability can be tracked from its initial opportunity through to project's completion to give users a full view of each project and customer. Reports can even be created that identify the costs required to acquire new clients and projects.
To do this, Deltek Vision incorporates the Actuate eReporting Suite to deliver a powerful, flexible, and robust interactive reporting environment. The Actuate eReporting architecture seamlessly integrates with the Deltek Vision application, providing a completely Web-based solution that is scalable to meet the needs of the most demanding reporting requirements. Deltek Vision's interactive reporting model provides users with an intuitive, easy-to-use method for controlling the content and layout of Vision reports. In addition, existing reports can be modified and new reports can be added to the Vision report catalog.
Using the Microsoft SharePoint platform, Vision provides a robust document management system that can be accessed by employees, partners and clients. Documents can be segregated by project, employee, contact, opportunity or other key Vision record. A document can be associated with a single record or multiple records, so that it can be used for multiple projects and documents can be organized into libraries and folders and the system supports check-in/check-out capabilities to prevent two people from editing the same document simultaneously. A complete audit trail, including version numbering, is supported as are cross-document and document-type searches including Microsoft Word, Excel, and Adobe PDF.
While Vision has many notable features, its basic accounting functionality is similar to many other products, with some additional features required by project-driven businesses, specifically revenue recognition and sophisticated overhead allocation rules. Its next release will include an inventory application that is expected to close one of the gaps where Vision is not as competitive compared to other products.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/niche-software-at-its-best-18188/
Friday, July 30, 2010
Enterprise Applications--The Genesis and Future, Revisited
Integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solutions became synonymous with competitive advantage, particularly throughout the 1990's. The idea behind ERP systems was to replace "islands of information" with a single, packaged software solution that integrates all traditional enterprise management functions like financials; accounting; payroll; human resource (HR) management; and manufacturing and distribution, and thereby ensure enterprise-wide transaction system coherency. Knowing the history and evolution of ERP within the broader enterprise applications concept is essential to understanding its current use and its future developments. The following is the genesis of enterprise applications by era.
By the time each functional area of a company had developed its integrated software program, the need for tightly integrating them became obvious. The next major shift during the late 1980s and early 1990s was that "time to market" was becoming increasingly short, as the shift from Fordist' mass production to nowadays' prevailing mass-customization (see Glossary*) principles and mindset has irreversibly changed the society and economy standards. Lead times expected by the market continued to shorten and customers were no longer satisfied with the service level that was considered world class only a few years earlier. Also, by the 1980s, competition from Japanese manufacturers and their philosophy has caused US and West European enterprises to look for new efficiencies using information technology.
Namely, customers were demanding to have their products delivered when, where, and how they wanted them. Companies were therefore compelled to develop and embrace the philosophies of just in time (JIT) and closer supplier partnerships as a way to remain competitive. During the same time frame, the cost of goods sold (COGS) was shifting drastically from labor to purchased materials. Consequently, planners needed to know materials allocations or finished goods' available-to-promise (ATP) values, immediately after customer order entry. On the other hand, buyers needed to know the sales plan several months in advance in order to negotiate prices for individual materials. Empowerment of employees was needed to provide the agility that was required to compete in the market.
Hence, the need to develop a system with tightly integrated programs that would use data stored on one common database and would be used enterprise-wide (such as, actions in one department's program driving actions elsewhere), became the highest priority for IT professionals. No longer was it tolerable to submit a request to the IT department and wait several "man-months" of programming time to obtain this critical information. This common-database, company-wide integrated system was named enterprise resource planning (ERP), as companies realized the need to see the entire picture.
APICS still defines ERP as follows:
"1) An accounting-oriented information system for identifying and planning the enterprise-wide resources needed to take, make, ship, and account for customer orders. An ERP system differs from the typical MRPII system in technical requirements such as graphical user interface (GUI), relational database management system (RDBMS), use of fourth-generation language (4GL), and computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools in development, client/server architecture, and open-system portability;
2) More generally, a method for the effective planning and control of all resources needed to take, make, ship, and account for customer orders in a manufacturing, distribution, or service company."
Given many new very recent functional and technological developments, which will be analyzed in other upcoming articles, many may rightly consider certain parts of the above definition as somewhat outdated or not all encompassing. In general, the second part of the definition holds true, given traditional ERP involves software packages that by and large automate and support the processes of the administrative, production, inventory, and product development aspects of an enterprise.
Impact of the PC
Further on, the cost of technology continued to plummet and the advent of the personal computer (PC) revolutionized once again the face of business management systems. At a fast pace, the large inflexible mainframes were replaced by new client/server technology. The power of these small PCs exceeded the power of the large mainframes that were routine only a few years earlier. It became possible to run a fully integrated MRPII system on a small PC. Still, these systems have trickled down slowly from large to smaller enterprises. Many manufacturing enterprises were not computerized in the 1980s, which is largely true even nowadays in the segment consisting of a great number of small workshops that still go by with little or no computerization at all.
IT, however, gained momentum in the 1990s, when PCs become even cheaper, software more sophisticated, and companies become more amenable to using technology. The changing pace of technology had once again leveraged forward the planning and control systems in recognition of a real business need. In addition, unlike previous evolutions, the ERP software vendors offered these critical business applications also to non-manufacturing companies, which sell "know-how" rather than physical products.
ERP is far more than just MRPII which runs on a client/server architecture, given it encompasses all the resource planning for the enterprise including product design, inventory management, material planning, capacity planning, quality control, forecasting, budgeting, purchasing, distribution, reporting tools, and communication systems, to name but a few. These critical business issues affect not only manufacturing companies but also all companies that desire to achieve competitiveness by best utilizing their assets, including information. In other words, ERP systems should help companies become leaner by integrating the basic transaction programs for all departments, allowing quick access to timely information. However, ERP inherited MRPII's basic drawbacks, which are the assumption of infinite capacity and the inflexibility of scheduling dates, preventing companies from taking full advantage of speedy information flow.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/enterprise-applications-the-genesis-and-future-revisited-part-two-1990s-enterprise-resource-planning-17229/
By the time each functional area of a company had developed its integrated software program, the need for tightly integrating them became obvious. The next major shift during the late 1980s and early 1990s was that "time to market" was becoming increasingly short, as the shift from Fordist' mass production to nowadays' prevailing mass-customization (see Glossary*) principles and mindset has irreversibly changed the society and economy standards. Lead times expected by the market continued to shorten and customers were no longer satisfied with the service level that was considered world class only a few years earlier. Also, by the 1980s, competition from Japanese manufacturers and their philosophy has caused US and West European enterprises to look for new efficiencies using information technology.
Namely, customers were demanding to have their products delivered when, where, and how they wanted them. Companies were therefore compelled to develop and embrace the philosophies of just in time (JIT) and closer supplier partnerships as a way to remain competitive. During the same time frame, the cost of goods sold (COGS) was shifting drastically from labor to purchased materials. Consequently, planners needed to know materials allocations or finished goods' available-to-promise (ATP) values, immediately after customer order entry. On the other hand, buyers needed to know the sales plan several months in advance in order to negotiate prices for individual materials. Empowerment of employees was needed to provide the agility that was required to compete in the market.
Hence, the need to develop a system with tightly integrated programs that would use data stored on one common database and would be used enterprise-wide (such as, actions in one department's program driving actions elsewhere), became the highest priority for IT professionals. No longer was it tolerable to submit a request to the IT department and wait several "man-months" of programming time to obtain this critical information. This common-database, company-wide integrated system was named enterprise resource planning (ERP), as companies realized the need to see the entire picture.
APICS still defines ERP as follows:
"1) An accounting-oriented information system for identifying and planning the enterprise-wide resources needed to take, make, ship, and account for customer orders. An ERP system differs from the typical MRPII system in technical requirements such as graphical user interface (GUI), relational database management system (RDBMS), use of fourth-generation language (4GL), and computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools in development, client/server architecture, and open-system portability;
2) More generally, a method for the effective planning and control of all resources needed to take, make, ship, and account for customer orders in a manufacturing, distribution, or service company."
Given many new very recent functional and technological developments, which will be analyzed in other upcoming articles, many may rightly consider certain parts of the above definition as somewhat outdated or not all encompassing. In general, the second part of the definition holds true, given traditional ERP involves software packages that by and large automate and support the processes of the administrative, production, inventory, and product development aspects of an enterprise.
Impact of the PC
Further on, the cost of technology continued to plummet and the advent of the personal computer (PC) revolutionized once again the face of business management systems. At a fast pace, the large inflexible mainframes were replaced by new client/server technology. The power of these small PCs exceeded the power of the large mainframes that were routine only a few years earlier. It became possible to run a fully integrated MRPII system on a small PC. Still, these systems have trickled down slowly from large to smaller enterprises. Many manufacturing enterprises were not computerized in the 1980s, which is largely true even nowadays in the segment consisting of a great number of small workshops that still go by with little or no computerization at all.
IT, however, gained momentum in the 1990s, when PCs become even cheaper, software more sophisticated, and companies become more amenable to using technology. The changing pace of technology had once again leveraged forward the planning and control systems in recognition of a real business need. In addition, unlike previous evolutions, the ERP software vendors offered these critical business applications also to non-manufacturing companies, which sell "know-how" rather than physical products.
ERP is far more than just MRPII which runs on a client/server architecture, given it encompasses all the resource planning for the enterprise including product design, inventory management, material planning, capacity planning, quality control, forecasting, budgeting, purchasing, distribution, reporting tools, and communication systems, to name but a few. These critical business issues affect not only manufacturing companies but also all companies that desire to achieve competitiveness by best utilizing their assets, including information. In other words, ERP systems should help companies become leaner by integrating the basic transaction programs for all departments, allowing quick access to timely information. However, ERP inherited MRPII's basic drawbacks, which are the assumption of infinite capacity and the inflexibility of scheduling dates, preventing companies from taking full advantage of speedy information flow.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/enterprise-applications-the-genesis-and-future-revisited-part-two-1990s-enterprise-resource-planning-17229/
PSA -- Still An Evolving Market
The market for Professional Service Automation (PSA) is still evolving with fragmented offerings from many point solutions providers that are not that financially sound either. As a matter of fact, a vast majority of pure PSA vendors are start-up weaklings, that offer only some of the following areas of an entire PSA (i.e., the bid-to-bill lifecycle), such as opportunity & lead tracking/management, proposal automation, resource planning & forecasting, recruiting & partnering, CRM (customer relationship management), project planning, budgeting & management, employee time & expense entry and processing, project & financial accounting, billing & receivables, HR management, document & knowledge management, business intelligence (BI)/analytics, workflow management, collaboration management, partner relationship management (PRM), portfolio management, practice management, service sourcing, and so on.
Also, a few relatively recent vendor announcements in the PSA market have indicated further morphing and expansion of the scope of PSA, particularly in terms of collaborative capabilities with external partners, enterprise content management (ECM) and enterprise performance management (EPM), to name some. Several vendors have even tried to distance themselves from the acronym, migrating to new catchy names (e.g., Service Process Optimization [SPO], Enterprise Service Automation [ESA], Project Portfolio Management [PPM] or Strategic Workforce Optimization [SWO]) that should indicate a deeper (e.g., with optimization logic similar to supply chain management [SCM] software that should enable allocation of people to projects based on multiple criteria such as utilization, profit, revenue, customer satisfaction, or employee preference) or broader (e.g., to include all business processes linked to knowledge workers working in corporate IT departments, professional services organizations, and/or R&D operations) framework for services delivery.
What started out as a set of applications to better manage customers' projects, astutely allocate staff and monitor their utilization rates has become an important foundation for coordinating a full range of business activities amongst increasingly virtual teams both within and outside the four-walls. Increased synergy and similarities are causing PSA, SPO and project management to consolidate into an emerging PPM market, which is the tracking and management of multiple IT projects with clarity of the costs and benefits as well as potential overlap among them. In other words, it can be seen as a project management applied collectively to a company's entire group of products, with the idea of answering the questions whether the right projects are pursued, whether the firm is spending in the right areas, and whether it has enough of the right resources.
As PSA software integrates and automates core processes related to business development, service delivery and administration for any organization that generates revenue through billable hours, the need for it is apparent particularly in these days of economic downturn when all major consulting outlets are forced to justify the utilization of every individual consultant. In addition to supporting organizations that generate revenue through billable hours, PSA software also benefits corporate IT and other internal service departments that track time for internal charge-back purposes. Recently, there has been awareness within corporate management of a need to regard their IT departments as if they were internal professional service organizations that should compete with external counterparts based on service delivery, expectation levels and cost. There has been a growing realization that the benefits of increased utilization, performance management, quicker and more accurate billing and invoicing, and greater visibility can be equally applied to any services- and/or project-based organization, whether they may be a financial services organization, government or a law firm, or an internal service organization (ISO).
The need for professional service business application software systems is expanding as a result of a number of economic trends. Service organizations traditionally have utilized project accounting more than manufacturing firms due to the need to customize their services for each client and to properly allocate the associated revenues and costs. Many organizations with significant internal development activities can benefit from the use of project accounting systems to closely monitor their progress and cost. Also, although somewhat conversely, more progressive firms may even try to boost their marketing, advertising and PR expenditure in order to gain more project contracts during the shrinking market, where, e.g., the proposal automation capability can come in handy. While project management and resource planning software applications help service organizations deliver within the budget, in a long term, these organizations need to win a new stream of projects and/or customers, which involves pre-sales CRM, marketing and proposal management, and post-sales elements like travel & expense (T&E) management.
As the number and type of project-oriented and professional service organizations increase, such businesses are demanding increasingly sophisticated tools to address their core information and accounting needs, including project accounting, employee time collection, project budgeting, project reporting, CRM, SFA (sales force automation) and proposal generation. At the same time, these organizations are recognizing that, because most aspects of their businesses revolve around their customer project relationships, they can achieve efficiencies in a number of project accounting and core back-office business functions, such as general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, materials management and human resources, through the use of software applications designed to address the special needs of project-oriented organizations. Like other businesses, project-oriented and professional services organizations are also demanding solutions that allow them to combine their business software applications into a single integrated, enterprise-wide system. For a detailed discuss of project-oriented systems, see "Project-Oriented vs Generic GL-Oriented ERP/Accounting Systems"
CRM as Client Relationship Management, rather
These companies, as well as accounting practices, law offices and other professional service firms can also benefit from an emerging CRM derivative known as client relationship management, should help these firms track client relationships in a more sophisticated manner than via, referral or word-of-mouth, which were appropriate during their start-up phase. In a project-based business, there are no dedicated sales teams on the road chasing and securing new business, since most senior partners and project managers bring in their own business and look after their own client portfolio. Since traditional sales calls or consumer Internet storefront ordering approach would be quite inappropriate here, the critical element of the client relationship process is proposal development to secure new business, since trying to recall the details of relevant past jobs and who worked on them can be a nightmare (not to mention trying to gather documents that are physically stored in different places by different people). To that end there is a need for a proposal management system that allows a contractor to organize projects by various categories (e.g., people, projects, designs, expertise, etc.) so that the appropriate information (e.g., resumes, document boilerplates, etc.) is easily retrievable when new proposals are prepared. Users can then track the progress of a proposal, share the information with other team members, review similar proposals, and analyze awarded jobs, while the product offer both government and customized commercial proposal generators.
Vendors
ERP vendors, particularly those with strong native human resource (HR) modules and hosting /application service provider (ASP) offerings are already in the PSA space. Some of these vendors would include Deltek Systems, Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) Great Plains and Solomon, Lawson Software, and PeopleSoft. The early adopters' feedback has been that ERP vendors offer competitive functionality pertinent to workforce planning, project execution and cost and revenue management, resource scheduling and time & expense reporting, while they are not very natively strong in, contract bidding functionality compared to pure PSA players.
One honorable exception to the rule might be Deltek. Very detailed information about the Deltek Costpoint project-oriented ERP product is contained in the ERP Evaluation Center at http://www.erpevaluation.com/, while detailed information about the Deltek Vision CRM/PSA product is contained in the CRM Evaluation Center at http://www.crmevaluation.com/
Deltek's PSA/ERP integration message will be contested by its ERP nemeses like Lawson and PeopleSoft that have the advantage of an early market entry and recent PSA product enhancements both in-house and through acquisitions and alliances, in addition to more recent mid-market intruders like Epicor and MBS Solomon. PeopleSoft has approached the PSA space through what it calls PeopleSoft ESA suite , which includes modules in service procurement, resource management, projects, travel, time & expense management, contracts, workforce analytics, and financial analytics. Significantly, all of the components have been developed either as native applications or from the acquisition of service procurement vendor SkillsVillage in 2001.
Microsoft's intrusion in the PSA market has not been a surprise, given its pervasive project planning tool Microsoft Project has been widely used at a departmental level by managers to allocate company resources (Deltek too, for example, provides tight integration to MS Project). The current MBS Solomon 5.5 release combines the power of MBS Project Accounting Solomon and the new enterprise version of Microsoft Project 2002 products to provide externally focused, project-driven organizations with an integrated financial, project and resource management, knowledge management, time and expense, project accounting, financials, and reporting & analytics solution, based on the Microsoft .NET platform. To that end, the Microsoft PSA product seems to cover many bases, from engagement, via resource management to business intelligence/performance management. Target industries would include law firms, PR firms, system integrators/consultants, financial services, insurance, public sector, healthcare, hospitality, to name some.
Due to acquiring PSA software specialist Account4 (see Lawson Software Means Business With PSA and IPO), Lawson services automation application called Lawson Service Process Optimization (SPO) automates the business processes of professional services organizations and corporate internal and external service departments. This application can work independent of any other system or in conjunction with Lawson core business applications to add reporting and analysis, invoicing and capitalization capabilities. Lawson tailors this application for internal services departments, as well as professional services organizations and the other service industries on which it focus. Lawson Services Automation helps internal services departments within organizations to improve their service delivery capabilities, lower and stabilize costs, better align resources and investments with business strategy, and improve work efficiency and effectiveness.
This application offers additional tools to track services requests and define approval processes and allows for incorporation of best practices and facilitation of project accounting and internal billing. Lawson Services Automation for Professional Services, on its hand, helps professional services organizations, such as consulting firms, improve their balance sheets with faster cash flow and increase resource utilization and bid management. It aims at providing greater visibility into service businesses by helping customers determine which projects and clients will bring the greatest profit margins.
Furthermore, Lawson and Interface Software, makers of InterAction 5, a CRM solution for professional services, have been co-marketing their products for some time. Professional services organizations trade exclusively in intellectual capital, since, rather than focusing on the manufacture, sale and distribution of physical products, services organizations sell their knowledge and domain expertise. Therefore, they require different tools to manage the business development process and to differentiate themselves from their competition (see Professional Services Are Catching-up With CRM). To that end, Lawson's SPO solution helps to address these needs with its Opportunity Management module through the capture and reuse of prior work, matching the skills and experiences of a firm's workforce to the engagement's requirements, managing the services pipeline and providing service revenue forecasting. Once engaged, Lawson's SPO solution helps enable services firms to effectively collaborate and manage the service delivery process with its clients building client loyalty and strategic relationships that increase the likelihood for additional business opportunities.
On its hand, InterAction supports services organizations' strategic growth and client retention initiatives by aggregating, managing and delivering to professionals the Relationship Intelligence they need to uncover new business opportunities, cross-sell services, bolster client loyalty and enhance client service. Relationship Intelligence is a firm-wide asset that reveals the unique and complex connections between people, companies, relationships, experience and expertise. InterAction 5 also features bidirectional synchronization with both Microsoft Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes.
However, in a scenario similar to the CRM, SCM (supply chain management) or e-procurement markets, pure PSA players will emphasize their relevant product completeness and depth with the appropriate price tag, their expertise in handling unstructured data, and will spread the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) about still maturing ERP/PSA offerings and the danger of buying irrelevant modules in an ERP/PSA bundle.
Although Deltek's reputation for high quality service and support, its ability to work directly with the customers and the ability to provide reasonably rapid implementations have constituted competitive advantages so far, its direct sales approach might not be the most appropriate for the lower-end of the mid-market, which is a similar case with many other vendors that sell directly. Conversely, value-added resellers (VARs) understand PSA well simply because they are in the same type of business as their prospects, in which case the likes of Microsoft, Epicor and Best Software have an undeniable advantage. Last but not least, all the above vendors also face indirect competition from the internal IT departments of its potential customers, given that many of its customers and prospects have attempted to develop front office systems in-house, either alone or with the help of systems integrators.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/psa-still-an-evolving-market-17143/
Also, a few relatively recent vendor announcements in the PSA market have indicated further morphing and expansion of the scope of PSA, particularly in terms of collaborative capabilities with external partners, enterprise content management (ECM) and enterprise performance management (EPM), to name some. Several vendors have even tried to distance themselves from the acronym, migrating to new catchy names (e.g., Service Process Optimization [SPO], Enterprise Service Automation [ESA], Project Portfolio Management [PPM] or Strategic Workforce Optimization [SWO]) that should indicate a deeper (e.g., with optimization logic similar to supply chain management [SCM] software that should enable allocation of people to projects based on multiple criteria such as utilization, profit, revenue, customer satisfaction, or employee preference) or broader (e.g., to include all business processes linked to knowledge workers working in corporate IT departments, professional services organizations, and/or R&D operations) framework for services delivery.
What started out as a set of applications to better manage customers' projects, astutely allocate staff and monitor their utilization rates has become an important foundation for coordinating a full range of business activities amongst increasingly virtual teams both within and outside the four-walls. Increased synergy and similarities are causing PSA, SPO and project management to consolidate into an emerging PPM market, which is the tracking and management of multiple IT projects with clarity of the costs and benefits as well as potential overlap among them. In other words, it can be seen as a project management applied collectively to a company's entire group of products, with the idea of answering the questions whether the right projects are pursued, whether the firm is spending in the right areas, and whether it has enough of the right resources.
As PSA software integrates and automates core processes related to business development, service delivery and administration for any organization that generates revenue through billable hours, the need for it is apparent particularly in these days of economic downturn when all major consulting outlets are forced to justify the utilization of every individual consultant. In addition to supporting organizations that generate revenue through billable hours, PSA software also benefits corporate IT and other internal service departments that track time for internal charge-back purposes. Recently, there has been awareness within corporate management of a need to regard their IT departments as if they were internal professional service organizations that should compete with external counterparts based on service delivery, expectation levels and cost. There has been a growing realization that the benefits of increased utilization, performance management, quicker and more accurate billing and invoicing, and greater visibility can be equally applied to any services- and/or project-based organization, whether they may be a financial services organization, government or a law firm, or an internal service organization (ISO).
The need for professional service business application software systems is expanding as a result of a number of economic trends. Service organizations traditionally have utilized project accounting more than manufacturing firms due to the need to customize their services for each client and to properly allocate the associated revenues and costs. Many organizations with significant internal development activities can benefit from the use of project accounting systems to closely monitor their progress and cost. Also, although somewhat conversely, more progressive firms may even try to boost their marketing, advertising and PR expenditure in order to gain more project contracts during the shrinking market, where, e.g., the proposal automation capability can come in handy. While project management and resource planning software applications help service organizations deliver within the budget, in a long term, these organizations need to win a new stream of projects and/or customers, which involves pre-sales CRM, marketing and proposal management, and post-sales elements like travel & expense (T&E) management.
As the number and type of project-oriented and professional service organizations increase, such businesses are demanding increasingly sophisticated tools to address their core information and accounting needs, including project accounting, employee time collection, project budgeting, project reporting, CRM, SFA (sales force automation) and proposal generation. At the same time, these organizations are recognizing that, because most aspects of their businesses revolve around their customer project relationships, they can achieve efficiencies in a number of project accounting and core back-office business functions, such as general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, materials management and human resources, through the use of software applications designed to address the special needs of project-oriented organizations. Like other businesses, project-oriented and professional services organizations are also demanding solutions that allow them to combine their business software applications into a single integrated, enterprise-wide system. For a detailed discuss of project-oriented systems, see "Project-Oriented vs Generic GL-Oriented ERP/Accounting Systems"
CRM as Client Relationship Management, rather
These companies, as well as accounting practices, law offices and other professional service firms can also benefit from an emerging CRM derivative known as client relationship management, should help these firms track client relationships in a more sophisticated manner than via, referral or word-of-mouth, which were appropriate during their start-up phase. In a project-based business, there are no dedicated sales teams on the road chasing and securing new business, since most senior partners and project managers bring in their own business and look after their own client portfolio. Since traditional sales calls or consumer Internet storefront ordering approach would be quite inappropriate here, the critical element of the client relationship process is proposal development to secure new business, since trying to recall the details of relevant past jobs and who worked on them can be a nightmare (not to mention trying to gather documents that are physically stored in different places by different people). To that end there is a need for a proposal management system that allows a contractor to organize projects by various categories (e.g., people, projects, designs, expertise, etc.) so that the appropriate information (e.g., resumes, document boilerplates, etc.) is easily retrievable when new proposals are prepared. Users can then track the progress of a proposal, share the information with other team members, review similar proposals, and analyze awarded jobs, while the product offer both government and customized commercial proposal generators.
Vendors
ERP vendors, particularly those with strong native human resource (HR) modules and hosting /application service provider (ASP) offerings are already in the PSA space. Some of these vendors would include Deltek Systems, Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) Great Plains and Solomon, Lawson Software, and PeopleSoft. The early adopters' feedback has been that ERP vendors offer competitive functionality pertinent to workforce planning, project execution and cost and revenue management, resource scheduling and time & expense reporting, while they are not very natively strong in, contract bidding functionality compared to pure PSA players.
One honorable exception to the rule might be Deltek. Very detailed information about the Deltek Costpoint project-oriented ERP product is contained in the ERP Evaluation Center at http://www.erpevaluation.com/, while detailed information about the Deltek Vision CRM/PSA product is contained in the CRM Evaluation Center at http://www.crmevaluation.com/
Deltek's PSA/ERP integration message will be contested by its ERP nemeses like Lawson and PeopleSoft that have the advantage of an early market entry and recent PSA product enhancements both in-house and through acquisitions and alliances, in addition to more recent mid-market intruders like Epicor and MBS Solomon. PeopleSoft has approached the PSA space through what it calls PeopleSoft ESA suite , which includes modules in service procurement, resource management, projects, travel, time & expense management, contracts, workforce analytics, and financial analytics. Significantly, all of the components have been developed either as native applications or from the acquisition of service procurement vendor SkillsVillage in 2001.
Microsoft's intrusion in the PSA market has not been a surprise, given its pervasive project planning tool Microsoft Project has been widely used at a departmental level by managers to allocate company resources (Deltek too, for example, provides tight integration to MS Project). The current MBS Solomon 5.5 release combines the power of MBS Project Accounting Solomon and the new enterprise version of Microsoft Project 2002 products to provide externally focused, project-driven organizations with an integrated financial, project and resource management, knowledge management, time and expense, project accounting, financials, and reporting & analytics solution, based on the Microsoft .NET platform. To that end, the Microsoft PSA product seems to cover many bases, from engagement, via resource management to business intelligence/performance management. Target industries would include law firms, PR firms, system integrators/consultants, financial services, insurance, public sector, healthcare, hospitality, to name some.
Due to acquiring PSA software specialist Account4 (see Lawson Software Means Business With PSA and IPO), Lawson services automation application called Lawson Service Process Optimization (SPO) automates the business processes of professional services organizations and corporate internal and external service departments. This application can work independent of any other system or in conjunction with Lawson core business applications to add reporting and analysis, invoicing and capitalization capabilities. Lawson tailors this application for internal services departments, as well as professional services organizations and the other service industries on which it focus. Lawson Services Automation helps internal services departments within organizations to improve their service delivery capabilities, lower and stabilize costs, better align resources and investments with business strategy, and improve work efficiency and effectiveness.
This application offers additional tools to track services requests and define approval processes and allows for incorporation of best practices and facilitation of project accounting and internal billing. Lawson Services Automation for Professional Services, on its hand, helps professional services organizations, such as consulting firms, improve their balance sheets with faster cash flow and increase resource utilization and bid management. It aims at providing greater visibility into service businesses by helping customers determine which projects and clients will bring the greatest profit margins.
Furthermore, Lawson and Interface Software, makers of InterAction 5, a CRM solution for professional services, have been co-marketing their products for some time. Professional services organizations trade exclusively in intellectual capital, since, rather than focusing on the manufacture, sale and distribution of physical products, services organizations sell their knowledge and domain expertise. Therefore, they require different tools to manage the business development process and to differentiate themselves from their competition (see Professional Services Are Catching-up With CRM). To that end, Lawson's SPO solution helps to address these needs with its Opportunity Management module through the capture and reuse of prior work, matching the skills and experiences of a firm's workforce to the engagement's requirements, managing the services pipeline and providing service revenue forecasting. Once engaged, Lawson's SPO solution helps enable services firms to effectively collaborate and manage the service delivery process with its clients building client loyalty and strategic relationships that increase the likelihood for additional business opportunities.
On its hand, InterAction supports services organizations' strategic growth and client retention initiatives by aggregating, managing and delivering to professionals the Relationship Intelligence they need to uncover new business opportunities, cross-sell services, bolster client loyalty and enhance client service. Relationship Intelligence is a firm-wide asset that reveals the unique and complex connections between people, companies, relationships, experience and expertise. InterAction 5 also features bidirectional synchronization with both Microsoft Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes.
However, in a scenario similar to the CRM, SCM (supply chain management) or e-procurement markets, pure PSA players will emphasize their relevant product completeness and depth with the appropriate price tag, their expertise in handling unstructured data, and will spread the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) about still maturing ERP/PSA offerings and the danger of buying irrelevant modules in an ERP/PSA bundle.
Although Deltek's reputation for high quality service and support, its ability to work directly with the customers and the ability to provide reasonably rapid implementations have constituted competitive advantages so far, its direct sales approach might not be the most appropriate for the lower-end of the mid-market, which is a similar case with many other vendors that sell directly. Conversely, value-added resellers (VARs) understand PSA well simply because they are in the same type of business as their prospects, in which case the likes of Microsoft, Epicor and Best Software have an undeniable advantage. Last but not least, all the above vendors also face indirect competition from the internal IT departments of its potential customers, given that many of its customers and prospects have attempted to develop front office systems in-house, either alone or with the help of systems integrators.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/psa-still-an-evolving-market-17143/
Microsoft Keeps on Rounding up Its Business Solutions
At the beginning of October, during the annual conference of the American Production and Inventory Control Society, APICS 2003, in addition to Microsoft Corporation's (NASDAQ: MSFT) initiative to avail a majority of its Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) division's enterprise resource planning (ERP) offerings with long needed pieces of product lifecycle management (PLM) functionality through an extension of the existing relationship with Autodesk, Inc. (see Autodesk To Bring Microsoft Business Solutions Closer To PLM), Microsoft also made other announcements pertinent to enhancing and supporting its current line of ERP business solutions and service offerings. Namely, to help its small, mid-market segment and even certain large corporate customers improve the effectiveness of current ERP solutions, Microsoft Business Solutions announced the general availability of Microsoft Business Network, and the upcoming delivery of two demand planning modules.
Microsoft Business Network (MBN) is a combination of on-premise software integrated with Microsoft Office, Microsoft Business Solutions applications (albeit currently only with MBS Great Plains) or Microsoft BizTalk Server, and hosted Web services. MBN was designed to help businesses more easily and effectively work with their trading partners (suppliers and customers) through a fully automated Microsoft .NET-connected solution, thereby increasing efficiency with a deep degree of integration throughout their business and desktop applications and lowering the total cost of business-to-business (B2B) collaboration. In other words, MBN uses the messaging and collaboration facilities of Microsoft Outlook and the integration facilities of BizTalk Server, to solve the supply chain connectivity part of the overall supply chain management (SCM) puzzle.
As for the underlying pieces of the vast SCM functionality, to help businesses improve customer satisfaction, maintain optimal levels of inventory and reduce operating costs, Microsoft Business Solutions announced that it will deliver demand planning modules that enhance its Axapta, Great Plains, and Navision products, and that should help existing and prospective customers strategically plan for future demands and adjust their daily operations accordingly. The feat will come from a non-exclusive worldwide distribution agreement that has been signed between MBS and TXT e-solutions (www.txt.it ), an Italian provider of content management, supply chain and customer management software, relating to TXT's Demand Planning solution, which consists of two modules: DP Power User and DP Collaborative. Contrary to the above-mentioned Autodesk alliance, MBS and TXT seem to be much clearer with regard to the delivery roadmap. General availability of MBS Demand Planner for the Axapta and Navision solutions is expected in November 2003, while MBS plans to announce general availability of the Great Plains module in early 2004. The integrated software will be distributed by MBS internationally through its network of more than 6,000 partners and resellers. On the other hand, TXT, which specializes in SCM largely for the consumer goods and fashion industries, will receive license royalties for each sale, and will provide paid services to MBS' partners and resellers.
The above moves come on the heels of the August 18 announcement of the availability of an enhanced release of the Microsoft Business Solutions Business Portal (Microsoft Business Portal), its Web- and roles-based portal application for two of its ERP solutions, MBS Great Plains and MBS Solomon, which should in the long run become the primary user interface (UI) for all MBS' enterprise applications. The idea behind Microsoft Business Portal is to extend an organization's ERP solution to provide business intelligence (BI) and processes to all employees, helping companies reduce information support costs, providing greater access to information, and enabling users to complete common tasks more easily.
To that end, the new HRM Self Service Suite for Microsoft Business Portal 1.2 is designed to help employees review their HR and payroll information and complete common tasks, such as filling out and approving timecards, submitting requests for time off, reviewing paycheck and benefit information, and more easily changing their employee profile information. The HRM (Human Resource Management) Self Service Suite consists of five modules: Employee Profile, Employee Pay, Time and Attendance, Recruitment, and Skills and Training, and it works with MBS Great Plains US payroll and human resource applications.
The new KPI module offers executives and other decision-makers at-a-glance access to the key business metrics they need to help them quickly assess the health of an organization and take action when conditions change. Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be expressed in graph or chart form and can include green, yellow and red alert conditions to identify critical areas of concern. The module enables executives to drill down into the underlying data for further analysis, and is available for both MBS Great Plains and Solomon. Microsoft Business Portal 1.2 also includes the ability to deliver reports created with MBS Analytics—FRx through the portal, so users can easily access the financial and business reports they need to accurately gauge financial conditions and make better-informed decisions.
This is Part One of a two-part note.
Part Two will discuss challenges and make user recommendations.
Market Impact
Given the immense development undertaking, which began at MBS even before its strategy was espoused in 2002 (see Microsoft Lays Enforced-Concrete Foundation For Its Business Solutions), the incremental approach towards building a more complete SCM product portfolio seems logical, if not the only possible option. The embedment of a simplified version of TXT's Demand Planning as an integrated module in MBS's ERP solutions is the last of MBS's recent and somewhat tepid incursions into the SCM market.
The partnership should mutually fill functional voids within the two parties' current product offerings and should enlarge both vendors' opportunities. The products' technologies are quite compatible so integrating the products will not be terribly complex, as indicated by the speed of the expected integrated solutions delivery. MBS's aspirations to capture the manufacturing and supply chain/distribution mid-market have been known for some time (see Microsoft 'The Great' Poised To Conquer Mid-Market, Once and Again), with much noise and visibility coming from MBS's Manufacturing Division of late, particularly through its strategy of targeting individual divisions of large corporations and presenting its case for lower total cost of ownership (TCO) compared to a standardized corporate-wide implementation of a tier one product. In a somewhat simplified manner, the division has been positioning Axapta for engineer-to-order (ETO) environments, Solomon for project-based and service-oriented businesses, with very basic manufacturing and distribution functionality, Navision for a variety of mixed-mode discrete and batch process manufacturing environments, and Great Plains as a tightly packaged "out-of-the-box" solution for mainstream discrete manufacturing environments.
However, the feat has not been exactly a pushover, for various reasons. One would be the fact that the MBS ERP product lines, with a possible exception of Navision and Axapta, have not been the landmark SCM/distribution-oriented products, at least not within markets that need more than basic demand planning and forecasting requirements. Indeed, to date Navision has only had production forecasting as a built-in module, while Axapta might have had deeper forecasting software, but not sophisticated enough to support collaborative inter-departmental processes. While forecasting might have had a poor reputation in manufacturing, recently there has been an increased awareness that with good collaborative planning and forecasting software, which would support collaborative sales and operations planning (SOP) processes, many manufacturers could improve their business performance. Like with the production planning, manufacturers need to remain on top of forecasting by leveraging much shorter review intervals than traditional quarterly updates. By taking forecasting more seriously and supporting it with smart, interactive tools, all the parties within the manufacturing businesses should be on the same page at the end of the day, which should result with agility.
On the other hand, enriching MBS applications by acquiring a pure-play SCM vendor with a full-fledged broad SCM functional footprint would only burden the MBS product development staff that is already up to their gills working frantically towards Project Green, which will supposedly feature all MBS products on a single, global code foundation built on the Microsoft Business Framework and .NET Framework, some time in 2006, when Microsoft is also aiming at coordinating the delivery of its next-generation Longhorn platform too. For the reasons above, and given the time-to-market urgency, the alliance with TXT seems a logical move. TXT's demand planning and forecasting technology has been well-known in Europe, and existing and prospective MBS' ERP system users should benefit from new capabilities in the near future. Operationally, the software will import data out of MBS ERP systems, run its modeling algorithms to generate the forecast, and update the respective master production schedules (MPS) within these systems.
The distribution agreement with MBS will potentially increase TXT's visibility beyond local European markets (MBS has over 250,000 customers in over 130 countries worldwide), and will provide it with a possible formidable indirect sales channel. The deal might also give TXT additional opportunities to sell not only demand-planning software but also other modules in TXT's Supply Chain & Customer Management (SC&CM) suite down the track. Similar to the Microsoft CRM product (see Microsoft Paints CRM Landscape On Lately A 'Still Nature' Business Applications Scenery), the appeal of which has largely been within its Outlook-like interface, MBS's customers should benefit from the familiar Excel-like interface of the TXT demand-planning solution and at a reasonably low price.
Not coincidentally, the MBS product too will facilitate system-to-system communications via XML, traditional value-added network (VAN)-based electronic data interchange (EDI), or Internet-based EDI (on the AS2 standard), whereby using secure extensions to Outlook or Excel, small and midsize companies linked to MBN will be able to exchange purchase orders, acknowledgements, advanced shipment notices (ASNs), and other business documents germane to SCM transactions, all with minimized (if not completely eliminated) manual data entry and paper-based processes.
Mid-market manufacturers, which have been overwhelmed by the huge scope and complexity of ever-expanding SCM processes, might want to start initially from enabling the convergence of marketing and manufacturing/distribution by balancing consumer demand against shelf life, appropriately planning production resources/constraints initiated by trade promotions, and determining the demand quantities for new product introductions. In the consumer products goods (CPG) sector, which happens to be one of TXT's sweet spots, this is of key importance, since marketing drives demand through the use of promotional activities advertising, deals, point of sale promotions, etc. The supply chain must stay in sync with marketing and marketing must stay in sync with the supply chain for the generated demand to be fulfilled. The demand driven supply chain requires a single, consistent, demand-based plan that optimizes marketing, inventory and replenishment decisions.
The messages of enabling customer satisfaction and retention, freeing-up working capital by reducing inventories, increasing returns on trade promotions, bringing new products to the market faster than competitors, and achieving top-line growth by reducing stock-out situations, as the first manageable SCM initiatives, should strike a chord with the risk-averse target. The objectives of end-to-end supply chain visibility are better plans, better service, increased inventory turns, and higher profit margins, where MBS Demand Planner might answer most of their requirements.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/microsoft-keeps-on-rounding-up-its-business-solutions-part-one-event-summary-17120/
Microsoft Business Network (MBN) is a combination of on-premise software integrated with Microsoft Office, Microsoft Business Solutions applications (albeit currently only with MBS Great Plains) or Microsoft BizTalk Server, and hosted Web services. MBN was designed to help businesses more easily and effectively work with their trading partners (suppliers and customers) through a fully automated Microsoft .NET-connected solution, thereby increasing efficiency with a deep degree of integration throughout their business and desktop applications and lowering the total cost of business-to-business (B2B) collaboration. In other words, MBN uses the messaging and collaboration facilities of Microsoft Outlook and the integration facilities of BizTalk Server, to solve the supply chain connectivity part of the overall supply chain management (SCM) puzzle.
As for the underlying pieces of the vast SCM functionality, to help businesses improve customer satisfaction, maintain optimal levels of inventory and reduce operating costs, Microsoft Business Solutions announced that it will deliver demand planning modules that enhance its Axapta, Great Plains, and Navision products, and that should help existing and prospective customers strategically plan for future demands and adjust their daily operations accordingly. The feat will come from a non-exclusive worldwide distribution agreement that has been signed between MBS and TXT e-solutions (www.txt.it ), an Italian provider of content management, supply chain and customer management software, relating to TXT's Demand Planning solution, which consists of two modules: DP Power User and DP Collaborative. Contrary to the above-mentioned Autodesk alliance, MBS and TXT seem to be much clearer with regard to the delivery roadmap. General availability of MBS Demand Planner for the Axapta and Navision solutions is expected in November 2003, while MBS plans to announce general availability of the Great Plains module in early 2004. The integrated software will be distributed by MBS internationally through its network of more than 6,000 partners and resellers. On the other hand, TXT, which specializes in SCM largely for the consumer goods and fashion industries, will receive license royalties for each sale, and will provide paid services to MBS' partners and resellers.
The above moves come on the heels of the August 18 announcement of the availability of an enhanced release of the Microsoft Business Solutions Business Portal (Microsoft Business Portal), its Web- and roles-based portal application for two of its ERP solutions, MBS Great Plains and MBS Solomon, which should in the long run become the primary user interface (UI) for all MBS' enterprise applications. The idea behind Microsoft Business Portal is to extend an organization's ERP solution to provide business intelligence (BI) and processes to all employees, helping companies reduce information support costs, providing greater access to information, and enabling users to complete common tasks more easily.
To that end, the new HRM Self Service Suite for Microsoft Business Portal 1.2 is designed to help employees review their HR and payroll information and complete common tasks, such as filling out and approving timecards, submitting requests for time off, reviewing paycheck and benefit information, and more easily changing their employee profile information. The HRM (Human Resource Management) Self Service Suite consists of five modules: Employee Profile, Employee Pay, Time and Attendance, Recruitment, and Skills and Training, and it works with MBS Great Plains US payroll and human resource applications.
The new KPI module offers executives and other decision-makers at-a-glance access to the key business metrics they need to help them quickly assess the health of an organization and take action when conditions change. Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be expressed in graph or chart form and can include green, yellow and red alert conditions to identify critical areas of concern. The module enables executives to drill down into the underlying data for further analysis, and is available for both MBS Great Plains and Solomon. Microsoft Business Portal 1.2 also includes the ability to deliver reports created with MBS Analytics—FRx through the portal, so users can easily access the financial and business reports they need to accurately gauge financial conditions and make better-informed decisions.
This is Part One of a two-part note.
Part Two will discuss challenges and make user recommendations.
Market Impact
Given the immense development undertaking, which began at MBS even before its strategy was espoused in 2002 (see Microsoft Lays Enforced-Concrete Foundation For Its Business Solutions), the incremental approach towards building a more complete SCM product portfolio seems logical, if not the only possible option. The embedment of a simplified version of TXT's Demand Planning as an integrated module in MBS's ERP solutions is the last of MBS's recent and somewhat tepid incursions into the SCM market.
The partnership should mutually fill functional voids within the two parties' current product offerings and should enlarge both vendors' opportunities. The products' technologies are quite compatible so integrating the products will not be terribly complex, as indicated by the speed of the expected integrated solutions delivery. MBS's aspirations to capture the manufacturing and supply chain/distribution mid-market have been known for some time (see Microsoft 'The Great' Poised To Conquer Mid-Market, Once and Again), with much noise and visibility coming from MBS's Manufacturing Division of late, particularly through its strategy of targeting individual divisions of large corporations and presenting its case for lower total cost of ownership (TCO) compared to a standardized corporate-wide implementation of a tier one product. In a somewhat simplified manner, the division has been positioning Axapta for engineer-to-order (ETO) environments, Solomon for project-based and service-oriented businesses, with very basic manufacturing and distribution functionality, Navision for a variety of mixed-mode discrete and batch process manufacturing environments, and Great Plains as a tightly packaged "out-of-the-box" solution for mainstream discrete manufacturing environments.
However, the feat has not been exactly a pushover, for various reasons. One would be the fact that the MBS ERP product lines, with a possible exception of Navision and Axapta, have not been the landmark SCM/distribution-oriented products, at least not within markets that need more than basic demand planning and forecasting requirements. Indeed, to date Navision has only had production forecasting as a built-in module, while Axapta might have had deeper forecasting software, but not sophisticated enough to support collaborative inter-departmental processes. While forecasting might have had a poor reputation in manufacturing, recently there has been an increased awareness that with good collaborative planning and forecasting software, which would support collaborative sales and operations planning (SOP) processes, many manufacturers could improve their business performance. Like with the production planning, manufacturers need to remain on top of forecasting by leveraging much shorter review intervals than traditional quarterly updates. By taking forecasting more seriously and supporting it with smart, interactive tools, all the parties within the manufacturing businesses should be on the same page at the end of the day, which should result with agility.
On the other hand, enriching MBS applications by acquiring a pure-play SCM vendor with a full-fledged broad SCM functional footprint would only burden the MBS product development staff that is already up to their gills working frantically towards Project Green, which will supposedly feature all MBS products on a single, global code foundation built on the Microsoft Business Framework and .NET Framework, some time in 2006, when Microsoft is also aiming at coordinating the delivery of its next-generation Longhorn platform too. For the reasons above, and given the time-to-market urgency, the alliance with TXT seems a logical move. TXT's demand planning and forecasting technology has been well-known in Europe, and existing and prospective MBS' ERP system users should benefit from new capabilities in the near future. Operationally, the software will import data out of MBS ERP systems, run its modeling algorithms to generate the forecast, and update the respective master production schedules (MPS) within these systems.
The distribution agreement with MBS will potentially increase TXT's visibility beyond local European markets (MBS has over 250,000 customers in over 130 countries worldwide), and will provide it with a possible formidable indirect sales channel. The deal might also give TXT additional opportunities to sell not only demand-planning software but also other modules in TXT's Supply Chain & Customer Management (SC&CM) suite down the track. Similar to the Microsoft CRM product (see Microsoft Paints CRM Landscape On Lately A 'Still Nature' Business Applications Scenery), the appeal of which has largely been within its Outlook-like interface, MBS's customers should benefit from the familiar Excel-like interface of the TXT demand-planning solution and at a reasonably low price.
Not coincidentally, the MBS product too will facilitate system-to-system communications via XML, traditional value-added network (VAN)-based electronic data interchange (EDI), or Internet-based EDI (on the AS2 standard), whereby using secure extensions to Outlook or Excel, small and midsize companies linked to MBN will be able to exchange purchase orders, acknowledgements, advanced shipment notices (ASNs), and other business documents germane to SCM transactions, all with minimized (if not completely eliminated) manual data entry and paper-based processes.
Mid-market manufacturers, which have been overwhelmed by the huge scope and complexity of ever-expanding SCM processes, might want to start initially from enabling the convergence of marketing and manufacturing/distribution by balancing consumer demand against shelf life, appropriately planning production resources/constraints initiated by trade promotions, and determining the demand quantities for new product introductions. In the consumer products goods (CPG) sector, which happens to be one of TXT's sweet spots, this is of key importance, since marketing drives demand through the use of promotional activities advertising, deals, point of sale promotions, etc. The supply chain must stay in sync with marketing and marketing must stay in sync with the supply chain for the generated demand to be fulfilled. The demand driven supply chain requires a single, consistent, demand-based plan that optimizes marketing, inventory and replenishment decisions.
The messages of enabling customer satisfaction and retention, freeing-up working capital by reducing inventories, increasing returns on trade promotions, bringing new products to the market faster than competitors, and achieving top-line growth by reducing stock-out situations, as the first manageable SCM initiatives, should strike a chord with the risk-averse target. The objectives of end-to-end supply chain visibility are better plans, better service, increased inventory turns, and higher profit margins, where MBS Demand Planner might answer most of their requirements.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/microsoft-keeps-on-rounding-up-its-business-solutions-part-one-event-summary-17120/
PeopleSoft Manufacturing - This Time For Sure?!
PeopleSoft has recently marked a delivery roadmap of its next major release components. PeopleSoft 8, a fully HTML-based, Web-hosted version of the ERP system is only a few weeks away from its official launch. A PeopleSoft e-business portal launch is also just around the corner. At the beginning of June, PeopleSoft also made its first shot at integrating the CRM applications it recently acquired from Vantive with its ERP applications. The company also mapped out the next phase of its new architecture - a suite of applications written in HTML and Java that will build upon the Java Server.
"We're not afraid at all to admit that client/server is pretty much dead. We're focusing all our development toward the Internet," says John Webb, vice president of product management for PeopleSoft's supply chain division.
However, PeopleSoft is a relative latecomer to the ERP fray, having gotten its start in the human resources/payroll applications arena. Today, the company claims only a few hundred customers in the manufacturing market, with a focus on consumer packaged goods, high tech/electronics, and wholesale distribution. Despite persistent perceptions that PeopleSoft is still not a full-fledged player in manufacturing, Webb contends that PeopleSoft is heavily engaged in that industry, in particular with makers of consumer packaged goods. "Release 8 will be very deep in CPG," he says. "We feel we're going to be heads above the competition there."
Market Impact
While PeopleSoft has so far dismally exploited its purchase of Red Pepper several years ago, its new tack of addressing manufacturers' needs may result in far greater success. Namely, PeopleSoft has focused its manufacturing solutions on only the above-mentioned three industries, CPG being one. It already has a strong customer base within these industries, primarily with its financial and human resource management systems, but also to a degree with its manufacturing and supply chain modules.
While PeopleSoft's chances of being a true leader within these industries remain slim, its PeopleSoft 8 product suite may give other manufacturing products a run for their money, since it is envisioned to offer deeper new functionality such as co-product/by-product, recipe management, improved lot tracing management, and flow manufacturing. In addition, the PeopleSoft ERP solution has long featured a manufacturing module with the embedded Red Pepper APS planning engine.
What may also help PeopleSoft in its particular endeavor is the change in both the business applications climate and users' mindset. The times when features and functions (bells and whistles) were the order winners are over. The new selections battles are fought on the outskirts of ERP, in the CRM and the supply chain management arenas, with very sharp vertical focus. Assuming the above-mentioned new manufacturing functionality is for real, bundled with CRM capabilities from its recent purchase of Vantive and with traditionally strong analytic applications developed in house, PeopleSoft may turn out to be a serious contender in future manufacturing and material management software selections.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/peoplesoft-manufacturing-this-time-for-sure-15951/
The Total EAM Vision Strategic Advantages in Asset Management
Enterprise Asset Management systems (EAM) continue to point the way into the future for capital intensive industries. The combination of functionalities, asset focussed business intelligence and advanced management consulting have allowed some vendors to provide consistently high results to those industries whose operating model involves the management of large numbers of physical assets.
This specifically refers to industries in the areas of Mining, Oil and Gas, Defense, Utilities and Transport although it does also offer positive benefits for companies in some areas of manufacturing.
The Gartner Group defines EAM as the following:
"EAM consists of asset management, materials management, HRMS and financials"
Figure 1: Complimentary Effects between Managerial Functions in Capital Intensive Industries
The focus and structure of an EAM system recognises the strategic importance of asset management and provides a structure and depth of functionality dedicated to providing clear strategic advantages in these areas. It is for this reason that it is directed at the central role played by maintenance and includes the three additional functional areas in capital intensive industries that have a synergistic relationship with asset management. They have truly evolved into solutions for enterprise performance management in this industry sector.
It represents a key strategy to increase plant capacity, using information technology in lieu of new construction in large, asset-intensive enterprises. It integrates key plant control systems (PCS) and ERP with maintenance activities and functions to reduce downtime and minimize maintenance spending
The emergence of EAM as the solution for this style of industry has at times been confused both by clients, as well as by vendors.
Myth 1: EAM are only transactional Systems
While there are lower standard systems that offer only transactional functionality, a true EAM system builds on this data by providing advanced functions in critical areas affecting asset management. For example:
- Risk management and reliability engineering (Including predictive maintenance management)
- RCM
- Root Cause Analysis
- Advanced Workforce and Human Capital management
- Advanced Inventory Management
It is the inclusion of these ranges of functions that EAM systems are able to provide strategic advantages in asset management. Advantages that can separate industry leaders from their competitors.
Myth 2: Misunderstanding of the Areas of EAM
A common ploy by vendors of lower quality systems is to attempt to include other functions as a part of the core functionality of these systems. This effort of re-branding by specific vendors is not only misleading but affects the overall goals of asset management in industry. For example:
- Addition of CRM (Customer / Client Relationship Management)
- Addition of SCM (Supply Chain Management)
While these two system functionalities are important parts of managing enterprises., they are not vital parts of asset focussed industries. In fact the use of these systems, functions, in lieu of basic EAM functionalities, can substantially reduce benefits from the overall asset-centric solution. (Note: Basic CRM is considered to be a part of EAM)
An EAM provides a means of generating strategic advantages through the management of physical assets. And uses the issues of Asset Management as key drivers for achieving these advantages.
Recognised Benefits of E.A.M
In Q4 of 2001, the analyst organization ARC stated:
"Fast ROI and Hard Savings Keep the EAM/CMMS Software Market Healthy...The recent success of Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)/ Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) solutions is directly related to strong corporate concentration on profitability. EAM/CMMS solutions are the only ones where a substantial and quick ROI can be realized."
This underscores the ability of these style systems to produce rapid results through advanced physical asset management functionality. The strategic importance of this, in terms of financial and non-financial returns on investment, cannot be overlooked by companies with large asset bases.
The Changing Asset Management Environment
For a corporation to understand the potential impact of EAM it first needs to understand the strategic importance of asset management. The management of physical assets offers a vast area of potential strategic advantage for many companies. A thorough and accurate approach in this area can bring benefits in the areas of:
- Productivity
- Risk Management
- Asset utilization
- Quality of product and of client service
When combined with the added benefits available in applying EAM systems this adds potential areas of strategic advantage in:
- Utilization and development of human resources
- Financial optimization of the maintenance function
- Reduced inventory holdings
- Better vendor selection and management
- Human Capital Management
This requires a truly proactive approach to asset management. An approach that involve looking forward to take decisions instead of looking back. Proactivity, when expressed in terms of EAM, means:
- Use of "what if scenarios" and forecasting. This is a vastly under used area of all implementations. The ability of a company to be able to forecast differing scenarios when analysing the asset management function can add substantial value to a company.
- Accommodation of RCM style analyses
- Extensive use of Business Intelligence as a strategic asset for managers
- Providing for the creation of asset specific decision support information tools
- Allowing for asset policy decisions, in terms of redesign, changes to policies, identification of root cause analysis opportunities
- Inventory reduction, or increased efficiency decision support information
- Future workforce planning
It does not merely mean reacting to analysis. This practice, although recommended, is a reactive practice and focuses on what has happened. The key to proactivity is in focussing on what could happen in the future and planning accordingly.
An understanding of the strategic importance of asset management requires an appreciation of the non-financial benefits and responsibilities of physical asset management. These are primarily in the areas of risk management associated with safety and reducing the risk of damaging the environment.
Changes to industrial legislation and community expectations have made these areas some of the more critically important to directors of companies. At this point in time the government of England and the United Kingdom is discussing efforts to bring in legislation regarding "Corporate Killing" via negligence in asset management. These trends are set to continue throughout the world.
The Total EAM vision is one that encompasses all of the areas importance to management of maintenance. Far from just transactional management a strong solution builds strategic advantage in each of the following areas.
Advanced Asset Functionality
The following are some of the functional areas where a Total EAM Vision can provide substantial benefits:
- Whole of life asset care (From purchasing to retirement)
- Advanced management of Predictive maintenance regimes
- Advanced PM management (Far beyond "do this now" style functions)
- Advanced workforce planning both long range and short range. Particularly in terms of "capacity scheduling" and "shutdown management"
- Abilities for the management of Human Capital
- Decision support for maintenance strategy decisions
- EAM style inventory management algorithms (based on probability- "just-in-case" in place of "just-in-time")
- Comparative life evaluations for equipment under condition monitoring regimes. This is a key strategic function of a base EAM system and one that contributes greatly to decisions regarding capital investment.
Risk and Reliability Management Functionality
- RCM (Reliability Centred Maintenance) functionality
- Support of root cause analysis
- Vendor selection and evaluation
- EAM style inventory recalculation functionality
- Early identification of reliability issues in equipment
Business intelligence and Analytics
The use of business intelligence is a means of extending EAM systems in order to accommodate the Total requirements of capital intensive industries.
This has been a part of the solutions EAM providers have offered for the past decade and, importantly, works from the information already contained in the EAM system.
- Provision of key performance indicator monitoring in a manner that allows their use as a means of implementing strategy, not only monitoring it and reacting. (Truly proactive)
- Application of "what if" scenarios and forecasting
- Executive alarms and drill down functionality
- Provision of reliability analysis information.
- Provision of analytical decision support information.
Advanced Management Consultancy The last step in the application of the Total EAM Vision is that of the provision of Managerial Consultancy. This goes way beyond the standard implementation function of EAM vendors and needs to include a high level approach to optimizing a companies processes based on:
- Acknowledged best practices
- Knowledge of areas of critical importance in the industry sector
- The interrelation between functional areas for greater ROI achievement
While there is no doubt regarding the ability of EAM systems to achieve results, this can be greatly leveraged via focussed management consultancy. Particularly with respect to the correct usage of powerful "what if" functionality, risk and reliability management, advanced inventory management and the creation of a structured KPI regime.
A Total Solution T
here are many solutions on the market today that cover some or all of these requirements in an adequate manner. The matrix below is based on the Mincom International offering, Ellipse, a Total EAM Solution for capital intensive industries. As can be seen the functions of this system are directed at delivering the Total EAM Solution for clients.
Enterprise Asset Management Solutions Grid Overview | Managerial Consultancy | ||
Total EAM Suite | |||
EAM | |||
| Whole of Life Asset Care | x | . | X |
| Maintenance Administration | x | . | X |
| Predictive Maintenance | x | . | X |
| Maintenance Decision Support * | x | . | X |
| Transactional Information | x | . | . |
| Physical Asset Risk Management | x | . | X |
| Advanced Human Resource Management | x | X | |
| Advanced Inventory Management for Asset Intensive Industries | x | x | X |
| Reliability-centred Maintenance | x | x | X |
| Root Cause Analysis | x | x | X |
| Financial Cost / Life Analysis | x | x | . |
| Technical Change Management | x | . | X |
| KPI Dashboard | . | x | . |
| Strategic Indicator Usage | . | x | . |
| Strategic Planning for Asset Management | . | x | X |
One of the additional elements of the chart above not mentioned in this paper is that of Technical Change management. Or the management of modifications, new acquisitions, capital projects and other improvement projects. When considering the overall asset management picture this element is one of the key elements and essential to responsible asset management.
It is worthy of noting that the no software system alone is capable of achieving all of the goals of EAM in any industry. The same can be said of ERP or of CMMS. They are generally a collection of applications that support the EAM. Such as reporting systems, graphic parts manuals and other peripheral systems.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/the-total-eam-vision-strategic-advantages-in-asset-management-16994/
PeopleSoft Revamps World for Its Mid-Market "Express" Conquest Part Three: Strengths
Recently "inaugurated" as the No. 2 leading business applications provider after digesting former J.D. Edwards & Company, PeopleSoft, Inc. (NASDAQ: PSFT), has been making decisive moves to deliver a number of new, and refurbished solutions, in a great part by leveraging the recently acquired product portfolio. Although the vendor has acted swiftly on assimilating the former competitor (see PeopleSoft Gathers Manufacturing and SCM Wherewithal), these recent initiatives might show us that the vendor has moved even farther from the digestion stage into a full-blown execution and productivity phase.
Recent announcements that reflect this are
* PeopleSoft World Express, one of the industry's most comprehensive solutions for smaller businesses with annual revenues between $20 million and $100 million (USD), on May 3, at COMMON 2004, the IBM iSeries user conference.
* A new release of PeopleSoft World that included more than 280 new features and enhancements that span the product family's human capital management (HCM), supply chain management (SCM), and financial management (FM) applications, and a new web-based user interface (UI),on March 18 at CeBIT 2004.
* Further extensions of the longstanding partnership with IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced during PeopleSoft 2004 Leadership Summit which expands their global alliance by enabling IBM's expanding SMB reseller channel (see IBM Express-es Its Candid Desire for SMEs) to offer PeopleSoft applications. PeopleSoft on May 18.
For details, see Part One.
The vendor's solutions within enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), enterprise portals, business intelligence (BI), and supplier relationship management (SRM) functionality provide a wide scope of features, and very few smaller vendors can provide tightly integrated applications of this magnitude under one umbrella. Furthermore, PeopleSoft has one of the strongest product technology in terms of scalability, and support for almost all industry relevant platforms and middleware standards, with Web service standards like XML, simple object access protocol (SOAP) and universal description, discovery, and integration (UDDI) being already embedded within their latest product releases, such as has been the case with the PeopleSoft's AppConnect platform.
Yet, even for the upper mid-market, the pre-configured tier one PeopleSoft Enterprise solutions remain complex applications, and the Internet architecture and new intuitive interfaces can mitigate that only so much. This perception of complexity remains ammunition that the incumbent tier two vendors will continue to exploit in order to hinder bigger brethren's attempt to penetrate their traditional stronghold. Furthermore, not all powerful functionality (e.g., SRM or product lifecycle management [PLM]) would be readily available for many of those pre-configured solutions, which may be a serious drawback when competing against the solid tier two vendors which have long-offered their entire suites without any disparity between solutions for bigger and smaller customers (e.g., Intentia, IFS, QAD , SSA Global, MAPICS or Glovia). The "Accelerated Solutions" or "All-in-One Solutions", while enabling large vendors and their channel to offer a fixed price and fixed time implementation program in a modular way, may sometimes not necessarily offer total extended-ERP functional scope. By the time the customer puts together modules to build a full collaborative enterprise system for a mid-market company, and then adds up the multiple implementation time and cost, all the touted benefits might have been annulled in some instances when incumbent mid-market vendors cover all the bases with their well-entrenched offering.
Thus, it is not difficult to justify the former PeopleSoft's "accelerated" mid-market initiatives to be gradually supplanted by selling the genuine PeopleSoft EntepriseOne product within its native, upper mid-market segment, where it has long successfully given run for the above-mentioned tier two solutions' money. Moreover, tackling the lower market segment has proven to be a much tougher nut to crack for several reasons. The main reason would be that this is the home ground of the likes of Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) (see Microsoft Keeps on Rounding up Its Business Solutions), the Sage Group, whose US subsidiary is called Best Software, and which has recently acquired Softline and ACCPAC (see Will Sage Group Cement Its SME Leadership with ACCPAC and Softline Acquisitions?). The list does not stop here, given the likes of Exact Software (see Exact Software—Working Diligently Towards the "One Exact" Synergy), or Epicor Software, which has lately had its share of recovery and subsequent acquisitions (see Epicor Conducts Its Own ROI Acquisition Rationale) and which is soon to be merged with another SMB stalwart, Scala. Finally, there are a number of other highly specialized and newcomer smaller companies like SYSPRO, Intuit or NetSuite catering to specific industries for accounting and manufacturing systems, while also building simple homegrown systems to handle functions like CRM or sales force automation (SFA).
The above vendors understand this market and have thus gained the market and mind share, and loyal customers. In addition to product offering, they have long heavily invested in recruiting, motivating, and supporting the value-added resellers (VARs) that service the segment. Thus, trying to sell simplified versions of mySAP Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise/PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne or Oracle E-Business Suite, without a serious re-engineering of these products, has not worked so far in the lower-end of the market.
This is Part Three of a four-part note.
Part One detailed recent announcements.
Part Two began a discussion of the market impact.
Part Four will cover challenges and make user recommendations.
Target Markets
However, with PeopleSoft World and World Express, PeopleSoft offers enterprise applications whose strengths are functional breadth and balance across manufacturing, distribution, and financial modules. The products are particularly well suited for make-to-stock (MTS) discrete manufacturing and industrial distribution, while they are also a good fit for less-complex hybrid batch process or discrete repetitive and assemble-to-order (ATO) manufacturers. For consumer-oriented distribution in this target market, the product has possibly the best balance of transaction functionality across the entire order fulfillment and order-to-cash business processes. In the project-related and engineer-to-order (ETO) industries, its strength might be more on the financials modules rather than on manufacturing, though, yet it is robust and widely deployed in that industry.
The product's functionality goes beyond traditional ERP to include human resource (HR) and human capital management (HRM); computerized manufacturing maintenance systems (CMMS) and enterprise asset management (EAM); and product data management (PDM). While these might not be industry leading, as in the case of its bigger sibling products, they should suffice the requirements of the targeted prospective customers.
Furthermore, while the above incumbent SMB vendors' knowledge of their customers' business is reflected in product interfaces, relatively uncomplicated functionality, attractive price points, and by making application programming interfaces (APIs) available to external developers and independent software vendors (ISVs) to help integrate their primarily accounting-based products with vertical market extensions provided by their partners, J.D. Edwards offer the differentiating trait of selected vertical focus that comes directly from its own expertise (i.e., over 1,000 distribution customers, over 1,100 manufacturing customers, and over 250 homebuilder and construction customers worldwide). Having delivered this functionality centrally has an inherent advantage in avoiding disparate product releases, upgrades, and synchronizations between the vendor and multiple ISV partners. Before releasing the product, PeopleSoft has done a thorough due diligence by gauging its functional capabilities versus the likes of MBS Great Plains and MBS Solomon (see Solomon Stands the Test of Time Despite Changing Masters). The conclusion was that the product has been competitive, to say the least, given its history and more than adequate (i.e., by no means "watered down") functionality for the market segment.
Most of the above SMB incumbent competitors have also embarked on major projects to converge disparate functionality within several acquired product lines into new generation of business applications. While these undertakings are still largely a lengthy work-in-progress (WIP), the promise is within unified modern architectures that should allow resellers to sell extensions to the applications, while preserving the migration path for the foundation accounting and back-office components. PeopleSoft World does not have that conundrum given the time has long come for IBM to leverage its credibility, market recognition and open standards support of its WebSphere product bundle to enter the lower-end of the market.
Contrary to iSeries, the WebSphere platform might not have had a tremendous acceptance by SMEs, in part because, like iSeries it has had a higher initial price level and technical complexity, but IBM has also initially lacked an SME-focused marketing effort for the product. The IBM Express line (which curiously coincides with World Express moniker), which repackages some of the most successful WebSphere's components, especially web application server (WAS), portal and business integration server, however, has the potential of a product with aggressively reduced cost and the complexity of middleware, and which should represent a solid foundation for mid-market e-business strategies. PeopleSoft touts that, within three years, the TOC of World Express should be at least half of its Microsoft Windows-based counterparts, given higher software quality and system availability, and almost non-existent instances of viruses, "DLL hell", occasional rebooting, and "blue screens of death" on the iSeries platform.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/peoplesoft-revamps-world-for-its-mid-market-express-conquest-part-three-strengths-17414/
Recent announcements that reflect this are
* PeopleSoft World Express, one of the industry's most comprehensive solutions for smaller businesses with annual revenues between $20 million and $100 million (USD), on May 3, at COMMON 2004, the IBM iSeries user conference.
* A new release of PeopleSoft World that included more than 280 new features and enhancements that span the product family's human capital management (HCM), supply chain management (SCM), and financial management (FM) applications, and a new web-based user interface (UI),on March 18 at CeBIT 2004.
* Further extensions of the longstanding partnership with IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced during PeopleSoft 2004 Leadership Summit which expands their global alliance by enabling IBM's expanding SMB reseller channel (see IBM Express-es Its Candid Desire for SMEs) to offer PeopleSoft applications. PeopleSoft on May 18.
For details, see Part One.
The vendor's solutions within enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), enterprise portals, business intelligence (BI), and supplier relationship management (SRM) functionality provide a wide scope of features, and very few smaller vendors can provide tightly integrated applications of this magnitude under one umbrella. Furthermore, PeopleSoft has one of the strongest product technology in terms of scalability, and support for almost all industry relevant platforms and middleware standards, with Web service standards like XML, simple object access protocol (SOAP) and universal description, discovery, and integration (UDDI) being already embedded within their latest product releases, such as has been the case with the PeopleSoft's AppConnect platform.
Yet, even for the upper mid-market, the pre-configured tier one PeopleSoft Enterprise solutions remain complex applications, and the Internet architecture and new intuitive interfaces can mitigate that only so much. This perception of complexity remains ammunition that the incumbent tier two vendors will continue to exploit in order to hinder bigger brethren's attempt to penetrate their traditional stronghold. Furthermore, not all powerful functionality (e.g., SRM or product lifecycle management [PLM]) would be readily available for many of those pre-configured solutions, which may be a serious drawback when competing against the solid tier two vendors which have long-offered their entire suites without any disparity between solutions for bigger and smaller customers (e.g., Intentia, IFS, QAD , SSA Global, MAPICS or Glovia). The "Accelerated Solutions" or "All-in-One Solutions", while enabling large vendors and their channel to offer a fixed price and fixed time implementation program in a modular way, may sometimes not necessarily offer total extended-ERP functional scope. By the time the customer puts together modules to build a full collaborative enterprise system for a mid-market company, and then adds up the multiple implementation time and cost, all the touted benefits might have been annulled in some instances when incumbent mid-market vendors cover all the bases with their well-entrenched offering.
Thus, it is not difficult to justify the former PeopleSoft's "accelerated" mid-market initiatives to be gradually supplanted by selling the genuine PeopleSoft EntepriseOne product within its native, upper mid-market segment, where it has long successfully given run for the above-mentioned tier two solutions' money. Moreover, tackling the lower market segment has proven to be a much tougher nut to crack for several reasons. The main reason would be that this is the home ground of the likes of Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) (see Microsoft Keeps on Rounding up Its Business Solutions), the Sage Group, whose US subsidiary is called Best Software, and which has recently acquired Softline and ACCPAC (see Will Sage Group Cement Its SME Leadership with ACCPAC and Softline Acquisitions?). The list does not stop here, given the likes of Exact Software (see Exact Software—Working Diligently Towards the "One Exact" Synergy), or Epicor Software, which has lately had its share of recovery and subsequent acquisitions (see Epicor Conducts Its Own ROI Acquisition Rationale) and which is soon to be merged with another SMB stalwart, Scala. Finally, there are a number of other highly specialized and newcomer smaller companies like SYSPRO, Intuit or NetSuite catering to specific industries for accounting and manufacturing systems, while also building simple homegrown systems to handle functions like CRM or sales force automation (SFA).
The above vendors understand this market and have thus gained the market and mind share, and loyal customers. In addition to product offering, they have long heavily invested in recruiting, motivating, and supporting the value-added resellers (VARs) that service the segment. Thus, trying to sell simplified versions of mySAP Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise/PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne or Oracle E-Business Suite, without a serious re-engineering of these products, has not worked so far in the lower-end of the market.
This is Part Three of a four-part note.
Part One detailed recent announcements.
Part Two began a discussion of the market impact.
Part Four will cover challenges and make user recommendations.
Target Markets
However, with PeopleSoft World and World Express, PeopleSoft offers enterprise applications whose strengths are functional breadth and balance across manufacturing, distribution, and financial modules. The products are particularly well suited for make-to-stock (MTS) discrete manufacturing and industrial distribution, while they are also a good fit for less-complex hybrid batch process or discrete repetitive and assemble-to-order (ATO) manufacturers. For consumer-oriented distribution in this target market, the product has possibly the best balance of transaction functionality across the entire order fulfillment and order-to-cash business processes. In the project-related and engineer-to-order (ETO) industries, its strength might be more on the financials modules rather than on manufacturing, though, yet it is robust and widely deployed in that industry.
The product's functionality goes beyond traditional ERP to include human resource (HR) and human capital management (HRM); computerized manufacturing maintenance systems (CMMS) and enterprise asset management (EAM); and product data management (PDM). While these might not be industry leading, as in the case of its bigger sibling products, they should suffice the requirements of the targeted prospective customers.
Furthermore, while the above incumbent SMB vendors' knowledge of their customers' business is reflected in product interfaces, relatively uncomplicated functionality, attractive price points, and by making application programming interfaces (APIs) available to external developers and independent software vendors (ISVs) to help integrate their primarily accounting-based products with vertical market extensions provided by their partners, J.D. Edwards offer the differentiating trait of selected vertical focus that comes directly from its own expertise (i.e., over 1,000 distribution customers, over 1,100 manufacturing customers, and over 250 homebuilder and construction customers worldwide). Having delivered this functionality centrally has an inherent advantage in avoiding disparate product releases, upgrades, and synchronizations between the vendor and multiple ISV partners. Before releasing the product, PeopleSoft has done a thorough due diligence by gauging its functional capabilities versus the likes of MBS Great Plains and MBS Solomon (see Solomon Stands the Test of Time Despite Changing Masters). The conclusion was that the product has been competitive, to say the least, given its history and more than adequate (i.e., by no means "watered down") functionality for the market segment.
Most of the above SMB incumbent competitors have also embarked on major projects to converge disparate functionality within several acquired product lines into new generation of business applications. While these undertakings are still largely a lengthy work-in-progress (WIP), the promise is within unified modern architectures that should allow resellers to sell extensions to the applications, while preserving the migration path for the foundation accounting and back-office components. PeopleSoft World does not have that conundrum given the time has long come for IBM to leverage its credibility, market recognition and open standards support of its WebSphere product bundle to enter the lower-end of the market.
Contrary to iSeries, the WebSphere platform might not have had a tremendous acceptance by SMEs, in part because, like iSeries it has had a higher initial price level and technical complexity, but IBM has also initially lacked an SME-focused marketing effort for the product. The IBM Express line (which curiously coincides with World Express moniker), which repackages some of the most successful WebSphere's components, especially web application server (WAS), portal and business integration server, however, has the potential of a product with aggressively reduced cost and the complexity of middleware, and which should represent a solid foundation for mid-market e-business strategies. PeopleSoft touts that, within three years, the TOC of World Express should be at least half of its Microsoft Windows-based counterparts, given higher software quality and system availability, and almost non-existent instances of viruses, "DLL hell", occasional rebooting, and "blue screens of death" on the iSeries platform.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/peoplesoft-revamps-world-for-its-mid-market-express-conquest-part-three-strengths-17414/
Intuitive Manufacturing Systems Shows Maturity in Adolescent Age Part One: Company Overview
Quite opposite from playing an April Fool's trick, on April 1, Intuitive Manufacturing Systems (www.intuitivemfg.com), a privately held company offering enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for small and mid-size manufacturers, announced its ten-year anniversary. Namely, in 1994, the founders of the other ERP vendor PRO:MAN sold all interest in the company and started a new one: Intuitive. Since then, Intuitive has been offering enterprise software for small and midsize discrete manufacturers around the world with the flagship product, Intuitive ERP, which was designed from the ground up with 100 percent pure Microsoft technology and with well-established manufacturing practices in mind. The relative young age of the company has provided an organization and a development environment free from the burdens of supporting unwieldy sets of legacy systems and technologies; nonetheless, the company is founded on a solid foundation with many of its staff having thirty years or so of experience in manufacturing systems.
Intuitive's first product, MRP9000 (renamed into Intuitive ERP in June 2000), was built around the concept that the software should support standard business practices and that the underlying technology should be flexible and affordable. Hence, standard manufacturing and accounting practices such as those prescribed by American Production & Inventory Control Society (APICS) and Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (GAAP) were the building blocks of the product. The product has since matured into a broad ERP software system designed to manage most aspects of a small and mid-size manufacturing organization. Today, Intuitive has over 900 customers worldwide, in industries ranging from aerospace to bicycle parts, from circuit boards to boat docks. The Intuitive ERP product is also installed in over twenty countries, is available in sixteen languages, is fully multicurrency-enabled, and is supported by a network of direct offices and business partners worldwide.
Yet, Intuitive continues to pragmatically expand its operations and to unveil significant enhancements to its latest product release. Intutive's founder and co-chairman, J. Patrick Carey, had worked in the industry in various sales, service and consulting capacities for over fifteen years before he founded PRO:MAN in 1981, which was a provider of a PICK/UNIX-based manufacturing software system for small and mid-sized manufacturers. In 1994, Carey sold off his interest in the company, but, with his retained knowledge of manufacturing, he established Intuitive Manufacturing Systems.
According to the vendor's CEO Sara Gillam, back in 1994 the management had to decide between the status quo of a maturing UNIX system and putting a Microsoft Windows wrapper/faade around that aging technology, or making the bold step of completely reengineering the product in the Windows environment. The apparent choice was aimed at being on the leading edge of technology in 1994, but also now, ten years later, Intuitive is continuing this vision by deploying the new generation of software technology—Microsoft .NET. The vendor was indeed a member of the official Microsoft .NET Early Adopter Program which began stealthily in the early 2000s. While lately, many competitors are claiming to use so-called "fast start" programs to aid in leveraging .NET technology, Intuitive claims to have been there at the very beginning, at which time it did not see any of these ".NET evangelists" that are present nowadays.
This is Part One of a four-part note.
Parts Two and Three will discuss the market impact.
Part Four will cover challenges and make user recommendations.
With headquarters in Kirkland, Washington (US), Intuitive is located only a ten minute drive from Microsoft's main campus, and it continues to enjoy a close relationship that has allowed it to not only discern Microsoft's future moves, but to gain invaluable aid from Microsoft in leveraging its latest technology. For that reason, Intuitive feels very confident that it will be significantly ahead of any other ERP vendor in releasing a pure .NET-based solution.
To that end, after eighteen months of research and development, mid-2001 Intuitive completed a prototype of its Microsoft .NET architectural framework that takes full advantage of .NET, extensible markup language (XML), and the new features of Microsoft SQL Server, and released a plan to convert the entire Intuitive ERP product—meaning every business logic feature, every line of code—to pure .NET technology. With the release of Intuitive ERP 6.0 in December 2002, the second phase of this plan was complete, as it was likely the first ERP product to release several areas of functionality built on a 100 percent Microsoft .NET managed code architecture. Then, in early 2004, Intuitive announced the beta release of Intuitive ERP 7.0, the only enterprise software solution with a pure Microsoft .NET "managed code" (i.e., a new type of software that leverages a new .NET set of tools and prefabricated components) framework and over 50 percent of standard product functionality released in .NET, which has been generally available since March 2004.
This substantial product redesign should allow Intuitive ERP to take advantage of the many new features of the .NET platform, satisfy the industry's e-business requirements, and better position the product to adapt to even more advanced technology in the future. Intuitive is glad to be saying goodbye to the old problems of Component Object Model-based (COM) software that the development world has often referred to as "Dynamic Link Library (DLL) Hell" in the past, owing to objects' sharing, and unfortunate consequent inexplicable conflicts amongst these objects.
Conversely, IT departments will be able to appreciate .NET software by the .NET feature known as "side-by-side", which allows multiple versions of the same application to reside and run on the same computer at the same time. Namely, with .NET, one does not have to uninstall or upgrade an old version of a software product, since the new version can be installed right beside the old one, and the user can run them both until she or he decides to remove the old version. Also, much .NET software can be installed simply by copying files to hard drives, while .NET avoids the Windows Registry and its many inherent problems.
Key Enhancements in Intuitive ERP 7.0
Furthermore, the .NET framework should provide the vendor the ability to develop software with less code in less time (Intuitive claims 40 percent smaller software footprint and 65 percent fewer code lines, based on its own analysis of the released version 6.0.2 versus released version 7.0), which means the system becomes faster, more robust, has fewer bugs, easier to modify, while the vendor can provide innovative new features at a faster pace (multifold, according to Intuitive's product managers) than the competition. To that end, key enhancements found in Intuitive ERP 7.0 include, among others:
- An entire .NET managed code-based sales cycle, from customer relationship management (CRM) to quoting through order entry, picking, shipping, invoicing, accounts receivable, return materials authorization (RMA), and service and repair, which entails a new slick user interface (UI), faster processing speed, and other above-mentioned benefits of .NET managed code. One of the related enhancements is the ability for every user to set the order entry screen according to the preferences, by simply clicking and dragging fields on and off the order entry panel. In addition, users may set up templates for different types of orders, and select a different template with one click, whereby the same click and drag customization facility is being adopted across the entire Intuitive ERP system (of course, in the functional areas that are .NET-enabled).
- A .NET managed code-based "Planner's Workbench", material requirements planning (MRP) engine, available to promise (ATP)/capable to promise (CTP) engine, and sales forecasting modules. A Planner's Workbench provides a planner many of tools to optimize the shop floor in one place and at once, such as
1) graphical display of an item's inventory, including safety stock and surplus, and all activity for that item with drill-down capabilities into those activities;
2) search for inventory problems based on preset parameters (such as., inventory surpluses over certain number of days, critical shortages, etc.), again with drill-down capabilities into actions to resolve those problems; and
- Support of rich media files across the .NET-based system, as the user can link an unlimited number of types of media, such as computer-aided design (CAD) files, drawings, video clips, images, quality control (QC) documents and so on to any field in the system (i.e., a specific field in the form for detailed instructions, a specific ID like part number, customer number, or vendor number, an order number, and a combination of these).
- A .NET-based request for quote (RFQ) system, with benefits and features similar to the above-described sales cycle.
- "Cradle to grave" serial number traceability, as users now can create a multilevel bill of serial numbers, in order to maintain complete tracking of which serial number is within which assembly, and where the end assembly was shipped. Afterwards, one can track the warranty and ownership of those parts through the Intuitive Service & Repair module. Users can also designate the level of tracking they would like for each item, while items may be specified as "fully tracked" (i.e., entry required each time this item is transacted), "referenced" (i.e., not tracked though inventory, but included on a bill of serial numbers and/or when shipped as a service part), or "shipment tracked" (i.e., only traced when shipped out).
- .NET-based payroll and human resource (HR) modules, which are the result of the January 21 announcement of a strategic original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partnership with Perfect Software, a provider of human resource management systems (HRMS). Intuitive HR is an employee tracking and benefits management system designed to help HR departments manage employee information, simplify employee benefits management, organize and streamline the hiring process, improve employee satisfaction, and analyze HR information for strategic input. Intuitive HR allows users to comply with government requirements by providing reports such as Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), 1-9 Citizenship Verification, and Veterans reports (VETS-100).
Intuitive Payroll is a payroll system that helps users enter, maintain, process and report on crucial payroll information. Access via a web server allows users to maintain data and process payroll using the Internet anywhere and anytime. The OEM relationship, which Intuitive prefers to pursue in its alliances, should again allow it to provide these features directly to its customers as integrated modules without involving outside vendors.
3) search for order problems in a similar manner like above (i.e., preset parameters like late raw material deliveries, pending late orders, etc.). Further, the .NET MRP engine obviates the traditional difference between "regenerative" (full-blown) MRP and "net change" MRP, given MRP runs now often take seconds and occasionally minutes, rather than customary several hours.
System-wide enhancements in Version 7.0 include a rich new UI designed to enhance usability and streamline workflow, and a search tool to conveniently find any function. User-customizable entry screens allow users to view and enter information exactly as they would like to see it, and new menu functionality allows each user to create a personalized "My Menu" (which stores the most frequently used menu items) without ever leaving the screen. The pure .NET architecture of Intuitive ERP 7.0 also supposedly enables increased processing speeds, easier system administration and enhanced compatibility and connectivity with other software programs.
To educate manufacturing professionals about competitive advantages achieved through the use of advanced technology, from January 22 to April 15, Intuitive conducted a forty-city seminar series across North America, which also featured a demonstration of the Intuitive ERP 7.0 system.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/intuitive-manufacturing-systems-shows-maturity-in-adolescent-age-part-one-company-overview-17352/
Computerized Maintenance Management Systems: A Tutorial Part One: Challenges and Features
Saying that a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is just another scheduling tool is tantamount to saying that the Titanic was just another boat. While maintenance scheduling is arguably its most important aspect, CMMS has many additional features that can help a company manage its maintenance function.
CMMS is using software to effectively and efficiently plan and execute tasks meant to maintain a company's operations to ensure maximum uptime of equipment critical to the production of finished goods. To successfully plan a maintenance procedure, the user needs accurate information on the equipment to be maintained, its components, and ongoing production or workload requirements. The maintenance skills and time available must be matched against the workload, equipment items, and availability. Parts and supplies must be procured in advance, in a well-planned fashion, to complete maintenance tasks on schedule. While maintenance may be complex, managing it should not be.
Part One of this two-part note helps you build a business case for CMMS in your organization by examining the maintenance challenges and problems confronting companies and the key features of a CMMS.
Part Two will address the benefits of CMMS and, of course, interfaces issues.
The maintenance challenges facing companies today is optimizing a facility's performance to maximize productivity, improve utilization, 
reduce waste, and lower operating costs. A major impediment to a facility's throughput and meeting demand is equipment downtime, planned or otherwise. A CMMS provides equipment and tool state modeling, planning and scheduling, performance analysis, preventive maintenance, and paperless operation to maximize needed equipment reliability.
And it's not getting any easier. In push industries, like process manufacturing, you need to react nimbly to changes in the marketplace and the needs for your customers. Equipment outage means lost opportunity, lost revenue, and lost customers. Automation has increased inter-equipment dependencies and demands on the maintenance personnel. Increased automation on the shop floor tends to drive spare part inventory further out of control, resulting in inconsistent or delayed repairs.
The high value of capital equipment and high cost of downtime demand a complete and current knowledge of a piece of equipment's performance and history. The break-fix mode needs to be stopped in favor of failure prevention. The overall control and consistency of repairs needs to be greatly enhanced. Finally, to obtain the maximum value from maintenance personnel, scheduling effectiveness and equipment utilization must be improved. If these challenges face your company, CMMS may provide the means for you to get behind the problem instead of waiting for it to steamroll over you.
In this section we will focus on some of the key features of a CMMS in the sequence you might encounter them in installing and using the software.
A CMMS provides a database for identifying, recording, and categorizing equipment and their components. So what's the big deal? First, embedded in this database is a hierarchy. The hierarchy structure permits you to view repair parts at a facility level, an equipment level, or down to the basic component level. This also enables you to drill down in successive levels of detail to children components of a parent piece of equipment. This becomes useful in "where used" reporting when you are thinking of changing your supply source for parts or to take advantage of volume purchases. Additionally, most CMMS databases will allow you to store technical diagrams, schematics, vendor warranty information, and process views associated with a piece of equipment or resource. Over time when using a CMMS, an up-to-date maintenance procedure library can be built. This library will become a valuable tool for personnel to use when performing maintenance or repairs.
A maintenance personnel database may be a nice add-on to the parts database. While requirements here will differ from your company's human resource database, typical information includes name, trade, shifts worked, qualifications, special training, and certifications. This information will enable a CMMS to match the available skill set with the work to be performed or equipment to be maintained. You would not want to send an automotive mechanic to service a microprocessor on your blending equipment.
Real-time equipment state tracking and recording is an essential feature of a CMMS. Is a piece of equipment in a ready state; dead lined and inoperable; down for unscheduled maintenance; or down for scheduled maintenance? Since you run your operations in real-time, this information must also be available in real-time. Particularly in supply chain management (SCM), how can you schedule a production run without knowing or having visibility to online and available resources?
Arguably, a key, if not the most important, feature of a CMMS is automated preventive and event-based maintenance scheduling. 
Preventive maintenance is usually suggested by the manufacturer but can be incorporated with event-based scheduling. Events are created by attaching a "trigger" to a standard preventive maintenance activity. Types of triggers include periodic time interval, every 3 months; interval units made, hours, and cycles; and range temperature, pressure, and flow rates. Typically, these recordings are taken from external devices. The projected maintenance due date is determined when readings are accepted. A CMMS promotes the fix-it-before-it-breaks mentality and shifts the emphasis from reactive to preventive. Once this becomes an accepted practice and reliability is placed in the CMMS, the facility can consider the transition to the more advanced predictive maintenance (PdM) with its multiple-method condition monitoring, trend tracking, and expert system diagnoses. Tracking of unscheduled maintenance provides a biofeedback mechanism as to the effectiveness of your maintenance program. Unscheduled maintenance is a fact of life and will always be there. Yet, you don't throw up your hands and just accept it. We still want to reduce the occurrences of unscheduled maintenance. When equipment does break, a CMMS should track and record all of the details of the failure, the cause of the failure, repair efforts, and parts and personnel resource consumption. With this information and utilizing the analytical capabilities of a CMMS, you can start to address these unanticipated situations, identify commonality with other processes, and suggest changes to your current scheduling activities.
Ready to perform preventive maintenance? The production workload is diverted to other pieces of equipment. The equipment resource
is taken offline and prepared for maintenance. The qualified personnel are scheduled to perform the maintenance. You are about to perform the maintenance but the required parts are not available. The losses in terms of time and money are significant. Before scheduling equipment maintenance, a CMMS would determine if the necessary parts and supplies are in stock. If you are in a multi-warehouse environment, other warehouses should be queried and a warehouse transfer should be initiated. As a last resort, a CMMS should initiate the purchasing process to acquire the parts and re-schedule the maintenance. Accordingly, an important feature of a CMMS is to ensure that maintenance activities can be performed as scheduled.
So far you have read that an effective CMMS should track unscheduled maintenance, preventive maintenance, equipment state 
information, resources, and materials. Through this automated data collection mechanism, we are creating a equipment history database that will form the basis for performance analysis. A CMMS should provide the tools to perform this analysis and be able to answer the question, "How has our maintenance organization and equipment been performing?" Some of the canned reports that should be available from a CMMS are:
- Equipment Utilization
- Equipment Downtime
- Equipment Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF)
- Equipment Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)
- Scheduled vs. Unscheduled Jobs
- Active Maintenance Jobs/Work Orders Status
- Resource Utilization
- Material Utilization
Reports should be available online and in a hardcopy format. Online information should employ graphic representations wherever possible to highlight problems. This method of presentation is more consistent with the formats with which maintenance personnel are accustomed. A drill down capability should be available to pinpoint and diagnose a specific problem.
To appeal to the accountant in all of us, a CMMS should track the cost of maintenance at the equipment or project level. Where ERP software can tell you how much your company is spending on repair parts, a CMMS should tell you how much it costs to maintain a specific piece of equipment. With this information you can assess whether equipment is economically repairable or should be replaced. You can also determine if preventive maintenance is being performed within established standards, both in terms of parts and manpower.
This concludes Part One of a two-part note. Part Two will detail the benefits of CMMS and provide additional information pertinent to selecting a CMMS.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/computerized-maintenance-management-systems-a-tutorial-part-one-challenges-and-features-16998/
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