Article Summary for The secret sauce of SaaS by Wayne Morris

AÜTOMATIONCONNECTION

The ^secret sauce' of SaaS

I t's so tnuch tnore thati the latest buzz- word - software as a service (SaaS) has substatice, and it's deliveritig. Consider the arena of business intelligence (BI), While traditional BI still has a place in

strategic data analysis, it falls short when it comes to supporting operational perfor- mance improvement initiatives. True per- formance improvement requires more than what traditiotial BI offers,

A new breed of SaaS-based performance improvement solutions is helping plant man- agers to save money, boost productivity and increase efficiency. The "secret sauce?" First is the ability to look across a value stream - even when data resides outside the plant or the company. Second is embedded industry expertise and best practices.

One of the beauties of SaaS is the ease of imple- mentation and deployment, meaning less strain on IT, Add to that the ability to integrate with existing processes and systems, handle real-time metrics and show cause-and-effect by linking operational metrics with financial outcomes, and you've got yourself a cost- and resource-effective option for making sense of your plant data.

Looking across the value stream Today, business processes span across enterprise

boundaries, meaning that key performance indicators (KPIs) reside both inside and outside the plant. While met- rics such as on time in full shipments, OEE or quality reject rates/first time through can be found inside the plant, the majority of important met- rics related to vendor quality, timeliness and ability to meet demand - such as reject reason (of goods returned from customers), vendor- and customer-reported on time in full delivery - reside outside the plant.

Since a significant amount of data is beyond plant boundaries, performance improvement - or "operational BI" - capabilities delivered in an SaaS model expose the true drivers of outcomes, which are absolutely critical for effective performance analysis.

The SaaS model is an excellent vehicle to gather data from, and then present specific information back to partners, your supply chain and even customers, with- out these users having to directly access information behind the company's firewall. The SaaS model also lends itself to adding value in the form of aggregated benchmarks, best practices and behavior analysis that is impossible with traditional on-premise software.

By Wayne Morris myDIALS

One of the beauties of SaaS is the ease of implementation and deploy- ment, meaning less strain on IT.

Embedded industry expertise With the right industry expertise and best

practices integrated into an SaaS solution, users benefit from vertical industry, value stream and methodology knowledge, which can be leveraged as part of a greater performance improvement initiative.

For example, consider metrics that support continuous improvement such as Lean process- es. The new breed of SaaS-based operational BI tools provide decision makers throughout the plant with embedded knowledge that pro- vides targets or goals for each of the relevant metrics - such as material handling time, cycle

time and changeover time - and guidance on recommended analysis and diagnosis to undertake if a metric is not meet- ing the target or is outside the "good" zone. The ease of configuration and flexibility of SaaS-based operational BI tools, combined with pre-defined metrics raises the standard for data access and data analysis throughout the plant, and delivers quick time-to-value.

Instant value across the board With KPIs tailored specifically to each plant and each

individual user, performance improvement can actually live up to its promise. Whether on the plant floor or in a corpo- rate office, multiple knowledge workers need continuous access to timely, relevant business metrics for analysis and

operational decision making. The cost effectiveness of a

subscription-based SaaS model makes it viable to support larg- er numbers of users - from the plant manager and quality manager to line controllers and the COO and CFO - whereas traditional approaches are typi-

cally focused on a small number of business analysts. With performance visualization and analysis that is intuitive and easy to use - accessible from a web browser no matter where users are located at the time they need information - companies can ensure their investment brings immediate value, with quick and widespread adoption.

By consolidating all relevant data into one easy-to-under- stand and easy-to-analyze view, operational BI solutions based on an SaaS model help users make quick, informed decisions that positively impact the operational produc- TJl tivity and efficiency of the plant, , U

Wayne Morris is CEO of myDIALS, a pioneer in SaaS- based operational performance management software. Mor- ris previously served as CEO and managing director ofCitect Corp., and chief marketing officer and senior vice president of corporate marketing for BMC Software Inc.

20 October 2008 PLANT ENGINEERING