Retailers are Depending on PLM for Growth
March 6, 2012
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is no longer exclusively for engineers and manufacturing. The retail industry has slowly been adding PLM software and retailers are seeing the power of PLM. Recently, one of England’s fastest growing retailers hired a consulting firm to review and evaluate their PLM system. The details are found in Hitachi Consulting UK Helps Boden Assess Global Product Lifecycle Management Solutions to Support Strategic Growth.
Despite the economic downturn, Boden has seen significant growth in several markets.
“As a result of its on-going growth, the company needed to review its current product lifecycle management processes to ensure global business alignment across both its business strategy and technology processes. Boden required an assessment of alternative solutions capable of providing more efficient and automated processes for product development and analysis, such as insight into buying patterns, to further support the future growth of the business and product diversity into the marketplace.”
Hitachi Consulting UK is a global business and IT consulting company. They completed an extensive review and their PLM recommendation “will enable [Boden] to improve efficiency, and also lend itself to the design, buying and merchandising teams.”
Retailers are realizing the advantages that PLM can bring to their industry. Solutions like those developed by Inforbix could be invaluable to a retailer. Inforbix has revolutionized the way companies can find, use and re-share product data. That means less time and more money – which is music to any company’s ears.
Jennifer Wensink, March 6, 2012
Librarian Solutions to SharePoint Problems
March 6, 2012
When time and money is spent on a SharePoint implementation, it makes sense that companies would require that their employees jump on board and start using the application. However, this has led to an epidemic of frightened and frustrated employees, and an overflowing of training and tips on the internet. Lorette S. J. Weldon addresses this issue and uses her library science training to craft a solution in, “Help with SharePoint is on the way in The Adventures of SharePoint Reading Bee© Animated Series.”
Weldon states her motivation for developing a unique training tool:
To maintain Weiser’s belief of being sufficiently trained in order to be free to use the technology, for example, SharePoint, for the job, I have created The Adventures of SharePoint Reading Bee Animated Series. Librarians and information professionals are free to suggest ideas for future episodes ‘anonymously’. This animated series is a free service trying to meet the business needs of setting up SharePoint to perform needed tasks from within the office environment . . . librarians have been increasingly asking me to find out how Microsoft SharePoint can help them. The Adventures of SharePoint Reading Bee will try to help break it down for the non-programmer in answers that do not require coding. The SharePoint versions to be covered will be 2007 and 2010.
We commend the innovative approach to SharePoint training. The key is the user focus, without the need for programming and coding. But the major drawback of SharePoint is a fundamental one, something that cannot be overcome with training, the obtrusiveness of the program. Weldon herself laments that SharePoint does not run seamlessly in the background. However, some third-party enterprise solutions do just that.
We like Fabasoft Mindbreeze and their suite of enterprise solutions.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise understands you, or to be more precise, understands what the most important information is for you at any precise moment in time. It is the center of excellence for your knowledge and simultaneously your personal assistant for all questions. The information pairing technology brings enterprise and Cloud data together.
If SharePoint is a struggle for your employees, explore training options such as those offered by Weldon or consider adding an intuitive third-party solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 6, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Look Before You Leap With SharePoint
March 5, 2012
Protected: Collecting SharePoint Metadata about Users
March 5, 2012
Increase SharePoint User Adoption with Mindbreeze
March 5, 2012
SharePoint 2010 is no doubt a ubiquitous content management platform, but not all employees jump on the bandwagon so quickly. Communication experts Sam Marshall and Camilla Herrmann weigh-in on the SharePoint user adoption debate in, “Are Employees Rejecting SharePoint?”
Marshall and Herrmann both point out that SharePoint is a powerful application, but Marshall brings the focus to a uSamp survey released last year that revealed 80 percent of organizations using SharePoint said employees continue to share documents as email attachments.
Harrmann offers this rebuttal:
Perhaps the most collaborative tool in the Swiss Army penknife that makes up SharePoint is the people search. Properly configured, updated and linked to My Site profiles, it’s the way to find the person that you need in a large organization. Once you have tracked them down, however you collaborate after that, SharePoint has done its job.
SharePoint success among your employees may be determined by how you define collaboration and your expectations for the software. Perhaps rating documents for usefulness, people search, and forum comments are all features that can serve as a gateway introduction to the social enterprise arena. But with the core list and library features, SharePoint can, and should, be doing much more for your employees. Marshall argues the user interface is particularly unpleasant and does not charm the lay-user employee that is inclined to modern Web sites that are increasingly informative, aesthetically pleasing, and functioning with real-time data.
To fill in the user-interface gaps in your SharePoint system, consider a third party application. We like the good reviews for the Fabasoft Mindbreeze suite of solutions. With clear navigation and a self-explanatory interface, Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise facilitates findability.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise finds every scrap of information within a very short time, whether document, contract, note, e-mail or calendar entry, in intranet or internet, person- or text-related. The software solution finds all required information, regardless of source, for its users. Get a comprehensive overview of corporate knowledge in seconds without redundancy or loss of data.
While debates abound about SharePoint user-adoption, Mindbreeze can save employees time by connecting them to the right information via a user-friendly interface. Navigate to www.mindbreeze.com to read more.
Philip West, March 5, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Siemens and LEGO Join Forces for PLM Solutions
March 5, 2012
Most people either grew up playing with LEGOS or watched their children enjoy the plastic blocks by the hundreds. These seemingly simple toys are moving to the next level in full fashion with the adoption of a complete PLM solution to manage their building block empire. LEGO recently announced at their eleventh annual world fair that they are adopting Siemens technology to further aid in production and management of the growing company’s needs.
In a related blog post on Siemens website, Jerry Safati, Marketing Manager for NX at Siemens, wrote of the announcement:
“Going beyond the physical brick and into augmented reality, video games and mobile applications, Lego is using NX and Teamcenter software to design, control and manage the data that is needed to create new products. More than 40,000 people who attended the show were able to see the technology first hand, which is the result of a 20 year partnership with Lego.”
LEGO’s adoption of complete PLM solutions is proof that PLM has moved beyond the world of manufacturing and packaging industries and is now a necessity in every industry. Leaders in the PLM world offer far more than time-saving measures and are increasingly turning to the cloud for product data access. With more data than ever being shuffled between departments within any given company the need for PLM to effectively and efficiently enable users to find, share and reuse information should be the top priority when choosing a PLM provider.
Catherine Lamsfuss, March 3, 2012
Registration Now Open for AppRapids Conference
March 5, 2012
Beyond Search and AppRapids have announced that registration is open for the first AppRapids Conference in Louisville, Kentucky on March, 28, 2012.
The enterprise information service, AppRapids, is a Monday through Friday service which focuses on app-related issues in the digital world. AppRapids targets important developments in the field and provides critical comments about these developments.
The one-day conference, held at WorkShop, the Creative Workplace, will bring together participants and speakers, allowing everyone to collaborate and share ideas and insights in the field of mobile applications.
The press release, “Apps are Where it’s at: Register Now for AppRapids Conference” tells us more:
“Apps have been integrated into every aspect of life on both personal and professional levels. However, a lack of knowledge, and consequently agency, exists among many app users and potential app creators. Apps have roots in the past, are impacting the present, and will construct the future. Conference sessions will range from planning and development to implementation and business implications. Speakers will provide details of real-life use cases, best practices and lessons learned.”
The conference will include presentations by women and minorities, and discounted rates are available for students and Seed2020 members. Conference sponsors include: Arnold IT, PolySpot, WorkShop, the Creative Workplace, and Interactive Media Lab.
To register and view the schedule and speaker information, head over to http://www.apprapids.com/conference-registration/.
Stephen E Arnold, March 5, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: When Good SharePoint Governance Goes Bad or Lack There Of
March 3, 2012
Protected: SharePoint Microblogging Shares Content Quickly and Easily
March 2, 2012
Triumph Motorbikes Adopts PLM Solutions
March 2, 2012
As the need for Product Lifecycle Management has moved to the forefront of the package management industries in the last few years due to its efficient strategies at reducing costs and improving production time as well as communication between departments many forget that PLM solutions are also best for many other industries as well. A recent article, Triumph Motorbikes Selects PTC(R) for Enterprise PLM, on MarketWatch, brings to light the need for PLM in many overlooked industries such as automobile production.
Triumph Motorbikes, a world leader in motorcycles, has recently adopted the use of PLM because of its ability to minimize production time and streamline the overall production process. The article quotes Sin Min Yap, VP of Market Strategy at PTC, the PLM provider adopted by Triumph, as for the need for PLM solutions within the automobile industry:
“’The automotive market is ultra-competitive and the stakes are high,’ said Sin Min Yap, vice president, Market Strategy at PTC. ‘Designing and engineering a motorcycle from the ground up is a complex process that must keep pace with the ever-changing requirements of customers. These companies require superior technology to overcome the industry’s most daunting challenges.’”
The media is quick to point out the hardships the automobile industry is facing in large part due to the economy, but there are many other industries grasping PLM solutions as a way to save money and keep their companies afloat. Any company considering the adoption of PLM should consider only those providers specializing in product data access and offering innovative ways to find, share and reuse data to accomplish goals. Although many PLM providers seem similar not all PLM solutions are cloud-based and able to deliver the results so dearly desired.
Catherine Lamsfuss, March 2, 2012
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