Porter suggests that impeccable planning and project management is necessary for any successful PLM implementation.

“Marrying vision with discipline is the optimal approach for deploying strategic solutions like PLM. The marriage of purpose and goals with the pragmatism of execution keeps things from being too ambitious and ensures that the project will be completed in a reasonable amount of time.”

Without Robin – a.k.a. the project man – there is “no balance and things go awry.”  He is the key to making sure everything goes as planned.

Attention to detail and precise planning are the keys to success – with or without superpowers. In fact, that is what PLM is all about. Some companies like Inforbix are taking it a step further. With their data access solutions, Inforbix offers manufacturers those details that make all the difference. Their software is quick to deploy, easy to use and affordable for all. Forget Batman and Robin, it sounds like Inforbix is Superman!

Jennifer Wensink, February 11, 2012

The attendees were introduced to “trends, challenges and best practices that are helping organizations to:

• Accelerate innovation through ideation management and collaboration, product portfolio management and analytics, data consolidation and cleansing, and a rich enterprise product record.
• Design for supply with product cost management, outsourced manufacturing and product collaboration, product supply risk analytics, and spend consolidation.
• Align the value chain through integrated portfolio and business planning, enterprise quality management and analytics, accurate and clean product data publishing, and rapid product commercialization

There were general sessions discussing everything from profitability to optimization; as well as break out session and industry focus groups.

Oracle is not the only company “turning innovation into a competitive advantage.” Technology companies like Inforbix may not be as big, but are offering companies, big and small, the same advantages. Inforbix is designed to simplify data access, increase profitability, and yet be affordable for manufacturing companies of all sizes.  Who knows – may be next year Inforbix will be holding a summit of their own!

Jennifer Wensink,  February 10, 2012

According to the article, HealthMap is a team of researchers, epidemiologists and software developers at Children’s Hospital Boston who use online sources to track disease outbreaks and deliver real-time surveillance on emerging public health threats. They also utilize the help of local residents to help with research.

Blogger, Kim Krisberg writes:

“HealthMap, which debuted in 2006, scours the Internet for relevant information, aggregating data from online news services, eyewitness reports, professional discussion rooms and official sources. The result? The possibility to map disease trends in places where no public health or health care infrastructures even exist, Brownstein told me. And because HealthMap works non-stop, continually monitoring, sorting and visualizing online information, the system can also serve as an early warning system for disease outbreaks.”

Mapmaking and public health are hardly strangers. Public health practitioners use maps to guide interventions. Despite the complexity of most disease outbreaks, maps can still help health professionals raise public awareness about prevention and target interventions in ways that make the most of limited resources.

Jasmine Ashton, February 10, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

To explain the 19% growth the press release said,

“Helping drive that growth were increases in annuity bookings — up nearly 15% for the year — and an increase in subscriptions coming from new strategic partnerships. New customers were up 18% for the quarter compared to the same quarter in 2010.  In addition to 2011′s strong subscription and renewal numbers, Arena fulfilled its commitment to expand the company by building out its software, infrastructure and partner community.”

What these numbers signify is that there is a new trend for companies to move to cloud based PLM solutions.  As data continues to grow, expenses continue to be cut and a new technologically savvy workforce demands the latest in cloud technology and access to company data companies of all sizes are turning to new data management solutions.

As Arena is proving with their impressive numbers companies of all sizes are looking to unify departments by making data accessible and manageable by all.  This unification in the form of cloud based PLM not only reduces overlap between design and production but eliminates redundancies that only serves to cost more money.

Catherine Lamsfuss, February 9, 2012

The company’s core application, Enterprise Optimizer, was developed in collaboration with the Russian Academy of Sciences and mathematicians at the University of Massachusetts. The program’s roots go back 15 years to the early 1990s, when Whitehair and other UMass mathematicians began developing a modeling program using artificial intelligence. Formally launched in 2005, EO is designed to manage cross-functional decisions at strategic, tactical, and policy levels considering all the elements and consequences of those decisions. The models allow the user to see the financial and operational impact of those decisions and then optimize them.

The product itself has a simple diagram style interface used to create the business processes that drive value in an organization. These diagrams model the supply chain and show how things like trade promotions impact volume, distribution and financial performance.

Named to the 2010 “Supply Chain & Demand Executive” 100 list, River Logic is focused on delivering EO-based solutions in a couple of areas, especially consumer packaged goods with healthcare as a secondary market. River Logic’s hospital performance management solution, Integrated Delivery System Planner,enables physician-centric coordination, where costs, resources, and activities are tracked and assessed in terms of the workflow of the entire, integrated system. A Synetics Group-River Logic alliance delivers Trade Promotion Optimization Planner, which helps enterprises plan, evaluate, and optimize promotions to increase the return on trade spending.

The company’s client list includes consultants such as Barloworld Logistics and manufacturers Nampak Tissue and Bolthouse Farms. Competitors are SAP, IBM, and Oracle.

Rita Safranek, February 9, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

As the article explains of the new program,

“Some of the key factors that have led to growth in the demand for online training solutions can be attributed to the professionals being either too busy, inability to leave the office for several days and attend regular courses for advanced trainings.  The increasing demand for local talent has lead to engineering colleges and institutions leaving no stone unturned to sharpen the skills of their students with the very latest course material, whether through text books or online training courses.”

Tate Technologies is best known for their Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Enterprise Search solutions making them the perfect company to develop a training program for busy employees in the engineering industry.  As data continues to grow and change and more types of data enter into a company’s database new data management solutions must be adopted.  Enterprise search must also be updated to include this new data.  Engineering companies unable to integrate such measures will get left beyond in a struggling, yet competitive, world economy.  We not only predict that more online training programs like Tate’s i GET IT will enter the engineering industry market, we believe smart companies will gladly accept them and take the first steps toward cloud services and new PLM solutions.

Catherine Lamsfuss, February 7, 2012

In the article “Avoid the Most Common Mistakes Made by Beginning SharePoint Developers,” Ken Toth shares an article that outlines a list of situations worth avoiding if you are a SharePoint development novice.

Toth points out:

“Sometimes reinventing the wheel means you end up with a bigger wheel, but also you will have to look after and support that wheel for when it breaks, and you may also have wasted a load of time making that bigger wheel.”

Similarly, in “Uncover Business and Staff Needs Before Deploying a Microsoft SharePoint Intranet,” we learn that staff often don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to determining what’s best in a SharePoint intranet.

Toth advises:

“First, conduct an intranet needs analysis to determine staff needs. Then, uncover how SharePoint can allow for new ways of working through scenarios, case studies, stories, and examples. Third, get everyone on the same page by making sure all stakeholders have the same definitions and priorities.”

As SharePoint grows in popularity, many people are starting to wonder what to do with paper information in this increasingly digital world. The post “Looking to Partners to Aid with Managing Paper-Based Information in the SharePoint Environment” offers some solutions.

Writer Jeff Shuey explains the importance of finding partners to manage your paper information.

Toth concludes:

“Bringing paper and digital information together is no doubt a challenge in our information age. It is a discussion worth having so that solutions continue to be made available for handling the ever-increasing variety of formats.”

Sometimes, regardless of the number of needs assessments and situations that you avoid when implementing your SharePoint platform, your site still falls short of its target. In this case, consider turning to The Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform from Smartlogic. It will ensure that your SharePoint content is easily found and re-purposed, saving valuable staff time and money.

Jasmine Ashton, February 7, 2012

Of the changes the article explains,

“Using the SAP Environment, Health, and Safety Management application with product compliance functionality and the SAP Product Life Cycle Management application, Varian says it’s been able to understand the chemical composition of its products, more easily redesign components and products…The SAP software embeds compliance checks into the design process, which Varian says helps it avoid late-cycle changes. The software also makes it faster and easier to adjust administrative functions to any corresponding engineering change, Varian says.”

The need to improve PLM is an issue facing all industries, not just the medical.  With companies across the globe facing increasing manufacturing prices and lower sales changes must be made across all divisions to cut costs.  Improved PLM with integrated cloud services is, currently, the best option for companies.  A truly redesigned PLM approach will include a new data management solution and enterprise search to reduce duplicity in design and man hours lost to inadequate searches.

For companies in all industries data has changed and is continuing to change.  The difference between thriving despite tough economic times and closing the doors for good could be as simple as how the new, massive influx of data is searched and managed.  Adopting new PLM solutions such as Varian is not only prudent but absolutely necessary to compete globally.

Catherine Lamsfuss, February 7, 2012

The Internet can easily be considered the greatest medium for information, and it has completely transformed the way we communicate, the way we shop, and even the way we learn.  While the Internet can certainly be considered a convenience, is there ever a point when too much information or too much access is a problem?
In the recent report “Are We on Information Overload?” posted on Salon.com, Thomas Rogers interviews David Weinberger, author of recently published Too Big to Know, on the impact the Internet has on knowledge today and if the vastness of readily available information is too much for our minds to handle.  According to Weinberger:

Ask anybody who is in any of the traditional knowledge fields, and she or he will very likely tell you that the Internet has made them smarter.  They couldn’t do their work without it; they’re doing it better than ever before, they know more; they can find more; they can run down dead ends faster than ever before.  In the sciences and humanities, it’s hard to find somebody who claims the Internet is making him or her stupid, even among those who claim the Internet is making us stupid….Curiosity can lead you to lots of bad directions.  It can steer you wrong and waste your time, but it is fundamental.  We need it more than anything else if we’re going to try to understand our world.  Now we have a medium that is as broad as our curiosity.

I really don’t know if I can say that the Internet has made me smarter (especially with the constant flow of nonsense I expose myself to on a regular basis on social networking sites), but it’s certainly made doing my job easier on many occasions.

The information you can find on the Internet is limitless, and if you can’t find something, you have the ability to put it there so the next person can find it.  As Weinberger suggests, it is a great tool for the curious mind.  If the curious mind suffers from lack of focus, though, then I would imagine overload is a definite possibility.

Stacey Duwe, February 7, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

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