manufacturing

I am at the SAS Inside Intelligence event in Steamboat getting the annual update on all things SAS. First session of the day is the Executive Viewpoint. Jim Goodnight and Randy Guard kicked things off. Creating a single global organization was a big part of last year with legal, finance, sales, marketing and more becoming global [...]

Next up at the Alteryx Influencer Summit was a discussion of the overall growth strategy from Rick Schultz and Paul Evans (Marketing and Sales). Most of this is under NDA, as you would expect, but Alteryx was willing to discuss how they have been improving their customer acquisition approach: A laser focus on the business analyst as their [...]

In the second quarter of 2014 Teradata will add support for JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) –  “fat free” XML focused on name value pairs – in its data warehouse. The key focus of this addition is on the Internet of Things because many of these produce data in JSON formats. For instance telematics, geospatial, manufacturing [...]

Some time back I wrote a post called “It’s time to industrialize analytics“. In an ongoing twitter conversation (I am @jamet123) I referenced it and provoked some interesting responses that seem worth addressing in more than 140 characters. The conversation was between @JAdP, @deanabb, @merv, @ajbowles and myself and they are all worth following. We spent some [...]

Starview Inc. have just launched their new platform – Business Analytics and Optimization Platform (BAOP). Growing out of a long standing consulting practice, the company sees an opportunity for a platform aimed at the continuous optimization of decision-making. They are focused on Telco, Finance, Energy and Manufacturing (especially Semiconductor) and they have a vertically-oriented strategy, [...]

I saw an interesting press announcement the other day about Activant’s new business rules functionality. Activant (who recently agreed to be acquired and merged with Epicor) is an ERP provider focused on distribution and retail – 60% of revenues come from retail and 40% from distribution. Activant as a whole has 15,000 customers concentrated in [...]

I am spending some time as a guest of SAS this week and we got started today with Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS. He began by describing SAS Institute’s 33 years of continuous revenue growth as well as similarly growing reinvestment in R&D. SAS has not laid anyone off this year, for which kudos, and [...]

Charlie Lewis of Air Products described how they have been using workflow and business rules (FICO Blaze Advisor). Air Products is a Fortune 300 company that primarily supplies industrial gases in a variety of markets. Charlie begun by describing the communication and work challenges of a diverse company across many countries where different groups have [...]

River Logic’s Enterprise Optimizer is what is increasingly known as an “Integrated Business Planning” solution. Enterprise Optimizer is designed to manage cross-functional decisions at strategic, tactical, and policy levels considering all the elements and consequences of those decisions. The models you build allow you to see the financial and operational impact of those decisions and [...]

Some time ago I saw this interesting little post –Recommendation Engine Secrets We Don’t Want You to Know: It’s not as Complicated as We’d Have You Think – that made the point that: Most recommendation engines use one of a handful of methods that are well understood And they are correct, of course. Recommendation engines [...]

myDials is a company focused on optimizing operational performance by delivering timely, relevant, actionable performance metrics, contextual information, guidance and “every person” analytics. On June 8th they announced myDials 3.0. myDials is focused on helping all employees focus on the monitor/analyze/adjust cycle that helps ensure that operations remain in synch with company strategies and plans. [...]

I wrote a pair of articles for BR Community on Decision Management and Six Sigma: Six Sigma and Decision Management — Introduction Six Sigma and Decision Management — An Example Enjoy.

Warranty Week (Computer Warranty Trends, 26 March 2009) had an interesting article this week about the rising rate of warranty claims in computer companies: While other industries are seeing claim rates rise and accrual rates fall, warranty providers in the computer industry are seeing claims rise slightly and accruals rise a lot This prompted me [...]

Kevin Hogan of Accenture talked about how implementing a warranty system can drive harmonization and competitive advantage.  His focus was on a recent case where they helped a company implement an SAP-based Warranty solution. The case is a global heavy equipment manufacturer with about a focus on Europe and North America. They were running 4 [...]

Steve Zannos of NEW Customer Service Companies presented on customer loyalty in an industry with lots of third parties involved. NEW provides service support to companies who sell products and works with 30,000 independent service agents – everything from single technicians to large depots to national networks. They try to drive customer loyalty through this [...]

Frank Kozlowski of Kohler presentedf on a web-based warranty system. When they set out to develop the system their goals were to move to a start-of-the-art, easy to use system that was web-based so dealers could enter claims directly anywhere in the world (they have 12,000 dealers). They wanted to reduce their cycle time from [...]

Jim Johnson of IBM gave IBM’s point of view on quality lifecycle management. Jim works in Global Services and works with auto and truck manufacturers. IBM’s research shows: That warranty reserves accrue at between 1% and 3% of sales and this is continuing to increase. Detection to correction cycles average over 100 days and can [...]

Kjell Hammerstrom of Sun presented on warranty costs. Product management teams specify warranty term duration and terms of warranties on products while procurment teams negotiate warranty terms with equipment manufacturers (many of Sun’s products are built by a manufacturer like Qunta, Mitac, Celestica). However the process was not collaborative – products would be released with [...]

Doug Maddox discussed how Chrysler has worked on warranty waste and performance measures to help prevent and eliminate it. In the past, Chrysler had relied on Expense per Unit Repaired to monitor dealers but this was easily manipulated (high cost repairs could be hidden) and it drove adverse behaviors because dealers would refuse to perform [...]