Article Summary for The secret sauce of SaaS by Wayne Morris

Write 4 paragraph article summary for The secret sauce of SaaS by Wayne Morris.

No title page. 

Minimum 2 references.

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