Newsletter - May 2008 : Enterprise Informatics

A View from the Bridge

I recently attended the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit in Chicago where Information Management was the center of attention. There was an interesting debate about whether data should be consolidated into a single data warehouse or if it should reside with the business application. Even so, all agree that it must be centrally managed to ensure the integrity and availability to support enterprise-wide business operations. Master Data Management (MDM) is the term that Gartner uses to describe this capability and they refer to Customer Data Integration and Product Information Management as real world examples of MDM applications.

As I thought through our internal systems, I realized that we have some pretty good Master Data Management already in place. We use eB as our core information management system. It is the system that stores all of our corporate records from requirements documentation, to functional specifications, to sales orders and invoices. eB distributed storage features are critical in making sure information is available not only in San Diego but in our London office, our development offices in Africa and to our many “telecommuters” located across the US.

All releases and products are modeled and tracked in eB. We even have some internal add-ons that are used to generate the eB Software Development Kit (SDK) and create the product license keys for our customers.

Our next step is to expand the use of eB to better manage our customer data. For example, if one of my support staff needs to create an eB license key for a customer, they need to be able to see the customer contact info, the status of their sales order and/or maintenance contract, and the keys they have been previously issued. Similarly, when an account manager is visiting a customer site, they would like to see the status of any open support inquiries. In both cases there is specific data needed by the user role, and common “master data” that we want to ensure is accurate and up to date.

How are we going to solve this challenge? Currently, customer data is stored in our sales forecasting system, customer call tracking system, accounting system, Microsoft Exchange and eB. Since we are already relating software license keys, sales orders and service projects to customers within our eB system, we are going to make eB responsible for managing our customer master data. This does not mean we intend to make eB a “data warehouse” of all conceivable customer data, but it will mean that no customer data can exist without being linked to the master in eB. The eB system will own and manage the relationship of all customer data between our various internal systems, thus maximizing the information that can be gleaned from our collection of raw data. In the process, we'll eliminate duplicate data, improve accuracy and gain operational efficiency.

By leveraging the knowledge we have gained working with our customers and eB technology to benefit our own internal business processes, we can improve our ability to serve our customers, reduce the cost of our information governance and free up more time to work on innovation.

We welcome your comments and suggestions. Please email them to ibridges@enterpriseinformatics.com

Sincerely,
Alan Kiraly
CEO, Enterprise Informatics

Network Rail is a long-standing eB customer with approximately 3,500 users, responsible for the management and development of the railway network in the UK and providing the infrastructure for the Train and Freight Operating Companies who run passenger services, deliver freight and manage the locomotives and rolling stock. Recently, Network Rail completed a major upgrade to its eB system, transitioning to the latest .NET architecture.

One of the key providers of information to Network Rail and the myriad of contractors who work on Projects is the Network Records Group (NRG) division of Network Rail. They are responsible for the As-Built archive that contains all the information, mainly engineering drawings, about signalling systems up and down the country. These are probably the most safety-critical documents in the whole rail system. In one year alone, NRG responded to 8,500 requests, which entailed issuing some 180,000 master drawings and 120,000 prints to designers and engineers involved in the upgrading and maintenance of the signalling network.

Stuart Shaw, NRG Electronic Records Coordinator, reports, “The eB upgrade has increased functionality and vastly improved the user interface for the Network Records Group. Through workshops, Enterprise Informatics mapped our processes and devised functionality that not only matched our requirements but helped streamline our processes. NRG staff is now able to complete all their tasks through a single interface and this consolidation has improved our efficiency. The changes have also been well received by NRG's customers, with users finding it easier and quicker to locate their records.”

One of the key objectives of Network Rail is to renew large sections of the rail network, and this is being done through a series of major projects, each of which concentrates on a specific line of route. The renewal of the West Coast Main Line (WCML), which runs between London Euston and Glasgow, was the first of the major projects to be delivered. eB has been integral to this project, specifically managing all the project documentation and changes to the asset base.

“All of our key users have found the new system to be much more user friendly and intuitive. For past upgrades we had to provide all users with a degree of formal training – this time we trained only a limited number of our key users and the remainder of the vast user base were given Quick Reference Guides, ” said Natalie Watkinson, EDSM Delivery Manager. “In many cases the users found they could perform the basic tasks with ease and with very little reference to the Guides.”

“The ongoing support provided by Enterprise Informatics throughout the upgrade has been as resolute as always, from defining the requirements to liaison during the development stages right through to implementation and the ongoing I.T. and user support they continue to provide now.”

Enterprise Informatics established a Government Executive Advisory Council (GEAC) and held the first meeting on March 4, 2008, continuing its commitment to the local government market.

GEAC is composed of experts from across the local government market including customers and industry representatives. Founding members include executives from:

Microsoft Corporation (Dave Rogers, Government Technology Strategist)

City of Las Vegas

Eastern Municipal Water District

Public Works Commission for the City of Fayetteville, North Carolina

Metropolitan Sewer District of Louisville, Kentucky

Daassnet - an Enterprise Informatics' business partner in South America

GEAC discussed issues and topics of interest to government, focusing on solutions for managing government documents, records and assets across all departments, allowing government organizations to:

Additional agenda items included discussions on future product requirements and packaging, market positioning, industry alliances and networking.

Letitia Cisco, Work Management Information System Administrator for the City of Fayetteville, commented, “Public Works Commission faces business challenges such as maintaining accurate records and complete documentation, easy access to old documents, and keeping large volumes of information organized. Since we are experiencing an increasing demand for information with limited resources, we need to make sure our staff is as productive as possible. This was key in our choice of Enterprise Informatics. We needed a document management system that was easy to use and capable of housing large volumes of information such as construction drawings /as-build drawings, legal contracts between developers and/or contractors and PWC, water and sewer permits issued by PWC, invoices, and other correspondence. By utilizing eB, we are able to drift away from the paper filing system and provide access to documents electronically. We look forward to next year's meeting.”

Enterprise Informatics maintains executive advisory councils for the growth and enrichment of its key market solutions, including eB for Government and eB for Nuclear. The 5th Annual Nuclear Executive Advisory Council will be meeting in Pennsylvania from July 30 – August 2, 2008.

eB enhancements add functionality and efficiency to the eB Suite.

Server enhancements:

Certified for Windows Server 2008

Certified for Windows Vista

Supports both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 2003 and 2008 operating systems

Digital Approval Record – Allows automatic creation of a record to capture document approval via a Work Order process.

Incorporated the latest version (4.1) of Spicer's Image aX and ViewCafe application

eB Web enhancements:

New Structured document management features – Upload entire Windows folder structures into automatically created eB document trees. Download entire eB document trees, automatically creating Windows Folders and subfolders. Very useful for compound PDF documents that have relative links

Ability to create documents and records from Outlook emails by simply dragging and dropping directly onto an eB Web page

Large file upload – Can now have reliable upload of very large (100MB+) files over less reliable networks by breaking files into smaller components and re-trying only the failed sections

eB Web configurations can now be defined, saved, and reused on multiple servers for easy and reliable deployment

Dominic O'Riley has joined the leadership team as the Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales. Dominic takes on the responsibility of expanding the direct sales organization as well as managing channel and go-to-market partners to achieve broader market and geographic coverage. Dominic will reside in the UK and initially focus on expanding our direct sales, support and partner network in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

John R. Wallace has joined Enterprise Informatics' executive advisory committee, bringing extensive experience and connections in both the IT user and vendor communities in the UK.

Wallace's impressive career includes positions as General Manager for the London Clearing Bank and eight years in charge of Information Technology across the NatWest Group, a company of 4,000 employees and annual revenues of approximately £400 million. Wallace has held additional directorial and advisory positions at:

Symtec Solutions Limited – a financial messaging software Company predominantly in the banking sector which was sold to BancServe in 2004.

CIO Connect Limited – the premier UK organization addressing the issues and interests of CIO's and senior IT executives.

Collaborative Connections Limited – a company that provides a unique range of services that enable businesses to take full advantage of opportunities presented by the Internet.

Lorien PLC – an IT resourcing and market research company.

newScale Inc. – the leader in service delivery management software that enables Global 2000 companies to run IT like a business by automating service ordering, managing service delivery and tracking delivery performance across internal and external service providers.

We welcome John and look forward to his contributions to the growth of Enterprise Informatics.

In 2003 Enterprise Informatics made a commitment to focus on the nuclear industry and cooperatively worked with customers to develop a set of nuclear applications built on the eB platform of information integrity and configuration management. The resulting set of applications, eB Nuclear Application Suite, improves process efficiency, reduces the risk of non-compliance and lowers operational cost. Our applications deliver process improvement in the areas Design Engineering, Performance Improvement, Information Management, Compliance and Knowledge Management.

To better serve this unique community, we have created a business unit (Nuclear Business Unit - NBU) dedicated to the Nuclear power generation market. We are pleased to announce that Glenn (Skip) Cox has been promoted to the position of Vice President and General Manager of the NBU and takes on full responsibility for this market sector.

Enterprise Informatics announced the general availability of eB Nuclear Performance Improvement - an integrated suite of tools that automate the processes and procedures for performance improvement defined by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO©) Guidelines for Performance Improvement at Nuclear Power Stations.

eB Performance Improvement is a single integrated platform for the management of Condition Reports, Corrective Actions, Preventative Actions, Operating Experience (both incoming and outgoing), Observations (online surveys), Benchmarking and Self Assessment.

eB Performance Improvement is currently in full production as a Fleet solution at Constellation Energy's headquarters and the R.E. Ginna Nuclear power plant with additional deployments in process at Calvert Cliffs and Nine Mile Point. Ginna has transitioned from a fragmented collection of performance improvement sub-elements to a fully integrated process that meets/exceeds INPO© Performance Improvement Guidelines.

“Constellation Energy selected the Enterprise Informatics eB Nuclear solution for our Fleetwide e-PIC (electronic Performance Improvement Center) because they offer unparalleled knowledge and commitment to the Nuclear market and a fully integrated suite of Nuclear specific applications that implement industry best practices.” said Gerry Doyle, Director Fleet Performance Improvement, Constellation Energy.

If you have an interest in Performance Improvement, be sure to view our free on-demand webinar.

This event brings together an audience of more than 4000 Tivoli®, Maximo® and Tivoli Netcool® users with IBM partners, industry analysts, and IBM technical experts for one spectacular global event.

CMBG provides a forum for the discussion of configuration management best practices within the nuclear industry

The USA Nuclear Generator & Supplier executive summit is dedicated to helping reduce operational costs and improve overall performance within the power industry

14th Annual Human Performance - Observations/Root Cause/Corrective Action - Trending/Self-Assessment and Operating Experience Conference.

NITSL is recognized by the nuclear industry as the leadership team providing strategic guidance on information technology solutions that support the business goals of nuclear generation.

If you missed the live webinar on March 19th, you still have the opportunity to view this informative free webinar presented by Pierre de Wet, Vice President, Operations for Enterprise Informatics.

In this one hour webinar learn how eB for Nuclear can streamline your Performance Improvement program by automating Corrective Action procedures and Human Performance processes. View Now