Enhance the Performance of Business with Mobile Dashboard

Mobile Business Intelligence has become a trend setter in the market of Business Intelligence or BI. The past years have seen solution providers placing considerable efforts for the development of mobile applications that are interactive and can be useful for the decision makers who are always on the move. Although the trend in this regard was slow to pick up, mobile BI has started making inroads into general practices of business in the marketplace. Almost every business entity has understood the various benefits offered by using mobile dashboards as information providers for the success of any business activity.

Mobile business intelligence is just one of the trends in the huge market of business intelligence. There are numerous other trends that are emerging in this regard that affect the overall adoption of the concept for use. With the advancements in technology and the widespread acceptance of iPhones, iPads, tablets and Androids, the different vendors are now able to render various business intelligence offerings that permit the companies in providing enhanced information and analytics access to the executives who are out of office for most of the time.

The market of business intelligence has seen slow expansion for including mobile dashboard. With the years spent in accessing important data in the form of PDF files, executives are now attracted to the ease of using the mobile applications for accessing vital information. The interactive dashboards in mobiles provide parameterized reports, and businesses are now deploying the concept of mobile BI as a key element in the functions of their work. All this means that the offerings of mobiles have reached a stage where they are able to meet diverse requirements of business intelligence in regards to ease of interaction and use. With the advent of iPads and tablets, the use of mobile BI has become the preferred choice of businesses across the globe. Not only is this concept able to provide enjoyment, the ease of accessing vital company and client information is a major booster for the executives. All this has resulted in the vendors trying to place their efforts in expansion of the concept with enhanced applications.

Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Blog Posts and Industrial Automation's Role in Making Food Safe

Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Blog Posts

Maintaining the safety of our food supply is not just the government's job--we as vendors to that industry also have a duty to provide products that make it easier and more efficient to tell when processes are diverging or failing; giving processors the visibility into their supply chain, to more efficiently detect when variances to critical quality levels occur; and most importantly, prevent the inclusion of defective products into the distribution channel.

We see the most challenging aspect of food safety is convincing the smallish companies that comprise the bulk of the industry to invest in technologies that will make their operations safer and consequently the output safer as well.  When companies are mostly manual, to add more sophisticated software (other than Microsoft Excel) becomes burdensome.  They don't have the IT resources necessary to even upkeep such a system.  So we as an industry need to make products that make it easier to use, cheaper to acquire, and more intuitive to manage.  

I've written a lot about the cloud--this is an ideal instance of where it could help these smaller providers.  Buying MES software as a service could defray costs, limit IT burden, and make it more accessible to these smaller companies.  I think it's only a matter of time.  We have already seen Historians on the cloud from a number of vendors (in addition to Invensys who was one of the first) within the past year.  Can a low cost, easy to use, MES be far behind?

Mobile Dashboards Provide the Much Needed ease for Monitoring Vital Information

Mobile business intelligence has introduced latest and new considerations on how the various organizations are monitoring their Key Performance indicators (KPI's) and such other metrics. A recently conducted study has claimed that by the year 2013, almost one-third of the users of BI will start accessing mobile dashboards for decision making concerns and analyzing important information. This is proof that mobile business intelligence is fast catching on. The concept has started to utilize the methods which the community of BI was predicting for some years now.

The challenge involved in the designing of mobile dashboard for BI users rests in the provision of important and relevant content that can be easily obtained and processed with the use of mobile devices. The on-premise or traditional desktop solutions for BI are great ways for providing the users with dashboards that are content-rich by way of visualizing a wide range of KPI's and such other vital metrics. It should be understood that the mobile dashboards need not compete with the traditional dashboards or desktop BI; they need to compliment the solutions provided by the desktop dashboards by the provision of KPI access from anywhere and at any given time.

The consumer culture demands the mobile applications to be friendly for the users, simple in nature, and fast in processing. These are the lessons that the organizations and users of BI need to remember after they have spent precious time, money and effort for deployment of solutions of mobile dashboards. The vendor of dashboards and BI need to stay up to delivering solutions and match the hype created by the mobile BI applications.

What does the Invensys acquisition mean for Spiral?

What does the Invensys acquisition mean for Spiral?

Business Intelligence iPad is Proving Beneficial for Businesses with Its Applications

Mobile business intelligence has come a long way from the usual boardroom or back office stuff to the latest trends of tablets. Decisions regarding office work are usually made on roads, warehouses, during client meets or the airport lounges. Decision makers usually need to have quick access for the key metrics, and this is facilitated by the mobile devices. The business intelligence iPad has made the lives of executives easier with its applications. The use of such devices reduces the decision bottlenecks, and increases the performance of the business process, thus enabling broader inputs in the decisions in hand.

The proliferation of business intelligence iPad is actually making Mobile BI a success by putting the data in the hands of the decision makers. The most obvious benefit derived by the use of these devices is not the coolness factor alone; the ability of delivering information literally at the fingertips of executives is the best part.

The convenience factor is also important in this regard. In the initial days, the executives needed to fetch the required information from their assistants; however with the advent of Mobile business intelligence, they have become self-sufficient in this regard. They also need not be tech savvy for using the devices. With such great advantages, Mobile BI is here to stay for long.

Adding Quality to Your Manufacturing Execution System

Quality test execution is a logical part of a MES

By Michael Schwarz, Product Marketing Manager, MES/EMI, Invensys.

Quality management is a functional domain which is typically and traditionally already covered with significant investment in any enterprise. Quality Management Systems (QMS) are present to a higher degree, in comparison with production or manufacturing related systems like Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) or process automation.

 What do Quality Management Systems do? They include managing a process according to target/specifications, maintaining real-time quality documentation; coordinate and monitor nonconformance recalls; and tie-in customer complaints to the manufacturing process, all within the context of a manufacturing process.    

Musings on the Cloud

I recently attended the Cloud Channel Summit in Silicon Valley.  The attendees represented leading software, hardware, systems and cloud hosting providers, as well as their channel—distributors, value-added resellers, systems integrators. Billed as a networking event to help build strategic alliances for a #cloud offering, it was apparent that the “cloud” and its ecosystem are still very much in a developmental stage.

Is the Oil & Gas Industry Ready for the Cloud?

I recently joined a LinkedIn group called “Intelligent Well and Intelligent Field Development Discussion Group.”  I am by no means an expert in Oil Fields, but the subject of the cloud for the Oil & Gas Industry was so tantalizing that I was drawn in.  We at Invensys have been working with Microsoft on developing automation products specifically for the cloud. The first two to be introduced will be a cloud-based tiered data historian, and a cloud-based BPM (Skelta).

Do You Use Social Media?

I mean, really use it to drive business, thought leadership, or to create a buzz?  Celebrities are genius at making something out of nothing.  But we, in the industrial automation industry, have real value, and most of it is hidden in obscure white papers, behind dated collateral, and within busy and unproductive websites.
It takes time to focus and determine what you want the world to perceive you to be—but if you take a little time, and talk with your customers, partners, and sales people, the benefits are enormous.

Carson City, Nevada - A "Smart City" Success Story for water/wastewater and power

Mobile Reporting – quickest delivery of report

Exchange of information to a purposeful objective from one point to another in a structured detail through mobile technology is mobile reporting. Mobile report can be in any field of business, like marketing, operation, sales, production, media, administration, medical etc. Mobile report may have text data, web forms, photographs, videos, voices to communicate information to the intended audiences. Multimedia reporting gave a new dimensions to the report that we were ever known. Text, voices, videos and photos combined makes an multimedia report so effective that it can be complied, edited and sent through mobile on over 3G/GPRS/WiFi even SMS/UTMS channel from a remote location in a quickest mode. Mobile reporting is useful for business person to report statistics to management, field representative to send daily work report, remote distributors to send stock detail to supplier, media person to cover a media report and sent it to the broadcaster etc.



Many web services are available to share information from mobile device to the receiving system. This enable secure and safe transporting of mobile report from a remote location and preserve it from any damage until it reaches to final receiver. Mobile reporting is not only quickest and effective but it is easiest, convenient and lesser costly than the other reporting methods.

For a business enterprise, the key challenges like – getting information to focus on key customer concerns, tracking the action of remotely located workers, instant collection and comparison of performance of different work location, employee management etc, can be easily tackle by management using mobile business intelligence (MBI) and mobile reporting. It provides an immediate view of the situation (as report can be transmit anytime 24*7) and help to respond it in minimum time by alerting concern personals.

Apart from business, in the field of media and journalism mobile reporting has made it's impact. Reporting a breaking news or a cover story from a remote location has become easier and faster due to usage of mobile based multimedia report in media reporting. A media report can easily be record, video graphed, video called, emailed and send to the broadcaster. Live reporting is also possible today due to advantages of mobile technologies from remote to remote location. Even a common citizen can record the incident in mobile and report to to concern person with proof.

Many commercial and open source software applications are available to provide services of BI and reporting on your smartphone. Tools are available to present structured information on web and in the form of required data visualization. Even a live video can be send and receive using a mobile to visualize live reporting. Smart phones provide a package of different technologies in it's simplest form in your pocket that makes you advantageous at different levels.

The Changing Face of MES

MES, as we know it, is a set of software that performs operational task executions: product track & trace, genealogy, quality, along with a host of other activities that provide manufacturers with the ability to make informed decisions on the proceedings and progress of their manufacturing operations. The definition has permutated over the years to be a broad-brush capture of ANY kind of overseer application, and so we’re finding Quality, LIMS, Historian, and even HMI applications calling themselves “MES.”

Mobile Dashboard- All in One Glance.

"Mobile Dashboards....Is it something to replace my car dashboard?  :) "

A mobile dashboard is a simple view of selected data, associated with an business entity, through a suitable mobile application for business purpose. Business, administrative and managerial usage of mobile phones need innovative and efficient mobile software that can present business data into a form that is usable and understandable by business community and mangers. Achievement of this objective is done by mobile dashboard software available with mobile business intelligence package or in standalone application. Mobile dashboard can be also be used for social connect, personal usage, gaming, expense tracker etc. The mobile software products which function to integrate local or remotely available data and information into an integrated display are known as dashboards.

"Hmm...Got it...how do one use it in real time?"

A good mobile dashboard must be an single screen view of all information to be seen by the mobile user.  For example – Mr. Salesman is a dynamic person who goes to client, takes order, track delivery and collect payments. In this mobile business intelligence era he also uses mobile application to all his data and companies centralized database. He also gets his targets, progress and other assignments from mobile app only. So in his mobile app he will have a single screen view of information on his mobile about his progress, targets, tracking, new assignments and other information from management side. Similarly company employes many salesman, and each one has it's own dashboard that present individual data to them. Now similarly Mr. Sales Manager, who has responsibility of performance of his team of all salesmen, interested to view overall figures of his team. So he will have a dashboard that will show a summary of total figures, performance of individual team members, achievement, lagging and other information in a single screen.

"Okey..but how do I get it...which is best dashboard? Will it suit to my requirement?"

Different business enterprises require different dashboard structure as per their nature and mode of operations. Even different departments within an enterprise may require different dashboard. A mobile dashboard for a business purpose, need be designed in a structure that it represent core business operation detail pertaining to objective tasks, responsible person, and help management to take appropriate decision. A large number of open source applications are available by mobile software providers to address business, social or personal dashboards requirement. You can also get a customized software from your technology vendor. Advanced dashboards allows you to select data on specific parameters, drill down details, mark your comments,  visualize more graphic details etc on a single screen dashboard.

Rapid technology changes may obsolete your device and it's software after a period. A new device may work on a completely different platform. So a mobile dashboard system, which can work on cross-platform technologies, is highly required.

Why I Chose Automation as a Career

Or rather, how it chose me.  I did not start out with a career goal of being a marketing person in the industrial automation industry.  But choices lead me to working for a manufacturing company building coated optics. I was exposed to quality, manufacturing, production control, sales and marketing—an entire supply chain’s worth of experience. I inspected solar cell covers, did technical writing for the process engineering group, used scientific instruments to measure the thickness and wavelength of the coatings within the quality department, and finally, ended up in sales and marketing.  That experience over 9 years gave me a quest for understanding how things were made, an interest that stays with me until this day.

Mobile Business Intelligence in Your Smartphones

If past decade belongs to information revolution by IT then this decade belongs to Information revolution by Smartphones and tablets. Mobile phones devices are now rapidly being seen by us as business purpose devices instead merely communication devices. Smartphones and other wireless portable information processing devices are now being used in your departmental store, medical center, banks, financial institute, offices, security systems, educational systems and many more places in day to day operation. Usage of these devices is now helping in management decision making to tackle market competition, optimization of business processes, efficient employee utilization, quality and satisfactory customer services and recording of real time business data to data ware house for future use. More and more business usage of high end portable devices by us has now given birth to the need to effective system that can store such all information securely and make it available for use at mobile or table for its user. Today, Mobile Business Intelligent system addresses this very need only.

Mobile business intelligence refer to a system that enables globally located mobile devices and tablet computers to use the centrally stored information or data by one or more suitable mobile application(s) for reporting and data analysis. Mobile Business Intelligence enables a user to access recorded data, patterns, information in a more understandable form of business operations. By accessing this data user can use techniques of BI using suitable mobile application for prediction, decision making, and graphical presentation and for MIS. Business Intelligence does always, in any form, help management in decision making system, so 'MBI'. How does Mobile Business Intelligence work?

Now a large number of tools are available for different mobile platforms (such as Android, Symbions, Windows etc) to facilitate the purpose of Mobile Business Intelligence. These tool includes both mobile browser based applications and installable softwares applications or native applications. Using these applications you’re Smartphones or tablets fetch data from remotely located dataware house over a secure channel using SMS, GPRS, UTMS or mobile radio/voice channel. Business enterpises and technology vendors are now looking for each other to explore the new horizone of mobile business intelligence by addressing specific business needs, customer requirements and direction of the market. Smartphone/Tablet OS platforms now provide a number of applications to server small to big business need of information processing practically. Presenting your data, reports or plan using such application is very effective and convenient. Micro-Strategy is now demand of business scenario to meet the business need. Is Mobile Business Intelligence safe for my business?

Information security is a seriously critical concern when adopting mobile business intelligent system. In Mobile Business Intelligence, Data loss and data theft are two prime risks that can be seen as a security concern. Data loss may be caused by physical damage to devise, virus attack or misusing application. This can be mitigated by a prompt and effective backup system and disaster management system in Mobile Business Intelligence. This should be followed by a quick recovery system. To stop the data theft, mobile business intelligence system provider must address the security at Devise, Data Transmission, User Authorization and Authentication, and Network Security levels. There has to be strict policy related to data access from various user levels. Mobile business platform must be in synchronization with Smartphone/tablets platforms to secure the access of application and data. Data of business application should not be stored for a long on mobile devices. How can I use Mobile business intelligence in my business?

Creating a mobile work force is easy if you already have a information technology systrem in your enterprise. Select a suitable devise and platform to use and get a suitable mobile business intelligence system from a long list of available system or get a customised software for your business enterprise. You are all ready to go for mobile business intelligence after small training. Adoption mobile BI is also helping enterprises to decrease the operation cost. Now suitable application can be built without software programming using latest Mobile programming and  OS supported utilities. What future Mobile Business Intelligence has?

Mobile Business Intelligence has till miles to go. It has proved it's worthiness. Now steps are being taken to make it integrates with life of common person and to make human life better. More and more improvement in portable devices, mobile and tablets, will push more and more applications of mobile business intelligence in business world.

Using Workflow for Expanded Collaboration

Invensys has offered two workflow products now for over 2 years.  The first, Skelta BPM, is an enterprise-driven workflow tool, meant to standardize processes and foster communication/collaboration among the business users in a company.  The second product, which I am intimately involved with, is ArchestrA Workflow Software.  It uses the base engine of Skelta, with extensions, connectors, and functionality specifically for the industrial user.

Ways to Boost Sales Using Mobile business Intelligence

Mobile business intelligence can be one of the greatest tools to promote business and achieve a great number of sales if used properly. Mobile Business intelligence highly influences sales of any particular company. There are many proofs which show that sales are affected by Mobile business intelligence. Below is one reason that can be considered as a proof.

Use of cognition methods in different deals:

Having an application of Mobile business intelligence in hand, different company sales teams can notice and record key points that help win deal. This helps team members know what is required to close a deal successful and what can be done for improvement if the deal doesn’t go well. It also gives privilege to discuss wining techniques in company meetings so members who are weak can be benefitted from. This helps make weak members expert and those who are already skilful can concentrate on polishing skills by viewing techniques of their colleague members.

As mobile business intelligence is commonly equipped with reporting equipment as well, this helps different companies not only to keep track of their sales team performance but also the performance of their products as well. Different measures can be taken immediately via using mobile business intelligence and it helps boost sales in most cases.

Buying cycle review and monitoring:

The revenue of any particular manufacturing company depends on the customers buying cycle. Whenever a customer buys particular company’s product, companies earn some profit depending upon their profit margin. That’s why its importance for manufacturing companies to keep note of customers buying cycle and to note crucial points such as duration of the year when demand is highest and when demand of product is lowest. As mobile business intelligence applications cover mobile reporting, it makes the process to collect data from customers buying cycle regarding company’s products very easy. This data is lot crucial to companies because lot part of their strategy to generate revenue is based on it.

Time savers:

One of the greatest problems for the company is to assign individuals on different activities which hardly generate any revenue for the company but still are important activities for the company’s future. However solution to this problem was found in the form of Mobile business intelligence applications. These applications allow individuals to perform activities only those who yield profits for the company and to shift attention to high revenue activities as per priority. Increased revenue for company results in higher bonuses and rewards for company employees and it increases efficiency in work system of the company as well. Thus the use of mobile business intelligence generates only win-win situation and as activities are shifted priority wise among different employees, it saves a lot of time as well.

Not Just Vapor, The Cloud Is Real And Can Be Secure | Automation World

Invensys and others describe the real benefits of the cloud, specifically addressing security concerns.  This is especially relevant to the manufacturing community, that considers their information "Intellectual Property" and must guard it at all costs:

Not Just Vapor, The Cloud Is Real And Can Be Secure | Automation World

Caliel: The future of automation | ISA

"Attempting to define the “future of automation” is a real challenge, especially considering the complexity of today’s industrial operations and automation systems", says Mike Caliel, President of Invensys Operations Management.

Read the complete article in INTech >> Caliel: The future of automation | ISA

Top 5 Tips: How to get the most out of attending a user group meeting

With the upcoming set of User Group Meetings from Invensys, I thought I'd discuss how to optimize your time while attending.

Executive Eye Opener Series: There's Still Time to Register!

http://iom.invensys.com/EN/Pages/InvensysCloudforManufacturing.aspx
Location, Dates & Time

• Houston, TX - September 18, 2012
• Philadelphia, PA - September 25, 2012
• Charlotte, NC - September 20, 2012
• Minneapolis, MN - September 27, 2012

Understand the business benefits and applicability of Azure Cloud Technology in industrial automation. See how incremental steps, such as virtualization, offer you a clear pathway.

Join the top experts from Microsoft, Invensys, ARC Advisory Group and Sarla Analytics for an interactive, free half day seminar to discover how you can benefit from the latest technologies
now.
  

ERP to MES—Still?

I’ve been in the automation business now for over 27 years, and it seems that for the past 20 of them, we’ve been wrestling with the concept of #MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) to #ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).  And it amazes me that we are still having these conversations.  Why?  I have my own ideas, and since this is my blog, you get to find out what they are!

How Automation Systems are like Chopped (Food Network)

OK so this may be a stretch, but I was watching Food Network’s Chopped television show the other night (a guilty pleasure) and I noticed that it’s not about the actual cooking—it’s about time management, strategy, creativity, and differentiation.

The premise of the show is that 4 contestants are given a disparate basket of ingredients—for example, pork belly, guavas, rice wine vinegar and pine nuts, and are challenged with making a cohesive, tasty dish out of it.  They compete against each other for the title of Chopped Champion.

Why You Should Consider Mobility

Mobility—it means a lot of things these days.  Getting information immediately on a smart device.  Having your system travel with you, unbounded by physical walls of the plant.  Or, “untethering” your application from its PC-bound form.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a growing number of mobile applications being offered.  If you look on the iStores, there are hundreds of SCADA, HMI, and EMI/BI offerings, from both large vendors (such as Invensys) as well as smaller, point-solutions folks who develop applications strictly for the mobile phone or device.  The great part though is that you now have choices. 

Lates trend in Mobile Application Development: Mobile Business Intelligence

Growth in Mobile Application Industry is reaching new heights; there is a huge rush in the MobileApplication Development industry to bring business applications to these mobile devices. Toeing on these lines, developres have moved a step further in delivering hardcore enterprise applications like Mobile Business Intelligence, catering to the need of business enterprises whether big or small to have an upper hand in cut throat competition. Creating such a technology where information at your fingertips with the help of Mobile Reporting is the need of the hour, as it is increasingly important to survive in this fast growing competitive world.

The need and desire by professionals/ corporates / Business tycoons/ students / academiciansto have an access to their data with the help of mobile devices, led to continuous development and thus, Mobile Business Intelligence came into exsistence. Instead of relying on someone else to create their unique Mobile Reporting, such applications can give them intuitive, simplified tools to do it themselves. Hence this application can give them access to various trends in the market as they can get access to their data faster.

As the modern day proffessionals connected or associated with any field, have a modern version of an office workspace, one which is not restricted to four office walls, a desktop computer with a small area of carpeting.   With the demand from every corner of every business and industry, for a more intelligent mobile application, which can grant access to analytical data, regardless of their proximity to the office, such applications are on the rise. Solving this basic requirement,Mobile Business Intelligencesuccessfully endues the organization savings with efficiency and delivering successful outputs, and thus results in thriving business. Compromised of the smart phone reporting service, Smart Glance, and Mobile Reporting connecter, this provides data connectivity.The user begins receiving reports and data almost immediately once this application is configured his/her device, thus resulting in the creation of a virtual office, wherever you are.

Taking Business the establishment’s ability to make educated business decisions in real time, based on agile interpretation of various streams,Mobile Reporting; feature of Mobile Business Intelligence,supports  state of the art mobile devices as the Apple iPhone, iPad ,iPad touch, Black Berry, android and Micrisift Phone 7. Becoming a strategic tool for businesses as they try to navigate through the current economic shoals by staying up to date on critical business data, this technology is assisting this generation to achieve their goals with high parameters.

Few Ways to Increase Sales Using Mobile BI

Mobile business intelligence results in a thriving business. Amongst savings in efficiency and ownership of the metrics and in turn driving these metrics for successful outputs, Mobile BI truly endues the organization. The sales process of the company in highly influenced with the use of Mobile Reporting and BI.

Some of the key points which show that a sale is influenced by the use of Mobile BI are listed below:

Cognition of methods in deals

Having a mobile with Mobile BI application in hand, the sales team can keep a tab of the key performance indicators of winning deals. They get an in-depth know how of what is needed to win deals and can also keep a track of them in the process. This gives them the privilege of discussing winning ways in meetings and general conversations on the phone about the methods to adapt for getting the right combination of techniques for winning sales deals. The aid received in understanding the positioning of your products and the attributes of the service provided by you get highlighted with the proper use of Mobile BI. The constant availability of data helps in getting success for the sales team.

Mobile Reporting can be used by the management for discussing key issues of deals with the sales team. The management is able to get proper insight not only about the performance of their team, but also about the performance of their products. They can in turn aid the sales personnel in closing important and tricky deals. The manager can also instruct their team to sell product bundles for increasing the ROI for the clients. Such excellent applications and uses of Mobile BI make it a must have for any organization or company.

Supervision of buying cycles

The revenue cycle of any organization is related to the engagement procedure for customers followed by the company and keeping a close tab on the buying cycles of clients. These are the key performance indicators for any organization. The applications provided by Mobile BI provide this important data via Mobile Reporting. It also gives a proper timeframe for engaging with clients. This data is handy when you engage your esteemed customers for effectively maximizing the revenues of the company.

Save time on unwanted activities

The most frequent problem faced by sales teams of different industries is spending quality time on activities which provide very little or no yield for the company. The use of Mobile will assist them in focusing only on activities that produce good yields for the organization. Shifting attention to high yielding activities will in turn reflect on the revenue generation of the company. Increased revenue result in increased rewards for the employees and also increased efficiency on part of them. It is a win-win situation for everyone involved.

To conclude, It is a must have as far as increasing the sales of your company goes. It is bound to help you get recurring income from customers who are satisfied on account of the brisk service provided to them by the sales force.

How Mobile Reporting Is Delivering Real Value?

Mobile business intelligence has launched itself in this era for providing solutions which are designed for giving the users an interface which is not only intuitive but also easy for using. With Mobile BI, the rate at which decisions are taken by organizations has increased drastically as compared to the companies who are still not adept at using the power of Mobile Reporting platforms.


Moreover, the return on investment i.e. the real value in terms of benefits provided by Mobile BI is not just concerned with fast decision making for the management and stakeholders of any organization. To get a complete idea of calculating the real value delivered by Mobile BI we also need to mull over the fact that its use renders employees to make more use of Business Intelligence. Add to this is the fact that Mobile BI applications are easy to use.


Mobile BI users a latest utility and interfaces which in turn are responsible for delivering real value to your organization. Setting of dashboards for the solutions provided by Mobile BI with the relevant data needed aids in getting the prefect status about the performance of your business at any given time and place.


Mobile Reporting also ensures a secured access to important corporate communications. Mobile BI is more about becoming agile and responsive to the customer needs with brisk solutions and that too without having to take a resistive path. The ability of performance of the employees on field in heightened with the use of Mobile Reporting. This in turn will reflect on the revenues of the company. On account of the brisk decisions taken on field, the end customers of the company are also benefited. The issues regarding the clients get resolved faster in the process. This leads to lesser attrition rates as far as the clients go.


Mobile BI always keeps you informed about the process of your work. You gain maximum visibility of your work anytime and anywhere. You project pipeline is always under your scanner and this helps in proper scheduling of work. The companies using Mobile BI are successful in improving the overall sales process.


The solutions gifted by Mobile BI provide the users an easy method to interact, navigate and access important information, analyze it correctly and then take decisions the right way. The decisions are more data driven than instinct driven. This data is also among the firewalls of the company making it more secure.

Mobile Business Intelligence

The concept of Mobile Business Intelligence has been present for a decade. But initially a dedicated server was necessary for taking advantage of the features offered by Mobile Business Intelligence. It is a trend that sales professional need to devote bulk of their time in traveling and visiting customers. Not only the sales people, but some of the senior executives also spend quality time away from their offices.


This necessitates the need of access to information anywhere and at anytime. This will aid them in getting access to vital information for correcting problems or identifying the right opportunities when they are not at headquarters. Mobile Business Intelligence does just that.


In the recent years, Mobile Business Intelligence has evolved enormously for giving the employees the much needed control to satisfy their analysis and reporting motives. The feature of Mobile Reporting provided by Mobile Business Intelligence aids the employees when they are working off site. The Mobile Dashboard type information delivery has been made possible by the various applications provided by Mobile Business Intelligence. The Dashboards add value to the operational reporting process through the dimensions of data visualization. Such techniques, that Mobile Business Intelligence provides, enhance better interpretation of information for the users.


Every company who has a long list of employees who work in remote areas from the base, or are mostly away from their office, need to access the tremendous benefits available with the use of Mobile BI. The timely access to corporate data obtained by the use of Mobile Business Intelligence not only provides for an improved operational performance; the efficiency also increases dramatically. The decision making activity gets boosted due to the extension of the critical data to the employees on the field. This is a major advantage of opting for Mobile Business Intelligence applications. The increased productivity provided by this activity is bound to boost the revenues of any company.


Mobile Business Intelligence accelerates the decision making process and renders a better insight to the people involved. Just imagine the amount of time that is saved between the identification of an issue and the final decision making. Mobile Business Intelligence lays a solid framework for affirming fast and better decisions via reports which are easily procured.


Things to remember when opting vendors for Mobile Business Intelligence:


• A simple yet spontaneous interface
• Maximum flexibility for users to run, interact and access reports in a manner they need.
• Admittance to the authentic corporate data
• The ability to adapt to any common handheld device
• Intelligent security for keeping corporate information confidential


Hence, we can conclude that the permeating use of Mobile Dashboards ameliorates the overall performance of the business. It has been proved that the organizations that use Mobile Business Intelligence virtually deploy double the workforce which they already have. The benefits offered by the use of Mobile Business Intelligence are significant if correctly incorporated in the operations of the company. A sense of empowerment will be visible in the employees who will further boost the prospects of the company as well as themselves.


After seeing the overall advantages offered by the technology of Mobile Business Intelligence, every company wanting to heighten its performance will opt for it.

Microsoft Azure First Choice for Delivery of Cloud-based Enterprise

Interesting blog post about the Microsoft Azure cloud strategy written by Frank Scavo of The Enterprise System Spectator.

SmartGlance Awarded Innovative Product of the year 2011

We are proud to announce that SmartGlance was awarded the prestigious Innovative Product of the Year 2011 award at the Invensys OpsManage’11 Global User Conference, Nashville, TN, USA.

The award recognizes SmartGlance (Real Time Mobile Dashboards for Business Monitoring) for excellence and innovation. SmartGlance integrates with various Invensys products and helps its customers achieve operational excellence through mobile reporting.

Wireless Apps, Cloud Services Transform Decision Making

Key to the producer’s growth strategy is capital efficiency—getting the most out of its facilities and equipment. To help accomplish this, the company checks its lines for OEE (overall equipment efficiency) and production rates in real time with the help of the Invensys SmartGlance mobile reporting system, which makes information available to users in real time, 24/7.

Using mobile devices, management reviews production reports. In some cases, it will discover that one of the plant locations did not meet a target. With the “drill down” capability in the SmartGlance application, a manager can go to the next information level for that plant location and view line performance. There, a manager might discover that a particular line was down. Drilling down still further, he can view all the equipment in that line where he can pinpoint the packaging machine in question and check its OEE. All this can be done in-house or remotely. Other aspects of the SmartGlance application allow data to be compared with ideal batches, providing support for determining corrective actions.

Information from the plant processes is collected via local monitoring and control systems and resides on a secure cloud server. Using a combination of SmartGlance and Microsoft technologies, data is then available on demand to a smart mobile device, which for this producer is the iPhone. When the data travels to and from the cloud server, the service is fully secured, providing authentication, authorization, and encryption.

The Six "Must Haves" To Use Mobile Devices in Manufacturing

A mobile App running on Mobile devices can show you new ways to streamline operations, reduce costs, increase worker productivity and enable the power of real-time response. Mobility will let you transcend distance and connectivity issues, create a virtual, personalized space for collaboration and empower front-line workers to make better, faster, smarter decisions. Mobiles are becoming popular in the Manufacturing Industry for real time reporting, quick analysis and the ability to pinpoint problems from the road.

The six key features that Mobile Apps must offer to be effective in manufacturing environment:

• Must work on ALL mobile devices – Apple, Android, BlackBerry and Windows


• Must connect to all manufacturing systems


• Must be fully secured against hackers and lost phones


• Must have ability to drill down to pinpoint problems


• Must offer near Real-Time data updates for the latest status


• Must offer Alerts so user does not have to keep looking

Wireless apps, cloud services transform decision making, data management for packaging lines

Key to the producer’s growth strategy is capital efficiency—getting the most out of its facilities and equipment. To help accomplish this, the company checks its lines for OEE (overall equipment efficiency) and production rates in real time with the help of the Invensys SmartGlance mobile reporting system, which makes information available to users in real time, 24/7.

Using mobile devices, management reviews production reports. In some cases, it will discover that one of the plant locations did not meet a target. With the “drill down” capability in the SmartGlance application, a manager can go to the next information level for that plant location and view line performance. There, a manager might discover that a particular line was down. Drilling down still further, he can view all the equipment in that line where he can pinpoint the packaging machine in question and check its OEE. All this can be done in-house or remotely. Other aspects of the SmartGlance application allow data to be compared with ideal batches, providing support for determining corrective actions.

Information from the plant processes is collected via local monitoring and control systems and resides on a secure cloud server. Using a combination of SmartGlance and Microsoft technologies, data is then available on demand to a smart mobile device, which for this producer is the iPhone. When the data travels to and from the cloud server, the service is fully secured, providing authentication, authorization, and encryption.

SmartGlance Mobile Reporting

Invensys Operations Management has released SmartGlance, a new mobile reporting solution that delivers plant data and reports directly to the smart phones. Plant operators, maintenance technicians and other plant personnel can see current operating data anywhere and at any time, helping to accelerate decision making and improving collaboration.

Leveraging two of today's most important new technologies-- smart phones and cloud computing-- SmartGlance can keep plant decision makers and operators fully aware of the plant's performance. Data from Invensys Operations Management's systems, as well as from a myriad of other plant data sources, can be sent via the "cloud" to smart phones subscribed to the SmartGlance Mobile Reporting service.

SmartGlance completes the information "loop" by providing easy-to-view and easy-to-analyze data reports anywhere and at anytime. It differs from web-based reporting applications because its native smart phone app takes full advantage of screen navigation features found in today's leading mobile devices. Viewing and manipulating data reports and graphs is extremely easy and fast.

Key capabilities:

• View plant data anywhere, anytime;


• Powerful, analytical displays;


• Easy touch screen navigation;


• Share reports via email;


• Secure cloud-based report generation and delivery;


• Supports commonly used smart device platforms like Apple, Blackberry and, soon, Android and Microsoft Phone 7.

FREE Seminar: The Cloud for Manufacturing

Understand the business benefits and applicability of Azure Cloud Technology in industrial automation.

Join the top experts from Microsoft, Invensys, ARC Advisory Group and Sarla Analytics in a COMPLIMENTARY, interactive half-day seminar.

Register Today!

Dates & Locations

• Houston, TX - May 14, 2012
• Minneapolis, MN - May 17, 2012
• Boston, MA - June 5, 2012
• Redmond, WA - June 7, 2012

Topics

• Business Benefits & Rationale for Cloud Computing
• Azure Cloud Services for Manufacturers
• ARC Advisory Group: Is Industry Ready for the Cloud? ARC Advisory Group: Is Industry Ready for the Cloud?
• Invensys: Collaboration & Reporting in the Cloud
• Sarla Analytics: Analytics in the Cloud 

Accelerating Microsoft Windows Azure Development

Invensys announced an alliance with Microsoft Corp. for migrating some Invensys applications to the Windows Azure cloud. By bringing together industrial thought and technology leaders, the alliance expands our relationship with Microsoft and will afford end users cloud-based offerings in the manufacturing and infrastructure operations space.

Three month free trial of Windows Azure available here.

Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth: Part 2

OK, so I got a bit lazy on my last post.  And I got called on it.  So let's do it right!  We have seen a lot of movement lately on the cloud for industry, and specifically, the cloud for manufacturers. I have written 2 articles now and have participated on one panel, and the outcome of all of it is that manufacturers are in a "wait and see" mode.

Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth | Automation World

Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth | Automation World

The Cloud for Manufacturing?  Well, someday soon...
I just participated in an industry panel at the ARC Forum last week.  With me were SAP, AT&T, and Microsoft representatives.  The overwhelming feeling was that we are on the cusp of "something big" but the manufacturing industry, being what it is, is reluctant to be the first adopters of such a technology.

"First Team” Supplier

Readers of Automation World Name Invensys a “First Team” Supplier

Automation World reports on who readers partner with to implement automation projects and improve their companies’ bottom lines. This new, annual survey helps you know who your peers have chosen as their “first team” suppliers.

Did you take part in the survey?

THANK YOU for recognizing us in 10 critical product and solution categories, including  Asset Management/Optimization Software; HMI Software; HMI Mobile; HMI iPad Apps; and Manufacturing Execution Software.

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Blog Recommendation: Modeling, Simulation and Operator Training Solutions

You may be interested in following another Invensys Operations Management blog as well, which covers SimSci-Esscor® simulation software product releases, news and events including PRO/II™, DYNSIM™, ROMeo®, EYESIM™ and Connoisseur™

http://simulationots.blogspot.com/

Automation Applied: Refinery Optimization | Automation World

Automation Applied: Refinery Optimization Automation World

The Six "Must Haves" To Use Mobile Devices in Manufacturing

Today I have a guest column by Snehal Shah, SmartGlance, and Bimal Mehta, Invensys.  It is on the Six “Must Haves” to Use Mobile Devices in Manufacturing

A mobile App running on Mobile devices can show you new ways to streamline operations, reduce costs, increase worker productivity and enable the power of real-time response. Mobility will let you transcend distance and connectivity issues, create a virtual, personalized space for collaboration and empower front-line workers to make better, faster, smarter decisions. Mobiles are becoming popular in the Manufacturing Industry for real time reporting, quick analysis and the ability to pinpoint problems from the road. 

Here are six key features that Mobile Apps must offer to be effective in manufacturing environment:

1. Must work on ALL mobile devices – Apple, Android, BlackBerry and Windows

2. Must connect to all manufacturing systems

3. Must be fully secured against hackers and lost phones

4. Must have ability to drill down to pinpoint problems

5. Must offer near Real-Time data updates for the latest status

6. Must offer Alerts so user does not have to keep looking

2012 Food Industry Outlook: A Taste of Things To Come

2012 Food Industry Outlook: A Taste of Things To Come. This industry outlook provides some interesting "food for thought" (so to speak) on how we, as providers of industrial automation solutions, can best help our customers to meet the needs of consumers for more variety, faster access to information, and more cost-effective offerings.  Certainly, the trend of "bespoke" solutions can be applied to our customers--who wouldn't want customized solutions, just for them?  Does this mean our partner community needs to become better adapted and responsive to these customer demands?  Or can we provide semi-off the shelf applications that allow the type of customization (beyond face plates) that meet these needs?  What do you all think?