Portals remain a key to cmm

Portals Remain a Key to CMM
BY GREG GORBACH NOVEMBER 28, 2001 ARC INSIGHTS# 2001-050E

KEYWORDS:
Enterprise Portals, Plant Portals, Visibility, Connectivity, CMM

SUMMARY:
Portals allow users to view information from disparate sources, but there are some im-
portant differentiators between consumer portals, enterprise or corporate portals, and
plant portals. ARC views portal technology as a key to providing visibility and connec-
tivity between people and systems, and will be a critical element for manufacturers.
Portals constitute one of the three key technologies for Collaborative Manufacturing
Management (CMM), with Web Application Servers and Exchange or Integration servers
being the others.

ANALYSIS:
With minor differences, many portal suppliers can access and present data from a public
Website, an Intranet, or a data store via special connectors and applications. Typically,
the data is filtered or personalized based on user profile. Some portals go beyond the
basic visibility functionality to provide knowledge management, or document-based
workflow management, but only a few go all the way to providing an environment to
unify the various applications and services for a user.

As companies shift to collaborative manufacturing, boundaries to
ARC views portal technology as a
information sharing will change dramatically. Customers, suppli-
key to providing visibility and
ers, design partners, and corporate managers will all require secure
connectivity between people and
systems and a critical element for access, based on their profiles, to information and applications
manufacturers. across the complete enterprise and value chain. These users will
have little knowledge of how to access information and little pa-
tience for searching multiple databases, combining information from disparate systems,
and maintaining a multitude of passwords to gain access to different systems. Portals
will lessen such hurdles to information.

Portals provide a convenient way to establish an efficient desktop work center that
drives information flow and problem solving. Recognizing this benefit, many portal
suppliers provide role-based templates that organize user interfaces for efficiency while
allowing personalization that can address individual preferences.

ENTERPRISE AND AUTOMATION STRATEGIES FOR INDUSTRY EXECUTIVES

ARC Insights, Page 2

The best portals go beyond simply displaying data in one place. Often combining ad-
vanced analytics, these portals convert data into information such as Key Performance
Indicator (KPI) displays or other analysis, allowing users to verify facts, make and pur-
sue logical connections, and take immediate action. These portals integrate an
enterprise’s various digital assets, enabling the user to easily navigate between these as-
sets, gathering information and knowledge along the way to enable better decision
making.

Information Access and Presentation
The prototypical consumer portal, Yahoo.com, offers a broad, personalized array of di-
verse information and services, including news, shopping, finance, entertainment, email,
and much more, in the hope of being the most popular destination on the Internet.
Many enterprise or corporate portals employ a similar model, providing their users with
diverse business-related information. They increase productivity by providing users
with visibility to all relevant information, thereby empowering them to make better deci-
sions and operate more effectively. Such portals typically offer a Web-based,
personalized desktop for individuals, basic user interaction with enterprise applications
and services, and other information sources such as stock, weather, or news sites, a
document directory, and a collaboration point for communities to facilitate knowledge
sharing.

This functionality is excellent for providing employees access to administrative informa-
tion such as HR benefits, and many manufacturers find this a good place to start with
portal technology. Companies save money by eliminating duplicate information stores,
reducing printing costs, reducing telephone support costs and improving employee pro-
ductivity. Access is personalized, to reflect only the individual’s information needs.
Consolidating such information into one portal view for the user simplifies access for
employees, allowing them to remain productive. Limited two-way information flow is
typically provided, allowing employees to update certain personal information.

Another use for this type of functionality is consolidating operational information from a
number of applications in one place. By accessing and presenting information from ERP,
CRM, SCM, and other applications, this “HMI for the Enterprise” approach can portray
the status of the overall business operation, in much the same way that HMI systems
conveyed the status of controlled plant equipment.

Plant portals play a similar role, but leverage connectivity with plant systems such as
SCADA/HMI, LIMS, Historians, CPM, Maintenance systems, as well as Enterprise soft-
ware. They may offer access to real-time, as well as stored data to enhance
manufacturing decision support. Dashboards can display KPIs such as Order status,

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Daily Production, or Asset Efficiency, and alerts may be set to automatically notify the
user of deviations. A product like Lighthammer’s Illuminator can display such KPIs for
executive and supply chain users, real-time production information for production man-
agers, Web-based interfaces to process information for Engineering, KPIs and SPC
analysis for Quality users, and work orders for maintenance groups.

Presenting information in one place from the different systems that impact production
will empower managers to act directly to align operations decisions with manufacturing
goals and with business needs. With the right information available, one can quickly
assess and identify problem area that require immediate attention.

Knowledge Management
Another class of portals incorporates document-based workflow management. This pro-
vides for check-in/out of documents, routing, approvals, and metadata management.
For example, Microsoft’s SharePoint Portal Server has document-versioning, approval,
and publishing capabilities. Users are able to check documents in and out, rollback ver-
sions, and submit documents for approval and publishing from Microsoft Office
products and the Windows Explorer. Other portal servers with KM strengths include
the Broadvision InfoExchange Portal and IBM’s Lotus K-station.

Unified Workspace
When it comes to empowering users to do their jobs, the next level of functionality puts
the user in a position to directly interact with the applications and information sources
needed for the job. The best example is found in SAP Portals, which uses an abstraction
layer to enable user-directed, proactive context navigation across multiple applications.
This means that the user can focus on the problem and not on where the needed infor-
mation might reside. For example, based on metadata information about how to access
customer and financial information from different back-end systems, users can quickly
establish which customers generate revenues exceeding $1Million, for example, then
drag the customer information to another portal to determine who the account manager
for that customer is – along with contact information. It is made possible by “unifiers”
based on metadata that defines the contextual link among different applications. SAP
Portals is an open solution utilized by both SAP and Baan.

This is a critical functionality for CMM. It puts users in control of the information they
need, allowing them to easily navigate from component to component to obtain in con-
text the required information. An empowered user is necessary, but not sufficient to
providing CMM. Also needed is the capacity for business process modeling, automa-
tion, and management to ensure that work and business processes are moved



expeditiously throughout the organization, and to the appropriate user’s attention at the
right time.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
• Manufacturers will need to utilize portal technology, along with Web Application
Servers and Exchange or Integration servers, in building the technology infrastruc-
ture for CMM.

• Look beyond the basics such as personalized content, security, and customizable
Web interfaces, and make sure that the portal solution provides ease of connectivity
to all of the systems and application required to ensure that employees are empow-
ered to accomplish their tasks as efficiently and effectively as possible.

• Document-management workflow solutions are helpful for one class of business
process management, but not well suited to synchronizing business processes among
various constituencies. Look elsewhere for these solutions.

• Use portal solutions to put the user in control of the information they need, allowing
them to easily navigate from component to component to obtain in context the in-
formation they need. This is the best way to empower individual users, and
maximize enterprise performance.

• Be prepared for surprises. It is not uncommon to discover problems such as bottle-
necks, delays, or inefficiencies when portals are first fired up. But many of these are
easy to fix. This alone can result in substantial savings.

For further information, contact your account manager or the author at ggorbach@arcweb.com.
Recommended circulation: All EAS clients.


Portals remain a key to cmm

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