Do Traditional Reports have a Role in the Agile Industrial Operations World of today and tomorrow?

This is a question that keeps coming up, and product managers/ engineers keep saying we need reports, but in some many ways they are confused between the past and the reality of NOW decisions today. “Today” the need for “Operational Decision” data which is the status now, and over a short time span, with the ability to discover conditions, causes, through relationships, to make “Now” decisions. These are not traditional reports which display a pre defined period and fixed formate. Also, the concept of Dashboards, predefined Gadgets on the desktop, mobile device that act like tickers. All of this is about empowerment of the NOW and reports do fit this role, so do traditional reports have a future????

Self Reliance/ Self Servicing are Key Concept as the Hunger for Real Time Data Grows

2013 will see another leap in the amount of people, and different roles, accessing industrial data, and there will be another quantum leap in the amount of data people accessing. The concept of Self Reliance and Self Servicing of the user to empower himself will be key!

“Self-service BI is the idea that any business user can analyze the data they need to make a better decision. Self-reliance is the coming of age of that concept: it means business users have access to the right data that the data is in a place and format that they can use and that they have solutions that enable self-service analytics. When all this happens, people become self-reliant with their business questions and IT can focus on providing the secure data and solutions to get them there.”

“Source Top 10 Business Intelligence Trend for 2013” Tableau software

I have spent a number of hours this week discussing this concept and determining in the industrial sector how to make this a reality as we believe it is key to unlocking the full potential of the industrial landscape.

Big Data will Play in 2013, and Reality on an Information System could be in 2013

“The staid old world of databases is developing faster and faster, with startups addressing new data problems and established companies innovating on their platforms. Web-based analytics tools are connecting to web-based data. And everything’s mobile.”

I read a good article whitepaper from a our Partner Tableau for intelligence software they outlined the 10 concepts that are becoming reality in 2012/3.

·         10 Intelligence Concepts :

·         Proliferation of data stores.

·         Forecasting and predictive analytics become common.

·         Mobile BI moves up a weight class.

·         Visual analytics wins Best Picture

·         Cloud BI grows up.

·         The value of text and other unstructured data is (finally!) recognized.

·         Self-reliance is the new self-service.

·         Hadoop is Real

·         Collaboration is not a feature, it’s a reality.

“2013 is the year we will recognize this story as a fairy tale.

The organization that has all its data in one place does not exist. Moreover, why would you want to do it? Big data could be in places like Teradata and Hadoop. Transactional data might be in Oracle or SQL Server. The right data stores for the right data and workload will be seen as one of the hallmarks of a great IT organization, not a problem to be fixed.”

All these concepts align with what we seeing and I will expand on but I thought this could be a good read to many of you, even though it is focused on Business Intelligence this applies to Industrial Infomration Systems:

http://cdnlarge.tableausoftware.com/sites/default/files/whitepapers/top-10-business-intelligence-trends-2013.pdf

Why design for 2020, not today! What does the “Why Not” and “What If” Attitude mean?

One of the enjoyments of writing a blog is to see the reaction, get the response, they seem to come via email, it is fasinating what topics generate interest and response.  Last week I had a set of emails asking “why care about 2020, when we are focused on today?” Another set asked about the attitude “Why not” and “What If”? Both are fair and deserve further discussion.

So why care about 2020? Why Now?

A Look at Industrial Operational Management Environment in 2020!!

Lets face it 2020 is only 8 years away, look at 8 years ago: Facebook had barely launched, iphone and iPad did not exit, the A380 Airbus had not flown, and there was no You Tube, Twitter had not taken. Yet today Facebook, Youtube and social media are a natural part of our culture and lifestyle. Iphone has now past MS Outlook as the worlds largest email client, and mobile devices out sell all PC sales, which shows the significant shift in everyday life to always connected with the mobile device, not just for calls, but text, news, email. Imagine doing business today without a mobile being able to access the required information. So in 2020, what will be a natural part of the Industrial Operational Management/ Plant Operations “day in the life”.

Are we designing today's systems for the future, are we looking at work ethic of 5 to 8 years out when designing? The answer is probably not farther than 2 to 3 years this could be a mistake when all the factors are changing so much.