The Practical Real-Time Enterprise


Book Description

Speed as a factor for success Our modern industrial society lives life in the fast lane. The catchwords “faster”, “shorter”, “more powerful” reflect what we experience in almost all aspects of our lives. Whether at home or at work, we are constantly on the move and in a rush. In our private lives we find rapid exchange of inf- mation most entertaining and we are fascinated by the wide range of inf- mation that pours in on us from all around the world, mainly via the new media. It gives us the feeling of being a part of the action everywhere and all the time. Seldom are we aware that the only reason this flood of inf- mation, often referred to as “overstimulation”, does not lead to overkill is that we manage to organize our time effectively. There are many parallels to this in the business world. Here too, a great deal of time pressure is exerted from outside; goals are set ever higher and deadlines become tighter. In other words, demands on our time demand faster reaction. Crucial information travels around the globe – across all time zones – in a matter of seconds. In fact, instead of CET or CEST, it would make sense to have a single time zone for the worldwide network called GST for Global Simultaneous Time. In business more so than in p- vate life, we are almost constantly online.




Building the Real-Time Enterprise


Book Description

This book is organized and laid out to provide information in quickly understandable chapters and in sections within chapters. Each chapter stands on its own and provides a usable body of information on an aspect of the real-time enterprise. Chapters includes diagrams, tables, and lists to illustrate and summarize key points and real-world case studies and executive interviews to provide further insight into the subject matter presented in the chapter. Readers of this book will: Gain a clear picture of how organizations can profit from use of real-time operations Appreciate the theory, technology, and business practices that underpin the real-time enterprise Learn a pragmatic and efficient approach for developing real-time systems in their own organizations The author, Michael Hugos, is the chief information officer of Network Services Company, a $7 billion dollar distribution organization. He has over 20 years experience in applying technology to meet business challenges and he holds an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. His discussion of the real-time enterprise is a blend of both theoretical and practical perspectives based on his years of applying real-time concepts to actual business situations. He is also the author of Essentials of Supply Chain Management.




The Real-Time Enterprise


Book Description

Successful management teams can identify the cost and return derived from the implementation of new technology, and they can properly apply the technology toward gaining a competitive advantage. IT and business managers alike need a resource that enables them to prepare for future operating conditions, identify beneficial solutions, and use high te




The Concept of a Real-Time Enterprise in Manufacturing


Book Description

Enterprises have to react instantly to changing market conditions and disturbances that occur during execution of value creation processes. Depending upon the processes’ context, the goal is to significantly reduce lead times, reaction times, and time-to-market, among others. The vision of a real-time enterprise (RTE), which is able to sense and analyze events from internal and external sources, and perform adequate (re-)actions, has been envisaged by manufacturing enterprises. Daniel Metz presents a framework based on EDA and CEP towards the realization of RTE in manufacturing. The framework closes the vertical integration gap, and further, establishes feedback in (near) real-time among enterprise levels. As such, the framework provides a holistic and closed-loop control of (manufacturing) processes, and encompasses results and insights from management, engineering, and computer science. The framework has been implemented for a small and medium sized foundry in Germany. The developed control approach has led to a significant increase in (manufacturing) processes’ efficiency (i.e., performance, quality, and availability).




CRM in Real Time


Book Description

This comprehensive guide to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) draws on Barton Goldenbergs 20 plus years of experience guiding firms to a successful implementation of CRM solutions and techniques. Goldenberg demonstrates how the right mix of people, process, and technology can help firms achieve a superior level of customer satisfaction, loyalty, and new business. Beginning with a primer for executives who need to get quickly up-to-speed on CRM, the book covers a full range of critical issues including integration challenges and security concerns, and illuminates CRMs key role in the 24/7/365 real-time business revolution. CRM in Real Time is an essential guide for any organization seeking to maximize customer relationships, coordinate customer-facing functions, and leverage the power of the Internet as business goes real time.




Event-Driven Architecture


Book Description

Improving Business Agility with EDA Going beyond SOA, enterprises can gain even greater agility by implementing event-driven architectures (EDAs) that automatically detect and react to significant business events. However, EDA planning and deployment is complex, and even experienced SOA architects and developers need expert guidance. In Event-Driven Architecture, four leading IT innovators present both the theory of EDA and practical, step-by-step guidance to implementing it successfully. The authors first establish a thorough and workable definition of EDA and explore how EDA can help solve many of today’s most difficult business and IT challenges. You’ll learn how EDAs work, what they can do today, and what they might be able to do as they mature. You’ll learn how to determine whether an EDA approach makes sense in your environment and how to overcome the difficult interoperability and integration issues associated with successful deployment. Finally, the authors present chapter-length case studies demonstrating how both full and partial EDA implementations can deliver exceptional business value. Coverage includes How SOA and Web services can power event-driven architectures The role of SOA infrastructure, governance, and security in EDA environments EDA core components: event consumers and producers, message backbones, Web service transport, and more EDA patterns, including simple event processing, event stream processing, and complex event processing Designing flexible stateless events that can respond to unpredictable customers, suppliers, and business partners Addressing technical and business challenges such as project management and communication EDA at work: real-world applications across multiple verticals Hugh Taylor is a social software evangelist for IBM Lotus Software. He coauthored Understanding Enterprise SOA and has written extensively on Web services and SOA. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. Angela Yochem is an executive in a multinational technology company and is a recognized thought leader in architecture and large-scale technology management. Les Phillips, VP, enterprise architecture, at SunTrust Banks Inc., is responsible for defining the strategic and business IT foundation for many areas of the enterprise. Frank Martinez, EVP, product strategy, at SOA Software, is a recognized expert on distributed, enterprise application, and infrastructure platforms. He has served as senior operating executive for several venture-backed firms and helped build Intershop Communications into a multibillion-dollar public company.




Enabling Real-Time Business Intelligence


Book Description

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed conference proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Business Intelligence for the Real-Time Enterprise, BIRTE 2013, held in Riva del Garda, Italy, in August 2013 and of the 8th International Workshop on Business Intelligence for the Real-Time Enterprise, BIRTE 2014, held in Hangzhou, China, in September 2014, in conjunction with VLDB 2013 and 2014, the International Conference on Very Large Data Bases. The BIRTE workshop series provides a forum for the discussion and advancement of the science and engineering enabling real-time business intelligence and the novel applications that build on these foundational techniques. This volume contains five full, two short, and two demo papers, which were carefully reviewed and selected with an acceptance rate of 45%. In addition, one keynote and three invited papers are included.




Business Intelligence for the Real-Time Enterprise


Book Description

In todayís competitive and highly dynamic environment, analyzing data to understand how the business is performing, to predict outcomes and trends, and to improve the effectiveness of business processes underlying business operations has become cri- cal. The traditional approach to reporting is no longer adequate, users now demand easy-to-use intelligent platforms and applications capable of analyzing real-time bu- ness data to provide insight and actionable information at the right time. The end goal is to improve the enterprise performance by better and timelier decision making, - abled by the availability of up-to-date, high-quality information. As a response, the notion of "real-time enterprise" has emerged and is beginning to be recognized in the industry. Gartner defines it as “using up-to-date information, getting rid of delays, and using speed for competitive advantage is what the real-time enterprise is all about. . . Indeed, the goal of the real-time enterprise is to act on events as they happen. ” Although there has been progress in this direction and many com- nies are introducing products toward making this vision a reality, there is still a long way to go. In particular, the whole lifecycle of business intelligence requires new techniques and methodologies capable of dealing with the new requirements imposed by the real-time enterprise.




Real-Time Control of the Industrial Enterprise


Book Description

In today’s world of manufacturing, it’s possible to be efficient but not profitable. How is this possible? While today’s manufacturing process control is real time, enterprise management remains transactional, and accounting systems remain structured for early 1800s piecework. Why are almost all of the productivity gains in manufacturing arising from better automation and control of processes (continuous, batch, hybrid, or discrete) and not from better chemistry, design, management, or financial controls? This book shows you exactly why this has happened and just how to fix it. The author details how automation and control can be applied to the supply chain, the enterprise, and to financial management. Inside, you’ll learn: • How to use the principles of real-time process control to better manage, measure, and control manufacturing businesses, both horizontally and vertically; • How to achieve much greater speed of information transfer for improved control over supply chain and distribution; and • How totally integrated inventory control, automated manufacturing, automated customer service, and smart pricing control ultimately lead to higher profits.




Business Intelligence for the Real-Time Enterprises


Book Description

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the First International Workshop on Business Intelligence for the Real-Time Enterprise, BIRTE 2006, held in Seoul, Korea in September 2006 in conjunction with VLDB 2006, the International Conference on Very Large Data Bases. The papers discuss the five major aspects of business intelligence for the real-time enterprise.