Category Archives: Technology

The One “Ring”

One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

A recent ChainLink Research piece on “ERP Part One – The Tales of Technology”, while addressing fusing, the myth of integration, noted that the lack of cohesion in architecture and applications led to the beginning of a silent admission by ERP, that there ultimately would never be the ‘one corporate software system’, but they would be a provider of a suite of products. I can’t say I agree.

We are moving toward the one “system”, coming full circle from the introduction of the first MRP systems back in the 50’s, but the “system” will not be so much a single application from a single vendor by a “ring” of seamlessly integrated applications by one or more vendors that address all supply chain functions supported by one central “cloud” with built-in middleware that enables multiple providers to seamless integrate their applications with applications from their peers.

And the way things are going, Salesforce could be “the one system” for many businesses. With so many SRM providers building apps for the SalesForce AppExchange that seamlessly integrate with the core platform and CRM data, it’s a logical next step. Coupa, CVM Solutions, and SupplierSoft have apps on the platform and a dozen more companies are developing apps as we speak.

Cloud services like the AppExchange may soon build the “One Ring” that binds all the systems into one cloud system. What do you think?

If You Want To Know How Green a Data Centre Is, Ask For a Verified PUE

In a recent article, Global Services asked if “cloud computing [is] really green”. Considering that most of your supply chain apps are moving to the cloud, and that sustainability is a must, it’s a question you should be able to answer. Unfortunately, the article was completely useless and gave you no useful information whatsoever.

All it said was that

  • a recent study from Microsoft noted that, due to increased efficiency and scalability, outsourcing companies can reduce their energy use and carbon footprint by up to 90%,
  • an uninterrupted power supply is required to keep data warehouses running and cool, and
  • energy efficiency is not green on its own, and is no longer enough.

With respect to these statements

  • we all know scale adds efficiency, and that data centres will be much more energy efficient if they use modern high-density low-power blades while you use ancient box servers,
  • classic data centres will create sauna temperatures if not kept cool, and
  • the energy source needs to be renewable.

In order to determine how green a data centre is, you need to know at least the following three metrics:

  • The Performance Per Watt (PPW) of the hardware.
    This tells you how efficient the hardware is. Typically measured in MFLOPS (Mega Floating point Operations Per Second) or LINPACK FLOPS per watt, an efficient modern IBM BladeCenter can get up to 536 MFLOPS/watt. Compare this to a desktop Beowulf cluster that maxes out at 58 MFLOPS with 4 dual core Athlon 64’s.
  • The average load of each operating machine.
    If a machine is only operating at 20% load, on average, you’re only getting 20% of the PPW. But if the average load of each operating machine is 80%, you’re getting at least 80% of the PPW. A modern data centre uses dynamic process allocation and virtualization and machines sleep until the load on the machines that are awake exceeds about 90% in a sustained manner, at which point another machine is woken up and added to the available pool. A traditional data centre does not use virtualization or have machines that support fast wake-up or shut-down or dynamic load balancing software and the machines are always on.
  • The Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).
    PUE is a measure of how efficiently a data centre uses power and measures how much power is used by the computing equipment in contrast to the overhead required for lighting, cooling, etc. Defined as Total_Facility_Power / IT_Equipment_Power, an ideal data centre has a PUE of 1.0. While not achievable, a PUE of 1.1 is, even though the average data centre still has a PUE of 2.0 to 2.5. Today, a data centre is generally considered green if it has a PUE of < 1.5, but the best data centre in Europe, datadock, has a PUE of only 1.21 and the Thor Datacenter in Iceland has a PUE of only 1.07 and a zero carbon footprint. With carbon emission mandates coming into effect around the globe and significant mandates for power reduction by 2020, if the data centre isn’t closing on a PUE of 1.2, it’s not efficient. And unless at least one its primary energy sources is not renewable, it can not be considered green. (At the very least, the overhead should come from renewable sources.)

So don’t get confused by grandiose claims, scale, and jargon. Ask for these third-party verified metrics. Then you’ll know how green the data centre really is.

What To Look For in a Modern Inventory Management System

A recent article in Canadian Transportation and Logistics on “when choosing new logistics software, true competitive value comes from creative execution not just buying the hottest system” made some great points in what to look for when choosing a new inventory management / warehouse management system. Often overlooked, the following features are important:

  • multi-mode inventory update
    The system should accept automated updates from POS systems and manual updates from individuals who “eyeball” inventory.
  • automated “push” updates to individual locations
    A user shouldn’t have to log-in to a central portal to get inventory updates across corporate locations. The updates should be “pushed” to individual clients automatically, just like RSS feeds are “pushed” to client readers.
  • integration with Excel
    Let’s face it, some locations aren’t going to have modern inventory management systems and some users just aren’t going to let Excel die.
  • one-time event tracking
    Not all inventory moves in regular shipments. Unless one time events are tracked, the full picture is not gained and an understanding of the breakdown of regular inventory movement vs. special / expedited inventory movement will be missing.
  • equal support for inbound and outbound
    A storage container behind a store can be a “warehouse” which can redistribute inventory to other stores where its needed. Thus, inbound (to the store) and outbound (to other stores) are equally important.
  • Business Intelligence (BI) support
    Either built-in, or easily supported through XML export.
  • a Multi-Tenant SaaS Implementation
    The “cloud” is where it’s at for many companies, so failing to support the “cloud” will limit adoption and integration options.

It’s Not Green If

It’s not green if:

  • it’s always on and using full energy requirements (even if it uses less energy than a previous model)
    Some systems can’t be turned off, even if they are only used (on average) five minutes a day because they have to monitor for, and respond to, exceptional events. But if they draw the same amount of power whether they are performing a function or just listening for a signal, they aren’t green. A green system will sleep when not required, and wake up when a signal is received, and in the case of computers, utilize only a fraction of full power to maintain the contents of active RAM.
  • production or disposal is less environmentally friendly than other options
    Truly green products do not contain hazardous materials and are designed so that they are easily recycled or the raw materials are easily reclaimed for future reuse. In addition, the production should require less power and water than previous generations.
  • you simply install new software on old, energy hogging, hardware
    Taking an old PC with a 300 watt power supply and installing Linux does not make it green.

and, finally, it’s not green if:

  • it’s painted green
    Taking an old product and painting it green does not make it green!

ERP is NOT Always the Answer

Reading this recent article on “Mitigating Risk and Exposure from Subsidiary Operations” in Industry Week, one could get the impression that the only way to mitigate risk is to deploy one or more (connected) ERP systems to manage corporate data. Nothing could be further from the truth. While you do need consistent data and compatible systems, you don’t need an ERP. But I guess I should have expected such misleading advice given that the article was written by a VP at SAP, one of the biggest ERP vendors in the world.

According to the article, in order to mitigate risks to the company’s supplier, quality, liquidity, financial reporting, and unbudgeted spending, a company must streamline and automate mostly manual systems to:

  • enable the sourcing group to automatically provide information on preferred suppliers and negotiated terms to every subsidiary
  • enable headquarters to have ongoing visibility into cash-on-hand and receivables and payables across the organization
  • streamline the financial consolidation process
  • streamline inter-company purchasing transactions
  • implement collaborate processes such as forecasting and budgeting

Furthermore, according to the article, to accomplish this automation, a company needs to either:

  • deploy the same ERP system across the company,
  • deploy a two-tier ERP with simple data integration, or
  • deploy a two-tier ERP with process integration.

First of all:

  • A (cloud-based) SaaS e-Sourcing/e-Procurement platform with contract & supplier management can maintain preferred suppliers and terms and be accessible by every subsidiary.
  • A shared (cloud-based) SaaS accounting / finance system will allow headquarters to have a view into each subsidiary’s financials …
  • … and this shared system will streamline financial consolidation.
  • A (cloud-based) SaaS e-Procurement system will streamline inter-company purchasing, and
  • a cloud-based inventory / distribution / warehousing / logistics management system will allow for collaborative forecasting and budgeting.

So you don’t even need an ERP at all to accomplish the stated goals. Furthermore, while you do need integrated data, you can maintain this data with a simple relational database and integrate it using an off-the-shelf data analysis package with good ETL (extract-transform-load) tools that can merge flat-file data dumps from each system into one file/database for analytics purposes.

This isn’t to say that an ERP at headquarters to maintain master data isn’t worthwhile, just that you don’t need one, and that you certainly don’t need ERP deployments at all of your subsidiaries to accomplish the goals, which is important because enterprise ERPs generally cost seven figures and the cost is generally not justifiable for a small subsidiary.