FusionOps cloud-based, on-demand enterprise performance management solution

SAP Customers self-deploy FusionOps solution, gain insight in hours, and automate operations in weeks, FusionOps says.

November 17, 2009

FusionOps announced Nov. 17 the launch of the FusionOp enterprise performance management (EPM) platform that enables discrete manufacturers to gain immediate insight into their enterprise and automate business processes with minimal IT impact, resulting in a complete return on investment (ROI) in less than 12 weeks. The company says it enables the smarter enterprise through on-demand enterprise performance management.

Support for FusionOps

"We had great data from SAP, but we needed to find a way of managing the execution of the SAP-generated plan. We needed to ensure that our buyers and suppliers would consistently follow the business rules that we had defined for using the data. FusionOps’ approach, based on configurable business rules and automated process flows, is an outstanding innovation in enterprise software."

– Steven Lyall, supply chain director, Smart Modular

"Now about 99 percent of our procurement flows through FusionOps, with less than 4 percent of the material transactions requiring manual intervention. Shortages have been reduced by 60 percent, and we have cut our planning cycle time in half."

– Gary Dankwardt, global program manager, Varian Medical Systems

"The lack of real-time visibility into business performance is a major reason for operational inefficiency in the enterprise, one that impacts global manufacturing companies despite their investment in back-office ERP systems. Limited IT resources for procurement and supply chain management further exacerbate the problem. One solution is for manufacturers to hedge against uncertainty by stockpiling inventory and applying more manual resources to their operations, which results in lower productivity and higher costs. Given this inefficient environment, FusionOps fills a critical void for discrete manufacturers, especially when it comes to enabling much-needed performance management and business process automation."

– Joshua Greenbaum, principal, Enterprise Applications Consulting
"As progressive as manufacturing has become, it’s still fairly common for companies to make decisions without key operational facts and struggle for control over millions of dollars of spending and inventory due to poor visibility into business performance related to their supply chain and procurement. While some ERP systems try to link business intelligence to operations, FusionOps is driving huge advancements in enterprise performance management as we monitor and automate the entire process, enabling operations to change on demand based on what our business intelligence and root-cause analytics reveal on a 24×7 basis."

– Ram Mohan, CEO and president, FusionOps

The cloud-based, on-demand product offerings from FusionOps currently manage more than $1 billion in annual corporate spending for customers, including Kimball Electronics, Varian Medical Systems, and one of the world’s largest automotive manufacturers.

Combining domain-specific analytics and business process automation in a single solution, FusionOps can be self-deployed by customers in real time and seamlessly integrated – within hours – to on-premise enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, including SAP and Oracle. Furthermore, FusionOps’ patented, adaptive, business rules-based technology allows customers to easily configure the system to fit their unique environment, reducing the impact on IT infrastructure and resources.

FusionOps products provide insight in an Instant, the company says

For the first time, the company says, SAP customers can gain comprehensive insight into their business performance within hours. Going beyond traditional business intelligence tools and reporting software, the FusionOps Insight on-demand product provides metrics for critical inventory management, procurement and spending, supply chain, and supplier performance. New customers can self-provision FusionOps Insight through a simple process:

1. New customer registers for a free trial at the FusionOps website and downloads a setup program.

2. Customer provides FusionOps with read-only access to certain SAP data documents needed for reporting.

3. FusionOps securely uploads the customer data to the FusionOps platform (in an SAS 70-certified data center).

4. FusionOps notifies the customer that a complete set of metrics, reports and key performance indicators are available for review.

The complete process takes less than one day – with minimal IT impact, and zero installation and product customization costs. With built-in configurability and optional FusionOps professional services, customers can create and customize reports and metrics to support their ongoing needs.

30 times more efficiency

The FusionOps Streamline on-demand product enables companies to rapidly automate procurement and supplier management processes; using flexible business rules and requiring zero product customization, FusionOps Streamline significantly reduces operational costs, increases business responsiveness, and ensures compliance to standards such as quality and pricing.

For the first time, manufacturers can extend ERP capabilities within weeks, with minimum impact to IT infrastructure, driving significant business improvement and seeing an ROI within 8-12 weeks. Customers deploying FusionOps

Streamline realize proven benefits including, on average:
• 60 percent reduction in manual application processing;
• 15 percent lower inventory costs by reducing excess and obsolete materials;
• 50 percent improvement in responding to demand and supply exceptions;
• 90 percent fewer exceptions; and
• Average cost per transaction reduced from $5 to $0.15.

FusionOps’ disruptive price and performance breakthrough result from its core FusionOps Central application development and execution platform. This technology platform provides an integrated development environment for FusionOps’ enterprise cloud applications that can be easily configured and controlled by user-defined business rules.

Leveraging open-standard technologies, FusionOps has been granted composite application technology patents for the development of highly configurable enterprise cloud applications enabling full end-user customization, multi-tenancy, and more-reliable on-demand business applications. The company has also filed for patents covering secure access and integration of cloud services with enterprise applications that will facilitate increased use and adoption of applications in the cloud.
FusionOps Insight and Streamline products are generally available.

Also read: Enterprise integration: Putting asset management on the map .

– Edited by Mark T. Hoske, electric products editor, Manufacturing Business Technology MBT www.mbtmag.com