December 16, 2014 from IndustryWeek – “I sometimes find it difficult to describe what I do to friends and acquaintances who have careers outside of manufacturing and rarely give much thought to how things actually get made. To the uninitiated, if I were to say “I help manufacturers to implement continuous improvement (CI) models” or “I support companies in their production system journey,” I might as well be speaking a foreign language because, while these statements resonate with those of us who live and breathe CI every day, they don’t mean much to the rest of the world…” Read more […]
Survey Analysis: Customers Rate Their BI Platform Vendor, 2014
October 9, 2014 from Gartner – “Based on customer surveys conducted on BI and analytics platforms, this research will alert BI leaders to the customer experiences of professionals across 42 vendors…” Read more 180 View – If you are interested in Business Intelligence, this will be a great resource to get started. You should also check out our Systems Analysis Tool at http://www.180systems.com/tools/systems-analysis-tool/cpm/ […]
Project Management for an ERP Implementation
180 Systems has now launched a new practice area. The implementation of a new system is a big project and requires skilled project managers. Our clients often don’t have a lot of experience in project management especially related to implementing new systems. The vendors have project managers but their focus is project management of their own resources rather than that of our clients. It is also possible that there are conflicting views of scope between the vendor and our clients. As project manager for our clients, we will ensure that these and any other conflicts are resolved expeditiously and fairly. […]
Top 10 Trends in Cloud ERP
May 19, 2014 from enterpriseAPPStoday – “Cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) software hasn’t really caught on yet. But according to a recent Gartner survey, it will soon. Here are some of the top trends shaping cloud-based ERP…” Read more 180 View – Most of our clients are more interested in finding a solution that is a good fit, not overly difficult to implement, in their budget and supported and implemented by a company that knows their industry really well. They don’t care that much how it’s deployed. Cloud deployment does not seem less expensive than on premise deployment even when […]
Why Big Projects Go Bad
June 26, 2014 from CFO – In a project’s earliest stages, very little is known about what it will take to execute it. So most companies seek out expert internal opinions — usually from proponents of the project, since they are the most knowledgeable. The problem is bias. Research is clear that project proponents are likely to fall under its influence, favor optimistic outcomes and produce dangerously inaccurate estimates. Most companies can accurately estimate small projects that may take, say, three to six months, but they are horrible at estimating the time and cost of big ones. There are three […]
Pass The Salt
180 View – Only watch if you know what a typewriter is. See/hear more […]
American Story
180 View – It’s a 1 minute long commercial that packs a punch. I have received very different responses to this that included too sappy, made me cry, very clever and American propaganda. See/hear more […]
Google Commercial
180 View – Sweet reunion no matter where you live. See/hear more […]
Ode to Joy
180 View – Have a joyful holiday. View/hear more […]
ERP Pricing Models
ERP vendors don’t make it easy to calculate the cost of using their system. There are lots of variables to consider including: License – buy a perpetual license to use the software Hosted – annual or monthly fee to use the software by user Named user – for anyone needing any access to the system Concurrent user – for the number of people needing access at the same time Full users – need multiple parts of the system such as a purchasing manager Light users – need limited use of the system such as someone that just creates requisitions or […]