One of the big challenges that Ventana Research have seen when polling visitors to their website about the biggest problems with Big Data was “Using the Data,” with more than 50% of those polled answered as such.  Other possible answers were: technology, storage, access to the data, and other.  A snap shot of the answers as it stood on 3/4/2013 is shown in the diagram attached herein.

I’m of the opinion that Big Data is still in its embryonic stage, but that shouldn’t stop organizations from implementing elements of Big Data that make good business sense to them. http://www.alcove9.com/big-data-new-research http://www.alcove9.com/big-data-new-researchThere are many aspects of Big Data that can be “modularized” and implemented in chunks so companies can take advantage of mining data, searching structured and/or unstructured data, visualizing results and reports, or accessing what they need when they need it, whatever has a good ROI for their business. Just like what PDM/PLM went through, the definition of Big Data is going to stabilize and soon thereafter all lessons learned and best practices will be incorporated so organizations, big and small, can start taking advantage of it.  Until then, take small bites of Big Data implementations with defined business case and realistic ROI to start chipping away at the issues tackled by Big Data solutions.

I used to travel the country a lot more than I do now, and 9 times out 10 when I get asked, “where are you from?” and I answer “from Detroit,” I get the sarcastic comment, “I feel sorry for you.”  In the beginning it didn’t bother me, but the more I heard it the more I realized that we, as Detroiters, or Michiganders, are not doing our job in promoting the “good word.”  There is a lot more good coming out of Detroit than bad. But somehow the bad tends to spread faster and stick in people’s minds longer. I guess it’s human nature.

So, I was pleasantly surprised to learn some key points outlined in the report: compared to the 14 regions analyzed in the report, we ranked 1^st in the number of people working in architectural and engineering occupations, 1^st in the total number of advanced automotive industry establishments, 1^st in architectural and engineering industry employment, 1^st in advanced automotive sector employment,  and 1^st in the number of engineering and engineering technology degrees completed at colleges and universities in the region.  Coming out of the recession in 2010 we had almost 210,000 jobs in the technology sector, second only to Chicago when compared to Midwest technology regions.  But when you consider the total population of 9.5 million in the metro Chicago area compared to the 4.6 million people in the metro Detroit area, the ranking would look better in favor of Detroit over Chicago.  When compared to all 14 regions, Detroit came fifth in total number of technology jobs, after Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Boston and San Jose (Silicon Valley area), respectively.  But again, if you consider the population of each one of these metropolitan areas, you can see that Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago are much larger than that of Detroit, about the same for Boston, with San Jose only having about half the population of Detroit.

The Big 3 Detroit car companies (GM, Ford and Chrysler) are all coming back.  In 2011, GM, whose destiny was in question only 4 years ago, posted a profit of $7.6 billion; the largest ever reported by the company.  Ford profits looked very good that year, as well, and Chrysler posted the first profitable year since 1997.  By the way, the US patent office recently opened its first ever satellite patent office in Detroit – not Silicon Valley, not Chicago, not Boston. Let’s stop and think why. In my opinion, Detroit is the heart of America’s innovation. For over 100 years, Detroit has been innovating and USPTO recognizes that and as a result decided to have its first satellite office right here in Detroit.
My fellow Detroiters, there is NO more bad news coming out of Detroit.  Let’s stand over the roof tops and blow our horns. http://www.alcove9.com/no-more-bad-news-out-of-detroit http://www.alcove9.com/no-more-bad-news-out-of-detroit Let’s tout Automation Alley’s 2012 Technology Industry Report. Let’s spread the positive word about Detroit everywhere we go.

Stand up Detroiters and be proud of what the good citizens of this region have accomplished and will continue to do so for many, many years.

Original post: http://vdr.com/blog/value-of-search/

Many companies are incorporating enterprise search into their information management strategy. This trend is of no surprise given the volume of data scattered within most businesses. One particular company we’ve worked with has multiple Oracle database tables of critical safety documentation. This information resides in silos of disconnected locations making it impossible to access in a timely manner. Since their business is predicated on quick response times, it is imperative that they have a sound solution. In this case, efficient access to critical information saves lives by lowering people’s exposure to hazardous materials. This is an extreme example yet it still rings true, as does the fact that a typical knowledge worker spends an average of 15-35% of their time searching for information only to come up empty ½ of the time.

The value of enterprise search is absolutely being realized. As a result, its use within corporations is rising rapidly. At the same time, providers of CAD, PDM, PLM, ECM, and ERP business applications are feeling market pressures to further differentiate themselves from the competition. Providing enterprise search as a much needed solution and highly valued capability is clearly a great way to do it.

The question is, how do they do it? How do application providers tackle the challenge of incorporate enterprise search as a value add? It can be a tough question to answer. Some dip their toe in, while others make large time and money investments to develop enterprise search capabilities – many of which are only able to find data that originated from their own applications. There is a different and much more effective way for enterprise software developers to provide their customers with;

• find, sort, categorize, display and access to all relevant data quickly and efficiently in any database or repository no matter where it originated
• the ability to keep all of their data where it is and avoid costly, time consuming data migrations
• the capability to search deep within the content of their data to include title block info, labels, x-refs, pmi, and more
• a single login to access multiple data locations and find previously “unsearchable” data
• virtual profile cards to understand ‘where used’ and ‘composed of’ details about parts and components
• the ability to promote design reuse within their company to greatly reduce redundant replication
• annotation, mark-up, and viewing of CAD models without needing the native CAD license
• secure data, audit trails and ITAR compliance

All of the above and more can be achieved by embedding existing and proven enterprise search capabilities into the core of a provider’s software offering. By embedding a solution like Alcove9, software providers can increase the value of their solutions to their clients and widen the gap of benefits vs. http://www.alcove9.com/the-added-value-of-enterprise-search http://www.alcove9.com/the-added-value-of-enterprise-search http://www.alcove9.com/the-added-value-of-enterprise-searchcost of ownership. Unified Information Access (UIA) also makes their app a customer’s company-wide go to search standard – no matter what the data is or where it originated from; even if it was developed in a competitive offering to that of the app provider.

What business applications do you feel could be of greater benefit to customers by having enterprise search?

Learn more about our enterprise search solution, a9 Global Search, or contact us to discuss how we can help your organization.

All of that was great, and still is, but there lies a fundamental objection.  A lot of people need access to the actual, previously created models and designs.  Why?  Even though you have embedded the “tribal knowledge” inside the template, it’s still very valuable for designers to see and interrogate the previous design.  It’s eminent for them to review the history, capture lessons learned, explore little details and features, etc.  Templates with embedded knowledge can only hold so much information, and usually it is only the rudimentary features and processes that the corporation deems necessary to be present in certain designs.

What makes matters a little more complicated is that not all designs have templates.  The process of acquiring the necessary knowledge is very tedious, expensive, and requires constant maintenance. To avoid haphazardly-made modifications, a superfluous task is created for certain people to maintain the template. Therefore, template creation becomes limited to certain popular designs that are either: (1) reused often with few parametric variations, or (2) complicated and tedious designs where using a template may reduce errors in recreating those specific parts or assembly.

“Lost data has caused days of time spent re-creating the data. Lost or difficult to find information affects production and profitability.”

Tech-Clarity, Inc. 2012

If that’s not enough, employers are always faced with the challenge of creating a discipline that will encourage their designers to use existing templates.  The challenge stems from the fact that most designers feel constrained if they are forced to follow someone else’s design approach or methods.  Consequently, employers and template creators end up limiting template contents to those elements that are common in most designs to garner more use among all designers – a practice that typically leads to even less design reuse than originally desired.

So, where does that leave us and how can we fix it?  Simply, the way to increase design reuse is to make previous designs available and quickly accessible – but that’s easier said than done.  In some instances, a corporation may have some data sitting in one data management system but the new designs are in another.  In other instances, the data is in some legacy system that was never migrated due to the high costs of migration.  Or, the company could simply have no data management system altogether and all existing and legacy data is residing on servers and network shared drives under some naming convention that the company devised.  In today’s engineering and manufacturing companies, data doesn’t exist in just one place.  Companies go through mergers and acquisitions, technology changes all the time – now more than ever, policies and processes are constantly improving, which all cause data to live in multiple places.

The Alcove9 Blog recently asked six entrepreneurs for the best advice their mentors ever gave them. In the spirit of paying it forward, here are their pearls of wisdom.

Shirley Corder, owner and advertising exec at Corder Communications & Marketing, refers to popular PR consultant Pam Perry (proof that mentors need mentors!). “Pam Perry often says ‘when you show up, you go up.’” Shirley recites. “I’ve found that to be true with seminars, events, networking, training – everything.”

“Get the best small business/start up accountant specialist your money can buy,” says Julie Carvalho, who has been in sales and consulting for more than ten years in the Philadelphia area.

“The best advice I’ve ever received was an American Express commercial featuring Jonathan Antin,” says Anna Diaz, an integrative health professional. “Hand them your business card, and tell them what you can do for them.”

Jackie Nagel, strategic business coach and small business mentor, poses this question: “If you don’t have time to do it right the first time, how much time do you have to do it over?” She adds, “Growing a business is not for the faint of heart – especially in this economy. There are no shortcuts.”

“Don’t be afraid to make mistakes,” advises RJ Reyes, partner and director of business development at Brainstormers in Los Angeles. “Mistakes are going to happen, so learn from them.”

“Start your 90 day cycle and don’t look back!” – Elda Rivero, a successful insurance broker for more than 10 years, says matter-of-factly.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received from a mentor? Share it in the comments below.

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The greatest corporate rivalry I’ve seen is between the engineering/manufacturing department and the IT department.  Engineering and manufacturing departments accuse IT of not knowing what they’re doing, and IT disregards engineers for not knowing what they are asking of IT.  The fact of the matter is that engineers are simply trying to get their job done by requesting tools that will make them more efficient and IT is trying to make sure that the tools requested will function well with all other tools, policies, and procedures within the organization.  It’s left to the CIO to referee. I don’t envy him.  Tom Davenport, a Professor of Management and IT at Babson College in Wellesley, MA, says, “I hardly get anybody ever who wants to be a CIO, which is probably indicative of something.  And if they do want to be a CIO, it’s like:  ‘Fine, it’d be useful to rotate through this for a while on my path toward CEO.’  I think people respect technology, but there aren’t that many people anymore who want to be career CIOs.”

CIOs know all too well the adage that trying to please everyone pleases no one. Although I believe they’re habitually perceived disappointingly, that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t doing a good job.  If the CIO is doing what he is supposed to do, then no one in any one department will receive 100% of their requests, which leaves a wake of unhappy campers eager for a scapegoat.

The role of CIO is changing in ways that are more evolutionary than revolutionary. Today, more than ever, your CIO’s hands are tied by things that keep him or her up at night and an ever-growing laundry list of “to-do”s. In addition to the conventional technical functions like security, software, hardware, and everything in between, your CIO also has superfluous responsibilities that include marketing and social media, which definitely demands their attention.

And this is just one of many “new” or untraditional CIO responsibilities.  Today’s CIOs are expected to become the change-agents of the organization.  It’s on their shoulders to implement new changes in the face of rapidly transforming mediums and technologies, which could satiate a forty-hour work week alone.

So let’s all make sure to think before answering the question, “Is your CIO doing a good job?”  Also, the next time you see your CIO in the hallway or next to the coffee machine, let him or her know how much you appreciate their efforts and perseverance.

Problem #1 – Tough Data Flow

Information often flows irregularly and is subject to quantitatively strong fluctuations. These fluctuations can become detrimental if not dealt with. The simple solution is to control the information. Officially, “information controlling” is the analysis, evaluation, and importance attached to the electronic data that is collected and provided with the data under various criteria.

To achieve this, start by making employees aware of the importance of the data they help to gather. Encourage accuracy and demonstrate to employees how their active participation in the process can reap rewards they might not have thought of. Alcove9 provides universal access to all of your data, regardless of location or user and searches beyond naming conventions, meta data, and file attributes.

Problem #2 – Rising Costs

Rising costs are a challenge for any manager. They are especially troubling to an IT manager working in the electronic data processing area. Industry experts show that, despite various “old systems” existing, resources are only used at about 30% of their optimal performance. This leaves room for 70% improvement without an excessive outlay of cash.

To increase ROI using existing resources, consider this: A smooth flow of information always increases productivity. When possible, work to find ways to integrate existing systems. With a little ingenuity on your part, and a little creativity, you can develop solutions without budget increases. Alcove9’s suite of solutions works within any standard web browser – no client installation required!

Problem #3 – Insufficient Sensitivity Concerning Data Security

As the complexity of electronic data processing increases, security often decreases. Not only does this pose problems in the form of breaches, it also has legal ramifications with regard to licenses. From healthcare companies to financial organizations, the US government is cracking down on lax security. The smart IT manager is taking steps now to not only stress the importance of security to those in his or her company, but to also instill the necessary protective measures. Alcove9 maintains your current organizational security definitions and access controls. Our open source code will flex and scale to your specifications.

Although an IT manager’s job is continually evolving, Alcove9 overcomes all of these pressing problems. You’ll be able to define problems quickly and accurately and create solutions that will benefit you, your team, and your entire company.

We’ve been hearing about the paperless office for more than 20 years, yet the paper mills haven’t seen better days than these and it looks like the trend has no end in sight. But why? One of the reasons: We’ve got no trust or confidence in electronic media.

Are we really okay with cyber-filing?

When you consider the sheer volume of files and versions of documents that are created during the lifecycle of a single product – from concept to fruition – you are looking at a stack of virtual paper that is a mile high and many gigabytes wide, so why are we still printing these documents?

It’s easy to find if I’m holding it in my hand; it can be shared via fax, scan, or snail mail. I can send a physical copy to the shop floor. There is no learning curve for reading a physical document, but teaching someone to understand my CAD drawing adds an astronomical level of complexity. Paper copies can be marked up with a handy pencil. It’s cheaper than having to provide a software license for every user in a product’s lifecycle. And don’t forget power outages, battery failures, and computer crashes.

We often don’t have the confidence that we’ll be able to RE-FIND what we created before, so we make a paper copy that we can keep in our filing cabinets or desk drawers. To help mitigate this fear and to ease the paradigm shift, Alcove9 provides on-premise advanced search solutions that allow users to easily find and re-use their data regardless of its content, location, or file type. We help organizations tackle the “going paperless” issue by guaranteeing that we can help users find what they need when they need it. Explore alcove9.com for more information, or test drive a9 solutions.

The regulations themselves are complex and subject to change every year – partially fluctuating with policy and politics – posing unique challenges for design assets that were previously considered commercial and/or dual-use (used for both commercial AND military). In these cases, companies often struggle with having to back-peddle in order to find all of the information, data, drawings, etc. (i.e. the audit trail) of the part from concept to fruition.

One of the key components that shows up on any ITAR compliance checklist under Identification, Receipt and
Tracking of ITAR Controlled Items/Technical Data, is this question:

What kind of recordkeeping system does the company maintain that would allow for
control and retrieval of information on, technical data and/or defense articles
given to the company?

This is where Alcove9 fits in – in two very important ways:

1) Alcove9 provides on-premise advanced search solutions that allow teams to easily find, view and use
their data independent of its content, format or location. Because it has a comprehensive and diverse
ability to find items – right down to words appearing deep within the file, title block, on a
drawing, or in the PMI (Product Manufacturing Information), Alcove9 suite of products makes finding
everything that is necessary for compliance a simple, 2-second search.
2) Alcove9 maintains your current organizational security definitions and access control levels (ACL’s), so
there is no fear of data contamination from an outside source, nor there is a need for data migration or
data repurposing. Everything stays on your server and data stays as is.

So, while that question of finding all of your files, information and data is only one small dot point in the
compliance regulation matrix, it generally constitutes one of the largest investments in time, effort and frustration for companies trying to find what they need while maintaining compliance. Contact us today for a demo.