Downloads, Webinars

The Connected Enterprise: Creating a Unified Perspective, Driving Unified Action
presented by Walter Staehle (Siemens) and John Clemons (EnteGreat) on Wednesday, June 8th, 2005 at 1PM EST.

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Presentation Overview:
In today's competitive environment, manufacturers are continually challenged to achieve higher results with existing and often fewer resources. Adding new infrastructure and incremental people is often economically unfeasible; spending free cash on just Information Technology (IT) is often hard to justify.

The challenges of leveraging existing IT investments and fully connecting the enterprise are complex. Taking the Systems approach to seeking continuous improvement, making use of accepted industry models, data standardization, optimizing security and standardizing application architecture can bring significant advances. On the Operations side, standardized work practices, best practice replication, and making decisions to change key processes and leverage critical information enable improvement as well. Understanding how to make the right changes, in the right ways, at the right time is critical for success.

The reality in most companies is that decision hierarchies throughout the enterprise are not viewing the same information. Individuals are often working with separate sets of data, with each unique set of data reinforcing a unique set of functional conclusions, making it almost impossible to gain a unified perspective on prioritization. Manufacturing operations can add significant complexity to this; often every line, every department, and every plant have their own servers, applications, nomenclature, asset numbering systems and "work-arounds". Understanding data accuracy, data ownership, and getting to a single version of the truth is key to getting a unified perspective and taking unified action - critical for the efficient and connected enterprise.

As Walter Staehle and John Clemons explain during this presentation, serious problems arise when companies have divergent perspectives on master data. Resolving these problems requires hard work, but the benefits that can be achieved justify the expense in today's competitive market.

About the Presenters
Walter Staehle, newly appointed Senior M.E.S. Industry Manager, Food & Beverage, for Siemens Energy & Automation, spent over 24 years as an executive with Kraft Foods, most recently as Director, M.E.S. and Shop-Floor Systems. Mr. Staehle led production organizations at four Kraft plant locations and senior operations staffs at two headquarters locations. He holds a BA in Economics from Muhlenberg College, an MA (Summa Cum Laude) in Business Management from Central Michigan University and completed post-graduate work in Operations Management, Manufacturing Strategy for Competitive Advantage, and Integrated Supply Chain Management at Stanford University. Mr. Staehle has co-authored, presented and published numerous articles on Operations Management.

John Clemons, Vice President of EnteGreat, has over 23 years of experience in manufacturing, including work within the Food & Beverage, Consumer Products, Pulp & Paper, Steel, Specialty Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, and Biotechnology industries. John has spent his career working for industry-leading systems integrators and consultants, and he has done consulting work almost exclusively for Fortune 500 Companies. John’s papers, industry press articles, and technical sessions have helped people throughout these industries gain a better understanding of manufacturing systems integration within the Enterprise IT environment.

Request a CD copy of this Webinar - please click here.