Manufacturers now have the visibility required to anticipate and proactively respond to business trends, improve decision-making and be more competitive through QADBusiness Intelligence (QAD BI). This new enterprise application helps manufacturers gain insight into their business operations by leveraging the wealth of information collected within their QAD MFG/PRO system.
QAD enterprise applications, which automate and streamline manufacturing operations from the production line to financials and supply chain interaction, collect extensive data related to these enterprise functions. For effective enterprise performance management (EPM), QAD BI allows manufacturers to use data captured by QAD MFG/PRO to better align execution with business strategy across the organisation.
"QAD BI helps global manufacturers get a clear picture of every aspect of operations, from sales and service to vendor relations and inventory status, using complex data collected by core QAD applications," said Jim Kirkley, QAD chief technology officer. "The solution incorporates Cognos`s analytics and insight from QAD`s focus on manufacturing, to provide visibility into trends that will help companies more quickly identify and implement standard best practices and processes - and eliminate those that are ineffective."
To transform data into valuable insight, QAD BI comprises two primary components: a data transformer and pre-defined business models. The data transformer performs extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) functions on the raw data collected by QAD MFG/PRO, ensures its accuracy and consistency, and then aggregates this content in a separate, dedicated business intelligence data warehouse. The pre-defined business models incorporate 150 key performance indicators (KPIs) and provide a framework for mapping the collated data to a meaningful format. These business models include:
* Inventory monitoring, for insight into current and historic inventory trends;
* Manufacturing performance, including statistics on work orders, production costs, productivity and throughput;
* Forecasting performance;
* Sales analysis, including statistical trends in sales and revenue margins;
* Financial controls, encompassing gauges for profitability, investments and the effectiveness of financial management;
* Vendor rating intelligence, from patterns in purchase price and cost, to materials delivery; and
* Service performance insights, including service profitability and trends in customer calls and contract selection.
Even customers running multiple versions of QAD MFG/PRO can use QAD BI to quickly assess sales performance, forecast production, rate vendors, gauge financial controls, monitor inventory, and measure service management performance as well as manufacturing performance. Cognos Powerplay PowerCubes are built into QAD BI so that users can view analytics in their format of choice, using a Web browser or popular word-processing or spreadsheet tools.
"By making business-critical information relevant, actionable and accessible within an organisation, QAD and Cognos are helping manufacturing clients make better decisions that can lead to increased revenues, reduced costs, and renewed agility in the marketplace," said Ted Jandl, Cognos vice president of worldwide OEM partners. "Our partnership with QAD enables us to expand business value for our clients, and extend the reach of business intelligence solutions in the market. Through our work with manufacturing organizations, we continue to evolve and develop our industry-leading solutions to allow organizations to deliver products on-time and on budget, serve their customers better, and address the demands of the market."
Legal and regulatory compliance mandates such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 have created greater urgency for companies to better understand their operations. By integrating and analysing data associated with - and typically isolated by - discrete areas of function such as production, customer relationship management, and financials, QAD BI helps global manufacturers extrapolate data to gain meaningful metrics on their business operations. Additionally, using QAD BI, companies can discover aspects of operations that may put them at risk of non-compliance, so that they can make systemic changes before there is a problem.
Pamela Lopker, QAD president and chairman of the board, said, "Our goal is to help global manufacturers more quickly determine when and how they can adjust their business operations to act on customer demands and shifting industry requirements."
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