ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘news’ CATEGORY

IFS, the global enterprise applications company, has announced a number of updates to its ERP enterprise software suite IFS Applications 9. New features include  in-memory capabilities,  enhanced visualisation of manufacturing processes, extended support for rental management and improved group consolidation functionality.

Part of the in-memory solution is IFS In-Memory Advisor, which helps customers apply in-memory technology to the areas of IFS Applications where it will yield maximum effect, or if so desired, run the entire application in-memory. By using in-memory, users can run analytical queries hundreds or even thousands of times faster than before. With compression ratios of three to ten times, even terabyte-sized databases are possible to run in-memory.

The release also includes significant updates to the manufacturing component, such as enhancements that let users action production issues directly from the IFS Manufacturing Visualizer. In addition, the visualiser has been equipped with new charts to optimise production planning. The IFS Quality Management module also includes several improvements such as acceptance sampling.

IFS’s rental management capability contains numerous new and improved features as well as major usability enhancements. The solution now allows users to associate specific work orders with external or internal equipment rentals.

The IFS Financials component has been updated with extended support for group consolidation, including advanced analysis of consolidated balances using IFS Business Analytics.

IFS is also launching a new support model based on quarterly updates of IFS Applications. Thanks to the new layered application architecture of IFS Applications 9, updates can be implemented quicker and easier than in previous versions. The result is that customers can benefit from the very latest product enhancements faster and at a lower cost.

“Following the successful launch of IFS Applications 9 earlier this year, we are very excited to release this first update, which includes both new and enhanced features,” IFS CTO Dan Matthews said. “Along with the feature updates, we are also happy to reveal a new update delivery system. This takes us a major step closer to our vision of providing our customers with ‘evergreen’ business applications, allowing them to enjoy the benefits of our latest and greatest software at a significantly lower cost.”

 

---

 

Be social and share this news

ServicePower Technologies Plc has joined the ThingWorx partner program as a certified partner. ThingWorx is a leading rapid application development platform for the Internet of Things.  ServicePower will use the platform to build applications that help its customers reduce costs, improve services and ultimately achieve competitive advantage.

By developing new applications that connect machines using IoT and integrating them into its workforce management, enterprise mobility, and analytics technology, ServicePower will enable its clients to optimise performance by uniting their workforces with assets in the field.

Using sensors in assets in the field coupled with new applications developed on ThingWorx, clients will be able to detect problems as they occur and, using ServicePower’s workforce optimisation solutions, mobilise their repair crews before there is a disruption to services.

ServicePower will offer the new IoT applications through the ThingWorx Marketplace, as well as directly through its global sales channels. Joining the ThingWorx ecosystem underlines the growing momentum of ServicePower’s partner strategy and its aim to use scalable and innovative technology. Specifically it builds upon other recent IoT partnerships with Bosch Software Innovations and Concirrus.

Marne Martin, CEO of ServicePower commented. “ServicePower already supplies the most innovative and complete service management platform on the market. We work with companies that operate assets in the field such as utility and cable providers, facilities managers and contractors; they can all now benefit from a step-change in technology that will deliver unprecedented levels of asset visibility. Valuable asset information extracted using ThingWorx can be fed into ServicePower’s existing service management platform so that our clients can deploy resources faster and where they are most needed. This technology will enable them to transform their operations and maybe even entire sectors.”

 

---

 

Be social and share this news

Seamless integration between sales and service together with productivity improvement tools are two of the key enhancements in Microsoft's new cloud-based Dynamics CRM 2016, which the company calls “game-changing”

Microsoft's Dynamics CRM 2016 includes advancements in intelligence, mobility and service and is said to be the most comprehensive ever upgrade of the company's CRM  solution. The new enhancements are designed to increase productivity in three key ways: by providing a simple and seamless experience across Dynamics CRM and other applications; delivering an enhanced mobile experience for the worker on the go, and providing enriched data and analytics.

“Microsoft’s obsession with customer success is rooted in our ambition to reinvent productivity and business processes,” said Bob Stutz, corporate vice president, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “Dynamics CRM 2016 is designed from the ground up to deliver core capabilities all in a single system to eliminate distractions, to make it easier to get things done, and to dramatically increase productivity so our customers can spend more time serving their customers.”

The new interactive service hub incorporates real-time dashboards that provide a single view of the workload, giving organisations and agents the flexibility to choose the order of case resolution. Interactive charts provide a visual representation of the work items and can be used as visual filters that allow agents to slice and dice the data, view what is most important, see the next action and focus on faster resolutions.  The Unified Service Desk gives agents access to Skype and Yammer so they can engage customers and peers via chat for service resolution and collaboration.

Turning data into intelligent action is a cornerstone of business transformation and productivity, and the new Dynamics CRM release includes data management and advanced analytics capabilities powered by the Cortana Analytics Suite. Azure Machine Learning capabilities are incorporated, enabling organisations to continually learn from the problems and solutions that they are encountering so that patterns can be identified, speeding time to resolution and continuously improving performance over time.

The new version of Dynamics CRM provides full offline capabilities for service professionals on phones and tablets and across all major mobile platforms (Android, iOS and Windows). The release also introduces the ability to create task-centered mobile apps to streamline the completion of activities on the go.

The new version of Dynamics CRM closes the customer relationship loop by providing an end-to-end solution for customer service across self-service, assisted service and field service. It captures the signals communicated in various channels in the market, and empowering the agent to provide meaningful feedback and leverages social channels to instantly track and analyse relevant sentiment and engage directly with customers on social channels such as Twitter and Facebook.

 

---

 

Be social and share this news

Almost four in ten business drivers have been given points on their license from work-related driving offences, according to research from telematics provider Masternaut...

In total, 39% of business drivers said that they had received points on their license for work-related driving misdemeanours. Almost two-thirds (62%) of those with points on their license were from speeding offences.

Other offences committed by business drivers include driving without reasonable consideration for other road users (15%), driving without due care or attention (14%), traffic light-related offences (14%) and dangerous driving (10%).

Masternaut surveyed 2,000 UK employees who drive as part of their job, to examine the effect of employee penalty points amassed when driving for work. Business drivers with points on their license, on average, have accrued seven points from work-related offences.

This follows UK accident data released in June 2015 by the Department of Transport, reporting an overall increase of 6% in road casualties in 2014, the first increase since 1997. HGVs, LCVs and vans saw an increase of 10% in casualties.

 

Telematics is shown to improve driver behaviour and safety, providing businesses with the technology and tool kits for keeping staff safe on the road. Both instant and ongoing coaching, driven by telematics data, alert drivers to poor driving reducing the risk for drivers and other road user

 

Despite more than a third of business drivers getting penalty points on their license from work offences, almost three quarters say that they are confident they would pass their driving test again. Meanwhile, seven in ten business drivers are confident that they know all the laws of the road.

However, this confidence might be misplaced as more than half (50%) of business drivers said that driving training would make them better and safer drivers. Previous research from Masternaut revealed that 70% of business drivers aren’t offered driver training by their employers.

Telematics is shown to improve driver behaviour and safety, providing businesses with the technology and tool kits for keeping staff safe on the road. Both instant and ongoing coaching, driven by telematics data, alert drivers to poor driving reducing the risk for drivers and other road users. Arriva Transport Solutions reduced negative driving events by 92% using telematics data provided by Masternaut Connect.

Steve Towe, Chief Commercial Officer and UK Managing Director, commented: “There’s a worrying number of business drivers on our roads who are driving in a manner that is serious enough for them to have points put on their license. Telematics provides broader social benefits beyond simple vehicle tracking and can help towards reducing the number of points accrued by drivers on the job. Not only can it provide fleets with the information to pinpoint offenders, the technology can provide ongoing driver feedback to improve drivers’ behaviour when they’re at work. By providing coaching and instant in-cab feedback, telematics can go a long way to reducing the number of points accumulated by drivers on the road, making them safer drivers in the process.”

Telematics technology from Masternaut has evolved so that driver-centric training programmes using data and insight from an intelligent telematics system can be delivered without the traditional map-based services protecting driver privacy.

Systems such as Masternaut Connect have been shown to improve driver behaviour, reducing instances of speeding as well as harsh braking, acceleration and cornering. UK businesses and fleet managers can easily implement a driver training programme using data and insight gained from Masternaut Connect. By collating information on driver behaviour, Connect can give an in-depth look at how businesses can improve driving standards within the workforce, helping to reduce the amount of penalty points and fines given to drivers.

---

Be social and share this story

Rugged technology designer and manufacturer Getac has launched a rugged tablet targeted at the field service sector and developed using the principle of "marginal gains" - an approach adopted by Britain's all-conquering Olympic cycling team, explains UK President Peter Molyenux.

The Getac RX10 is a lightweight tablet with  features aimed at shaving minutes off field service worker tasks, meaning more work can be done, more reliably, resulting in increased time efficiency in a number of challenging working environments.

The RX10 specifications include an integral "grab-and-go" carry-handle, a 10.1in 800 nits  Lumibond HD screen incorporating sunlight readable technology, HD webcam, 8M pixel rear facing auto focus camera, smartcard reader , 3D antenna and integral GPS.  Computing power is provided by an Intel M vPro processor with up to 1.2Ghz, or 2.9Ghx with Intel Turbo Boos with 4MB Intel Smart Cache and up to 256MB SSD.  Windows 10 is pre-installed.

The 2D barcode scanner is located for ease of us while the clearer screen,  slightly better camera resolution, higher rugged rating, better ease of cleaning and  hot-swappable battery all add up to improve productivity, says Molyneux.

"On the face of it, RX10 is marginally better an offering than current-market specialist tablet products. But that's the key, it doesn't need to be that much different. It is the slight changes and enhancements in each feature over and above the current benchmark that make the difference, and means that workers dependent upon such technology can accrue a series of 'marginal gains' in time as their day goes on - ultimately adding up to completing more work in a typical shift, thereby saving money.

 

"If every feature contributes to an accrued tiny percentage improvement or gain in performance of a worker from a time-efficiency perspective, then it means, for instance, a single engineer or technician or using a tablet on a typical - but probably unscheduled - ten-hour shift will gain five or six minutes.  A great deal can be accomplished by somebody in the field in six minutes: an equipment check, surveying a snag, uploading a report, a key component change.

"For instance, the 3D antenna means communication and data downloading is slightly faster; it also means that communication can be sustained in areas where coverage is patchy. The processor does not need a cooling fan., meaning less draw on power, but, importantly, avoiding the consequences of the tablet overheating and shutting down for ten minutes. The grab-and-go handle means potentially fewer drops.

Rugged  credentials include certification to MIL-STD-810G and IP65  and the RX10 comes with a three-year warranty. "While rugged tech is often labelled expensive, in reality the gap is closing between something like RX10 and a consumer-market adapted tablet with rugged case."

"The extra few metres of communications provided by the 3D aerial can mean better coverage or faster data flow. Aligned with discrete built-in GPS that can mean a field-service operative is better able to locate equipment or infrastructure on a site visit. If it is an emergency repair, then that could impact, for instance, how quickly a building, industrial plant or even a town is reconnected to essential services.

 

---

 

Be social and share this news

UK road safety charity Brake has handed TomTom Telematics two awards to recognize the impact its fleet management platform, WEBFLEET, has had in helping businesses improve the safety of their vehicle fleets.

OptiDrive 360 – which provides real-time feedback and advice to improve driving performance – was named Best Fleet Safety Product at Brake’s annual Fleet Safety Awards, while the company’s overall contribution to road safety earned the Fleet Safety Innovation award.

“These awards recognise the efforts of everyone at TomTom Telematics in helping businesses to achieve significant benefits from telematics technology by working with their drivers to encourage a safer, more efficient driving style,” said Giles Margerison, Sales Director UK and Ireland for TomTom Telematics.

“Our technology promotes a collaborative approach, providing drivers with direct feedback but also giving management detailed reports, meaning both parties can work together to make a positive change. This ethos is also reflected in our work with initiatives such as the EU ecoDriver Project, Van Excellence and Fleet Data Insight, all of which aim to provide companies with the tools to improve road safety.”

OptiDrive 360 uses vehicle and map data to provide professional drivers with predictive, real-time driving advice. It also provides pre-trip guidance and post-trip analysis, scoring drivers on a range of key performance indicators, including speeding, harsh steering and braking, idling, and gear shifting.

WEBFLEET provides reports that highlight key performance trends in real time but also allows management to dig deeper to identify the root causes of unsafe or inefficient driving performance.

 

---

 

Be social and share this news

Spectrum allocation, cybersecurity and the connected car at the centre of discussion at the 5G Huddle in Copenhagen this week. Security and privacy emerged as key concerns across sectors

The allocation of radio spectrum, new business models, cybersecurity and the connected car took centre stage at the 5GHuddle, organised by the Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF) in partnership with DI ITEK, the Danish technology trade association.   Over 150 delegates including leading scientists, high-level industry and government representatives from Europe, North America and Asia discussed the disruptive nature of 5G technologies, with security and privacy emerging as the key challenges in delivering a sustainable 5G ecosystem.

Stuart Revell, former Chief Technology Officer of Tech UK , the organistion that represents over 850 UK-based technology companies, led the discussions on the main challenges for the 5G community by presenting the Wireless Test & Innovation Centre (WTIC) whitepaper. Ming Lei, Huawi presented the Chinese Government-backed IMT-2020 5G promotion group and the FuTURE Forum initiative, discussing their international co-operation projects and how to rethink mobile communications of the future in their 2020+ White Paper.

Spectrum Allocation
Spectrum allocation was identified as one of the main challenges to making the leap forward in 5G deployment. The debate over what spectrum should be made available for 5G will be, as Andrew Hudson, Policy Director of the Spectrum Group at UK telecoms regulator Ofcom, said, “uncomfortable”. Leaving too many bands under consideration could make a positive outcome less likely, he said, as "lots of people might have to give a little bit", adding that it's not regulators' job to "make everyone happy" but to "debate the important questions."

Chih-Lin I, Chief Scientist of Wireless Technologies at China Mobile, added to this, saying that in the short term, C-band would be the core spectrum of 5G: "we want it to become key piece of 5G architecture.”

Anders Bohlin, Senior Economist at the European Investment Bank, warned that “If governments auction 5G spectrum to fill their treasury coffers and then operators don't invest because there's no market, that won't be good for 5G”.

Business Models

As Mischa Dohler, Head of Centre for Telecommunication Research in the Department of Informatics at Kings’ College, London, commented, business models may be the main shift in a 5G era, as the change to B2B could be attractive for the cellular industry.

For Pasi Kemppainedm, NNE Pharmaplan, this is the telecom industry's "last chance" to stretch its services to compete with big players like Google and Facebook. The disruptive part of 5G isn't the radio access part, but the services infrastructures. Facebook, Google and others will "eat your lunch" in future services if telcos don't deal with services infrastructure. Also, telecom companies shouldn't let 5G limit the start of service enablement. Services should be agnostic, and when 5G becomes ready, operators can move to better capability to provide those services.

Automotive Industry

Opening a session at the event that focused specifically on the potential of 5G in the automotive industry, Preben Mogensen, Principal Engineer at Nokia Network said: “We would like to see 5G as a framework to be optimised for the automotive industry”. Research challenges Nokia is working on for connected mobility include being able to support higher mobility, a lot of devices in a small space, ultra-reliability of networks, radio latency less than 1ms, network slicing and optimized service delivery for heterogeneous use cases. “As a telecom operator, our challenge is enabling a new generation of latency critical services. We are working on research to improve resilience to network failures,” he said.

Peter Vermaat, Principal ITS consultant at TRL, an independent research organisation, brought the road operator’s perspective to the 5G debate, agreeing that the connectivity requirements of vehicles are highly dependent on high network reliability and low latency, as well as co-operative services: “No single communication channel will be sufficient,” he said, “we don’t want the whole network to break down because a base station is running out of power.

“Without connectivity, research shows that, with the connected vehicle, safety goes down compared to a manually operated one. “Self-driving cars”, he said, “are a long, long way off.” Even Google cars, he said, are “fully autonomous, but not in all circumstances.”

Cybersecurity

Aside from the challenges faced in implementing 5G, come the concerns – in particular the risk posed by cyber crime. Focusing on these potential vulnerabilities of the IoT and 5G era, Zolten Precsenyi, Government Affairs Manager at Symantec, said explained that cybersecurity challenges arise not just from 5G in particular, but also from the connected world at large. Wearable devices, connected cars, e-health systems, smart grids are all vulnerable to attack. Current public policies for the telecoms, e-identification, network security and other areas “don't go far enough to protect against novel security issues. Self-regulation should be a credible alternative to government regulation,” he said.

Conclusions
“The business model this year has moved to the centre of the discussion and is not seen only from the telecom industry at large, but from the user’s point of view,” said Dr Nigel Jefferies, Huawei, Chair of WWRF, closing the 5G Huddle.

 

---

 

Be social and share this news

 By 2018, half of business ethics violations will occur through improper use of Big Data Analytics, says Gartner.

Analytics projects that utilize big data or advanced analytics are increasingly popular but present a heightened risk of failure, according to Gartner, Inc. which says analytics leaders can improve the likelihood of success by following five best practices.

"Although big data and advanced analytics projects risk many of the same pitfalls as traditional projects, in most cases, these risks are accentuated due to the volume and variety of data, or the sophistication of advanced analytics capabilities," said Alexander Linden, research director at Gartner who is  presenting on advanced analytics at Gartner's  Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit 2015, this week in Munich, Germany. "Most pitfalls will not result in an obvious technical or analytic failure. Rather they will result in a failure to deliver business value."

Failure to properly understand and mitigate the risks can have a number of unintended and highly impactful consequences. Those can include loss of reputation, limitations in business operations, losing out to competitors, inefficient or wasted use of resources, and even legal sanctions.

Gartner also predicts that, by 2018, 50% of business ethics violations will occur through improper use of big data analytics. Following key best practices will help analytics leaders to improve the likelihood of success, and they include:

1. Linking Analytics to Business Outcomes through Benefits Mapping
   Analytics must enable a business decision maker to take action, and that action should have a measurable effect — whether the effect is directly or indirectly achieved. Linking analytic outputs to traceable outcomes using a formal benefits-management and mapping process can help the analytics team navigate the complexities of the business environment, and keep analytic efforts both relevant and justifiable
2. Investing in advanced analytics with caution
   Many organizations believe that Big Data automatically requires advanced analytics. However, the data-crunching power required to manage the big data characteristics of volume, velocity and variety does not inherently require any more sophisticated algorithmic processing. It is the complexity of the analytical question to be addressed that drives the need for advanced analytic tools, and in many cases desired outcomes can be achieved without resorting to more sophisticated analysis.
3. Balancing analytic insight with the ability of the organisation to make use of the analysis
   Because analytics can only be beneficial in organizations that are willing to embrace change, it makes sense to limit investment in analytics to a level that matches the organization's ability to use the resulting insights. Analytics may not be the most suitable approach if  pertinent data is absent, when there are high levels of ambiguity, or where there are entrenched opposing points of view.In these cases, scenario planning, options-based strategies, and critical thinking should also be incorporated into analytical approaches to better support the organization's ability to take action.
4. Prioritizing incremental improvements over business transformation
   Using big data and advanced analytics to improve existing analyses, or to incrementally update and extend an existing business process, is easier than using them to deliver business transformation, because there are fewer dependencies to overcome to ensure success. Care should be taken to validate the level of overall change required. In some cases, deep reform of the business strategy may still be necessary — for instance, when a new disruptive vendor enters a market, when technology innovation changes the business model, or when an organization has become dysfunctional.
5. Considering alternative approaches to reaching the same goal
   Few objectives can only be achieved in one way. Statistical modelling, data mining and machine learning algorithms all provide means of testing ideas and refining solution propositions. Big data and advanced analytics help validate proposed hypotheses and open an even wider range of potential approaches to addressing corporate priorities. Not all problems even require a fully engineered analytical solution. Investment may be better targeted on human factors, re-education or reframing the problem.

 

---

 

Be social and share this news

Study links high customer satisfaction with service providers who fix it on the first visit

A  study commissioned by Trimble as part of awareness for National Customer Service Week in the UK,  finds field service organisations need to become more efficient, develop better time-saving approaches and fix a problem on the first visit in order to meet customer expectations.

The study, which surveyed 2,000 adults in the UK, revealed that over half (52 per cent) considered fixing the problem on the first visit to be the leading factor in determining their satisfaction. Yet, one in four participants reported that a return visit was required. The most common reason for a return visit was that the technician lacked the appropriate tools or parts (40 per cent), while the technician lacking the appropriate skills was also revealed as a top factor (27 per cent).

"Clearly, operating a skilled and efficient mobile workforce is critical to meeting customer expectations. To achieve that, organisations need real-time access to information about the performance of workers in the field," said John Cameron, general manager of Trimble's Field Service Management Division.

"Technology is available that provides technicians with the visibility they need to get to the right place at the right time with the information they need to do their job correctly the first time," Cameron added. "Customer expectations are only going to increase, so having the infrastructure in place to meet and exceed these expectations is critical to keeping customers happy."

Respondents also are not happy with wait times. More than 50 per cent considered 1-3 hours an acceptable appointment window, yet few had experienced this, with 32 per cent reporting wait times between 4-9 hours. 40 per cent of consumers claimed their biggest frustration with using a service provider was long appointment slots.

 

---

 

Be social and share this news