Case Studies Utilizing Real-Time Data Analytics

Project Overview: The goal of this report is to explore executive perceptions and opinions about real time data applications and operations. We have interviewed over forty (40) Key Innovation Leaders who have been cited as the most innovative thinkers within the world of analytics and have documented distinctive case studies which have clearly optimized business intelligence. With every passing day, the pace of business is accelerating. Paradigm shifts in the global economy combined with rapid technology adoption are forcing business executives to contend with a new global marketplace fraught with uncertainty and constant change. To be successful under these new market dynamics, firms must adjust operational processes, corporate strategies and business models at lightning speedallowing them to leverage intelligence instantly and take immediate action. At the same time, they must make sure their decisions are informed by proper data and analysis. The interviews and research conducted focused on large and medium-sized business units in four sectors of the economyconsumer products, technology, oil and gas, and retailing. The data revealed some interesting findings: Executives realize they need to take their businesses into real time. In fact, 30% of firms already derive considerable benefit from real-time business, and nearly two-thirds of companies yet to implement real-time business techniques plan to do so over the next five years. With at least one-fifth of companies in every sector or region using real-time business techniques, its value to businesses of all types is growing. For the majority of the businesses that are behind these leaders, the imperative is to make up lost ground. There are some surprising leadersand laggards. The majority of oil and gas firms have implemented a real-time business approach, particularly as part of their production processes and financial and business risk management strategies. This indicates the importance of real-time operations particularly for complex, capital-intensive firms. Consumer product and retailing firms, meanwhile, lag in terms of implementation. Retailers in particular are behind in the implementation of real-time operations for customer experience and supply-chain management, two critical areas for retailing success. Retailers also report their efforts around real-time business to be less effective than firms in other industries.

Real-Time Business in the New Global Marketplace Early adopters have seen substantial results. The main strategic goals of executives choosing to implement real-time business techniques are to increase market share and enhance service and quality advantages. Operationally, real-time business is proving especially effective in delivering improvements in customer experience, production processes and supply chain management. But perhaps most striking is the tangible return on investment: Those able to estimate put revenues gains at over 20%, and cost reduction at nearly 20%. In fact, future gains are expected to exceed earlier ones, with revenue increases of 28%. But challenges are significant, in a number of areas. Respondents cite a lack of technology as a main obstacle, as well as suppliers unfamiliarity with realtime systems and a lack of internal expertise. Indeed, the move to real-time operations can be extremely complex, and will require careful planning and strategy to ensure success. Those planning to roll out real-time systems have different strategies than early adopters. They will put particular focus on financial and business risk, production processes and supply-chain management. Meanwhile, almost all early adopters plan to carry on investing, though they will shift their focus from sales and marketing towards product design and innovation, while continuing to focus on customer experience.

The need for speed We live in a world that increasingly communicates and operates in real time. Over the past decade, the spread of social media and mobile phone use, combined with the explosion of accessible information and increasing interconnectedness of global markets and cultures, has dramatically sped the pace of our daily lives. The evidence is clear in the dissemination of international news: For example, when US Airways Flight 1549 emergency-landed on New Yorks Hudson River after striking a flock of geese during takeoff in January 2009, it took only three minutes for the first tweet to alert the world

The pace of business, too, has dramatically accelerated. Customers and clients expect their queries and problems to be addressed immediately. In an uncertain global market where there are many more competitors and constant change, executives know that success depends on the ability to take fast action and make rapid decisions. Indeed, in the business world today, speed is not only expected, but required. As Rupert Murdoch noted: The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.

But are companies prepared to take their firms into real time? While nearly all respondents agree that doing so is critical, only one-third of businesses have already implemented real-time business applications in some way (though 65% of those who have not yet implemented real-time systems expect to do so within five years). And the experience is far from uniform. For example, companies that focus on business-to-business operations (35%), are more likely to have moved to real-time than those in the business-to consumer space (16%). And almost half of the very large businesses studied those with annual revenues in excess of US$25 billionhave introduced real-time business, significantly more than those with a turnover of less than US$1 billion (22%) or between US$1 billion and US$10 billion (28%).

Adopting a real-time business approach can provide companies with myriad benefits at both the operational and management levels At an operational level : by speeding up data capture and simplifying processes, executives can reduce inventories, minimize business risks, lower operational costs, accelerate speed to market, foster productivity and better meet customer needs. At the management level, by accelerating decision-making and planning, executives can exploit market opportunities faster, identify competitive threats sooner, cope with market shifts more quickly and transform stagnating businesses. With the internet transforming business, mobility moving to center stage and on-demand computing becoming the norm, global firms are on the threshold of an era that will radically transform operations. Companies need to consider how to adopt real-time into the fabric of their firms, or risk falling behind their competitors.

What does it mean to be a real-time business? For purposes of our research, real-time business refers to processes that allow companies to conduct a range of business activities instantaneously. The activities that make up realtime business can, therefore, incorporate all aspects of business, including gathering and acting on business intelligence, developing promotional and marketing tactics, controlling and adjusting production processes, managing inventory, identifying and managing business risks, closing and fulfilling sales and meeting customer needs. Real-time operations depend on in-memory analytics, which takes a different approach than traditional business intelligence systems. Rather than storing information on various external disks and caching bits of data in a computers random access memory (RAM), real-time intelligence puts the data directly into RAM. Advancements in computing power and storage have made it possible to store vastly more amounts of data in RAM than ever before, and allows for extremely fast query responses Which companies are ahead of the curve in adopting real-time operations? The answers are surprising. According to respondents in the four industries surveyed, oil and gas firms (54%) take the lead, particularly in production processes and assessing financial and business risk. In sharp contrast, only 20% of consumer products and 29% of retailers have moved toward realtime operations.

In the oil and gas industry, real-time data is critical to monitor drilling sites. Shell, for example, maintains six real-time operation sites around the world, in Houston; New Orleans, La.; Miri, Malaysia; Muscat, Oman; Port Harcourt, Nigeria; and Aberdeen, UK. These centers provide around-the-clock monitoring of the firms assets and operations. Considering some of the strides of the worlds most formidable retailers and consumer products companies in championing real-time operations (Wal-Mart and P&G, to name but a few)and the clear opportunities to improve critical areas of the business such as supply chain management and inventory control, it seems particularly surprising that these sectors would rate so low on our survey.

Sunil Verma, Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President of US-based clothing retailer The Childrens Place, is not surprised. In terms of technology, the retail industry is a follower, he says. Its an old industry which is changing quickly because of the internet. We quickly understand that there is a competitive advantage in doing real-time analytics and the idea that we need to infuse every customer touch point with some element of personalization. The minute you start to internalize that, the need for real-time computing becomes more urgent. According to Ranjay Gulati, the Jaime and Josefina Chua Tiampo Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, the reasons may center on a lack of understanding of its benefits. The retail sector is pretty fast-moving looks at how quickly fads and fashions change. Yet retailers dont have that kind of cycle speed on being able to look at the data and run analytics on it. Even worse, the people who have the data and the people who need the data are not sitting in the same placein fact; the people who need the information might not even know it exists. So there is a huge disconnect.

Still, the fact that so many respondents say their firms are planning to move in this direction points to an understanding that this disconnect existsan encouraging step. I dont think were at the tipping point yet, says Professor Gulati. Its still early stages. But we are approaching a point where business competition is becoming so strong that it will eventually force companies to find a way to get it done. Drivers of adoption For early implementersfirms that have already adopted real-time business methods, use is pervasive across the enterprise: Upwards of 95% of these respondents have some form of realtime business applications in place across all departments. And the commitment to real-time business is substantial. For each of the functions identified (consumer experience; supply-chain management; production; sales and marketing; financial and business risk; and product design and innovation), over 50% of early implementers report a high or very high degree of adoption. Customer experience and supply chain management top the ranking (each at 64%), followed closely by production processes (63%), and sales and marketing (62%).

Naturally, obtaining a strategic benefit is a key driver for implementing real-time operations. Among early adopters, growth in market share (77%) is the most frequently cited driver for adoption. This is followed by building service and/or quality advantages (71%), expanding addressable markets (68%) and building cost advantages (67%).

Meanwhile, plannersfirms that are in the process of moving to real-time operations or intend to do so over the next five yearscomprise some 46% of survey respondents. For these respondents, building service and/or quality advantage is most frequently identified (87%) as an important or very important driver. This is followed by ambitions to grow market share (83%) and building cost advantages (82%).

Adoption strategies of planners are different from those of early implementers. By function, production process and financial and business risk lead initial investment among planners, with roughly 77% of those surveyed reporting fairly or very significant plans in these aspects of their operations. The next areas for investment are supply chain management, where 75% of planners have fairly or very significant plans, and product design and innovation (74%).

Among oil and gas businesses that plan to make their first efforts to move to real time, most consider building service/quality advantage and cost advantages as key drivers with 95% indicating this is quite or very important. Among new adopters in the retail sector, the greatest perceived benefit is building cost advantages (85%). In contrast, a higher proportion of new adopters in the consumer products sector (87%) cite increasing market share as the greatest anticipated benefits. Benefits and opportunities Clearly, the purpose of real-time operations is to help companies make better decisions and speed time to market. As such, it is of little surprise that early adopters cite increased revenue (31%) and cost reduction (35%) as the most important benefits. In this area, real-time operations seem to offer a tangible benefit: On average, companies that have implemented such systems are seeing revenue gains of 21% and cost reductions of 19%. In fact, among early adopters, 77% report revenue gains.

For some companies, the benefits are even more substantial. Oil and gas firms report revenue gains of 36%, which are significantly greater than those in the consumer products sector (revenue gains of 14%). Business-to-business operations (27%), meanwhile, also report significantly higher revenue gains than business-to-customer units (13%). The higher figures may be attributed to the fact that firms in these categories are further along the implementation curve, suggesting a connection between real-time operations and revenue. At GE Energy, work is under way to embed real-time sensing software and controls into equipment to run its plants. There is a huge wave of activity that is taking place now around data collection, says Dr. Peter Evans, head of strategy for GE Energy. We are putting in place the frameworks for better decision-making about how to run these plants at higher performance. For example, GE is now sharing with its clients the real-time data it collects from its fleet of over 1,000 gas turbines so customers can benchmark performance. We collect and analyze the data, and turn n it into better solutions, he says. For UK-based movie streaming service LOVEFiLM, which has more than 1.6 million members and manages four million rentals monthly across Europe, the conversion rate of trial to paid subscriptions is critical. A 1% or 2% change in conversion has a huge effect on the bottom line, says Mike Blakemore, the firms Chief Technical Office. So we manage that constantly. Real-time systems are key to that effort: In addition to crucial housekeeping, such as tracking credit cards and payments in real time, LOVEFiLM can tailor its offerings to members based on their past preferences. Furthermore, because LOVEFiLM can track instantly which films are most popular among its customer segments, its content team knows which films it should promote to drive sales. The sooner we have the customer data, says Mr. Blakemore, the quicker we can adapt. Its a strategy that has paid off. In February 2008, Amazon became the firms largest shareholder; this January, the online retail giant announced that it would take full control of the LOVEFiLM. The benefits of real-time operations are not limited to companies whose business models are mainly digitally. Among airline executives, for example, the expression wheels up is a key phrase: Once a plane takes off, the value of an empty seat is zeroit can never again generate revenue. To keep financial performance aloft at Continental Airlines (now a unit of United Continental Holdings), real-time analytics track empty seats prior to takeoff to put as many travelers on board as possible. At any time, Continental executives can see an accurate account of revenue-generating passengers on its flights. But real-time data helps with more than in-flight operations. It is now critical in helping the airline manage seat availability for its 2,000 daily flights, each of which can have as many as 30 different seating classifications. In the past, says Anne Marie Reynolds, director of the airlines data warehouse, it was difficult to manage the complexity of the various pricing options updates were done nightly in a batch process. The science behind it hasnt changed all that dramatically but now we are able to respond within a few minutes rather than waiting until the next morning. That alone, she says, has meant millions in increased revenues.

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Study respondents also expect to see substantial benefits from real-time operations in the future. For the sample as a whole, the expected gains in revenue average 28%; the expected cost reductions average 20%; and the gains in productivity 24%. At The Childrens Place, says Mr. Verma, the company is undergoing a significant transformation. We have a new mandate to elevate what we do both in terms of product and in terms of how we service the customer, he says. Real-time operations are critical to that mandate, particularly in terms of personalization. Having access to immediate customer data is a huge opportunity, he says. For example, in the past it took 30 days to know if a customer had made a purchase online or in a store. Because a customers status couldnt be updated immediately, he explains, they may have received suboptimal offers or incentives. Despite being most pessimistic about future revenue gains and cost reductions, respondents in the consumer products sector anticipate the biggest increase in these measures (when comparing between what has been realized in the past and what is expected for the future). This is likely because these firms have yet to adopt these systems in a fundamental way. In contrast, respondents in the oil and gas sector expect just the oppositefuture revenue gains and cost reductions are expected to be smaller than what was previously realized, though they will remain higher than in other sectors. This further underscores the maturity of adoption in this industry. Assessing Effectiveness While early implementers agree that real-time business is effective, there is some variation in the degree of effectiveness among functions. For example, early adopters rank its effectiveness more highly in consumer experience (69%) and production processes (65%) than in financial and business risk (58%) and sales and marketing (55%).

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Real-time operations are seen as more effective by firms in the oil and gas sector than in the other industries surveyed, perhaps as a consequence of the high level of adoption within the sector. Apart from sales and marketing, a higher proportion of oil and gas respondents see realtime business to be fairly or highly effective than the sample as a whole. This gap is particularly marked for product design and innovation, and financial and business risks, underscoring the power of real-time information in complex, capital-intensive organizations. The weak ranking of sales and marketing likely reflects the commodity nature of much of the industrys output. Meanwhile, early implementers from the retail sector are more likely to see the initiative as ineffective or of limited effectiveness than their colleagues in other industries. Future Investments The vast majority of early adopters plan further investment across their business functions. For them, consumer experience, supply-chain management, and product design and innovation rank top as the business functions where further investment in real-time business will be directed, with over 55% reporting fairly or very significant plans in these aspects of their operations Fewer early implementers in oil and gas plan for further investment in sales and marketing functions; instead, they plan to extend real-time approaches in production processes, supplychain management, and product design and innovation. Early adopters in retail, meanwhile, have more modest plans for investment than other sectors. Nevertheless, for all business functions except production processes, more than 40% of these firms plan for intensive expansion of their capabilities. As noted earlier, those planning to roll out real-time systems have different strategies than early adopters. Rather than focusing on customer experience, they will focus on sales, marketing and supply-chain management. These firms may be missing an important aspect of real-time business, as early adopters rate consumer experience as the most effective area for real-time operations. Meanwhile, almost all early adopters plan to continue investing and expanding their real-time efforts, though they will move their spending from sales and marketing to product design and innovation, while continuing to focus on customers.

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Barriers to operating in real time Despite the understood value of real-time systems, significant challenges remain with regard to adoption. At the top of this list, respondents note the lack of availability or adoption of technology (59%), suppliers unfamiliarity with real-time systems (58%) and a general lack of internal knowledge or awareness of (58%) real-time operations.

Professor Gulati is not surprised by these findings, and points to data silos as one culprit. Similar to the aforementioned barriers in retail, when information is not transparent or easily accessible, you have a situation where the person who owns the data, even if they are able to analyze it and figure it out, is not in a position to impact change. The resulting opacity around what types of data exist and how they might best improve the business continues to hold companies back. You need to either move the decisions to the people who have the information, or move the information to the people who are making the decisions, he says. At The Childrens Place, the challenges have been both cultural and technical. When Mr. Verma arrived at the company a year ago, there were at least six separate merchandising systems, each with its own set of data. Moving to a single system requires full-on collaboration and communicationsetting standards for data, and creating processes for generating reports and sharing information. At the same time, asks Mr. Verma, how do you get people to believe that the new way is better? Like any organization undergoing transformation, theres caution among associates who have been here a while who have seen things work a certain way. You have to demonstrate there are alter natives that have better outcomes. Its all about educating. To that end, Mr. Verma has established a cross-functional IT innovation group at the company. If you give your team the opportunity to work in different environments and understand how systems within individual business areas work together to connect business processes, they become more open to change. By sector, consumer products firms see a lack of available technology as a particular barrier, and generally judge the obstacles in the way of implementing real-time business to be greater than other sectors. Surprising given their lead in using realtime business, oil and gas companies see substantial barriers around communicating the benefits of real-time operations. From a cultural perspective, it takes time to roll these things out so that it becomes embedded in day-to-day 13

operations, says Dr. Evans. Given the high stakes that are involved in sustaining large energy systems, both trust and capability need to be built for wide-spread deployment into pipelines, networks and electrical distribution systems to be achieved. At Continental Airlines, Ms. Reynolds says the greatest challenge for her group will be integrating the airlines real-time revenue management systems with its new parent company, United Airlines. Thankfully, United reservations will be done on the Continental system once theyre fully integrated, so all we have to do is figure out how to back populate the United history and incorporate the new United forecasting system into the revenue management calculations. Its a lot of workthere are cases where Uniteds data doesnt have all the attributes that Continental has, but we expect to be fully integrated by the middle of next year. For the small group of respondents who do not plan to implement real-time operations, more than half cite a lack of availability of technology, a lack of internal expertise and an inability to communicate the benefits as quite or very important. Its possible that for these firms, real-time data is not necessary for operations. However, it is more likely that these respondents have not yet fully considered how such systems could improve their business.

For firms that are at the beginning of their efforts to move to real time, Professor Gulati says there are three steps executives must consider. The first is to make sure the information that is gathered across the firm is accurate. Professor Gulati refers to this as the information architecture. This may seem obvious, but executives constantly underestimate the complexity of creating a single version of the truth. The second step is to understand the processes by which information is shared across the firm, and how departments need to use information to perform critical tasks. This is the organizational architecture, Professor Gulati says. Without clarity around who needs access to what information, youre working in a vacuum. No technology ever solved a business problem by itself. The third step is to take a hard look at how decisions are actually made inside companieswhich can be different from understanding the organizational processes. Professor Gulati calls this the 14

decision architecture. Think in terms of the reporting, and who has what mandates. This will require the IT team to work closely with executives across functions to ensure that the systems are designed to be truly useful. What happens in a lot of the initiatives that are CIO-driven is that they work on the information, build a data warehouse and then add analytics. And then what do you find? Nobody uses it.

Conclusion: Looking ahead As our respondents confirm, use of real-time systems will only grow more pervasive in the coming years. According to research firm Gartner, 30% of business analytics tools will use inmemory functions to add scale and computational speed by 2014. And 30% of business intelligence applications will use predictive forecasting. As noted earlier in this report, executives expect to reap substantial revenues as a result of realtime adoption. Mr. Verma of The Childrens Place says that real-time systems will be instrumental in helping the company move to enable mobile commercea move that he believes will transform the retail industry. In the near future customers arent going to come into a store to find their size. It will be more a scenario where on a whim, a customer decides he or she needs something. They will use their mobile device to figure out what they are going to buy and where they are going to buy it. Then purchase it wirelessly, and simply pick it up in the store. At LOVEFiLM, plans are under way to use real-time data to improve the streaming quality of films.We have capacity to scale based on demand, and the only constraints are around the physical infrastructure associated with peoples network connections in the home, says Mr. Blakemore. What we can do with real-time data is to look at the network down to customers internet service providers, and see which are the best local points of delivery. In other words, If customers are having buffering issues or difficulty with playbacks because the network is overloaded, we can switch to a different route to deliver content. That, says Mr. Blakemore, will dramatically improve serviceand help it gain market share. At GE Energy, one of the longer-term objectives for real-time data is to allow consumers to have more information and control of their energy use, says Dr. Evans. While some of that work is already happening with GEs business-to business customers, Dr. Evans envisions a day when a smart electricity grid provides transparent information to consumers so they can better control the electricity consumed by the various appliances in their home.

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Real-Time Data Analytics Identified and Developed Case Studies

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Case Study 1: KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Overview Analyzing large volumes of streaming data in real time is leading to smarter, more efficient and environmentally friendly traffic in urban areas Business Need: Researchers at KTH, Swedens leading technical university, gather real-time traffic data from a variety of sources such as GPS from large numbers of vehicles, radar sensors on motorways, congestion charging, weather, etc. The integration and analysis of the data in order to better manage traffic is a difficult task. Solution: Collected data is now flowing into a unique software tool that analyzes large volumes of streaming, real-time data, both structured and unstructured. The data is then used to help intelligently identify current conditions, and estimate how long it would take to travel from point to point in the city, offer advice on various travel alternatives, such as routes, and eventually help improve traffic in a metropolitan area. Benefits: Uses diverse data, including GPS locations, weather conditions, speeds and flows from sensors on motorways, incidents and roadworks -Enters data into the InfoSphere Streams software, which can handle all types of data, both structured and unstructured -Handles, in real time, the large traffic and traffic-related data streams to enable researchers to quickly analyze current traffic conditions and develop historical databases for monitoring and more efficient management of the system Real Business Results Uses diverse data, including GPS locations, weather conditions, speeds and flows from sensors on motorways, incidents and road works Enters data into the InfoSphere Streams software, which can handle all types of data, both structured and unstructured. Handles, in real time, the large traffic and traffic-related data streams to enable researchers to quickly analyze current traffic conditions and develop historical databases for monitoring and more efficient management of the system

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Case Study 2: Pepperl+Fuchs

Overview: After evaluating different alternatives, Pepperl+Fuchs decided to implement the log-based technology IBM InfoSphere Change Data Capture (previously DataMirror) for data replication in the heterogeneous database environment. This means that data changes within heterogeneous data storage systems can be monitored in real time and only the changed data transferred. Business need: Following the introduction of a central Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, data in different worldwide locations had to be integrated and synchronized so that production processes and reporting on site can continue to be optimally supported. Solution: Pepperl+Fuchs implemented IBM InfoSphere Change Date Capture (previously DataMirror) for real-time data synchronization between different database platforms. The solution provides minimal load on the central ERP system, high performance and reliable data integrity. Benefits: Error tolerance and stability reduce administrator costs. Efficient implementation by a small team within just a few days helped ensure low implementation costs and transparent training efforts. High data transfer speed via existing landlines helps ensure low communication costs. Operational data stores at the production locations in the United States and Singapore receive current information at all times. The load of the central ERP system is significantly reduced; expensive batch runs are not necessary; and operational systems are not exposed to risk.

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Case Study 3: Ducati

Overview Around the world motorcycle manufacturers are rolling out new models to delight bikers and define success on and off the track. Ducati is responsible for the construction, importation and distribution of motorcycles. Business need: Ducati had been employing expensive manual methods to track its parts via a system of paperbased spreadsheets. Human error occurred from time to time and delayed production. Solution: A service oriented architecture-based RFID solution alerts management if an incorrect part is being incorporated into the manufacturing of a motorcycle so that the company can rectify the situation before the vehicle is manufactured, sold and driven. Benefits: Projected 50% savings on revision campaigns and maintenance and monitoring of production line ~ 30% decrease in time for scheduling and verification of products ~20% savings in reclaimed scrap and missing parts Tracking parts automatically Leveraging a strong preexisting business relationship, Ducati decided to design and implement the RFID tag solution, which would enable real-time, automatic identification of each vehicle and vehicle component along the entire production chain. This solution is the backbone of our development, says the coordinator of informatics systems. We export the data coming from the RFID devices into a Java program in a web architecture. We have a message system which alerts management to issues with components. Reducing errors and improving production efficiency The manufacturer deployed a total of three IBM System x 336 servers running the SUSE Linux V10 operating system to support IBM WebSphere software and an IBM DB2 9 data server. Employees use wireless devices to scan RFID-tagged components and VINs into the system. Approximately 100 users leverage the DB2 9 data server, 60 of whom can access it concurrently. A custom-developed Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) application powered by IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment V6 softwarewill enable employees to track inventory throughout the production life cycle. The manufacturer anticipates that by replacing its legacy component-tracking system with an RFID solution, it will reduce errors and improve production efficiency. For the company, fewer 19

errors translates into a higher-quality finished product, which will help improve customer satisfaction and could potentially expand the companys already large share of one European motorcycle market. The new solution will also help improve the companys ability to provide suppliers with accurate inventory data. Using real-time data collected from the WebSphere-based inventory-tracking application, employees can now tell suppliers if a certain product is in stock, and quickly order new materials when inventory levels are low. Up to 50 percent cost savings If a motorcycle is destined to be delivered to France and the factory installs a speedometer that displays miles instead of kilometers, the solution alerts management in real time. That way we reduce the amount of errors directly in the assembly line, says the coordinator of informatics systems. Another important innovation is replenishment of the components from the line to the warehouse. We also have fewer employees verifying parts manually, which saves costs. Altogether, the cost of monitoring, maintenance, replenishment is 50 percent less. With the RFID solution we have seen a 30 percent decrease in the time for scheduling and verification of production, so products reach the market 30 percent faster. In addition, weve seen a 20 percent decrease in the cost of missing parts and scrap. Weve had improvements in other indirect costs because of the efficiency of the production line. All of these have shown improvements in quality and service. Preventing revision campaigns As yet, Ducati hasnt had a revision campaign in which it has had to test its new technologya sign that prevention is happening in the factory. By avoiding the cost of one revision campaign we have paid for this entire RFID implementation, says the coordinator of informatics systems. So we are going to continue to invest in this technology. In the future, we would like to export this SOA technology, this business project management, to our outside suppliers, so that our suppliers can have this information at the same time we do. We also want to know what our suppliers are doing at a particular moment for us, and therefore we will be able to consider if something will be just in time or if its delayed. Were also eager to change over to the smart factory with smart supervision. And we will be doing this all in real time using Web 2.0 technology and the latest innovations in SOA and business project management, thanks to IBMs help. The improvements to the assembly line and inventory system have brought about efficiencies that were unthinkable just three to four years ago, and the coordinator of informatics systems hopes there will be more benefits to enjoy three or four years from now Smarter car manufacturing Ducati was struggling with a parts tracking system that was based on paper and prone to error. When a wrong part found its way onto a motorcycle on the assembly line, it was expensive to correct the mistake. Now the company is working smarter and benefitting from savings in time and money with the automatic monitoring and alerting performed by its RFID parts tracking solution.

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Case Study 4: Heathrow Airport

Overview: In recent years, Heathrow faced a challenge not only keeping up with existing traffic but bracing for major increases in traffic. Due to political and geographic issues, the airport had to live within its existing footprint. In short, it needed to be a model of efficiency. By harnessing the analytic capabilities of a BPM system, Heathrow managers have been able to tune ground crews to incoming traffic by linking to the Euro Air Space system to give crews a full 30 minutes warning before a plane arrives. A business activity monitoring (BAM) capability is also used to manage crews, gate assignments, docking and undocking, refueling, cleaning, and more. In addition to providing a visual and intuitive indicator of where planes are in the process, numerous scenarios can be invoked for different levels of traffic and delays. For instance, if significant delays are expected for departing passengers, security systems are adjusted to keep people in retail areas rather than gate areas for a longer period. This has resulted in happier passengers and security workers and also had the serendipitous result of substantially raising retail revenues. Todays BPM handles expected exceptions but with newer tools you can start looking for unexpected exceptions, says Jim Sinur of Gartner Research. For instance, he indicated, you can start to look for signs of inflation or deflation. You can look at complex event patterns and certain recurring events and combine that with modeling. That is the top levelwhere someone managing the process gets notification either from complex events or modeling tools that there is a good chance something unusual is happening, says Sinur.

Seek, model, adapt Sinur says Gartner talks about using BPM in conjunction with a Seek, Model, and Adapt approach. To date, BPM has tended to focus on the adapting part of the equation and may have missed the seeking part, often because information exists across multiple processes. He says the most successful users of BPM real time analytics should consider taking different approaches, depending on whether they are a planning-oriented or reactive company and depending on the specific analytic capabilities their system provides. Plan-oriented companies often prepare for different scenarios and compose alternative responses for eachso when BPM provides an early warning, they can leverage that information for quick action. Reactive companies, on the other hand, may be able to leverage elements of real time analysis to learn by doinginventing new ways to operate quickly with the help of BPM analytics. Some BPM systems can provide modeling tools and automated process discovery to look for patterns, says Sinur. This stuff is hot and will be for the next decadecompanies are just starting to discover the potential this represents, he adds. 21

Case Study 5: KEMCO

Overview: Korea Energy Management Corporation (KEMCO) is an organization that contributes the national economy and develops and supplies future energy. KEMCO has created and provided the data lookup screens by OLAP dedicated tool and key business system, every time line-ofbusiness users request. Meanwhile, as green growth has become the keyword to stand for these times and the related laws have been embodied, the organization felt the need of having the new class of business efficiency. KEMCO selected the Voluntary Agreement (VA)-related business system started from 1998 as the first target for innovation and then they got the development of BI system going in the end of 2009. It has driven the BI project to maximize the ease-of-use through the Microsoft's solution instead of the existing OLAP tools. Through this, having noticed the business efficiency of the user environment where they can draw the statistics they want on Excel without moving to lookup screen each time, KEMCO has a plan to extend the useroriented BI into their other system areas. Situation The statistical and analytical business is of the highest importance to Korea Entergy Management Corporation (KEMCO) leading the charge as it tries to implement the green growth and low carbon economy. Since it is the organization managing the demands for energy, the statistics and analysis is the key to its all businesses. KEMCO has made a number of statistical and analytical data viewed in a data lookup page by key business system. Prior to creating reports, they had to log in the data lookup site of the related business system and extract the data. And if there is any hard-to-acquire information from the view, they had requested it to Information Statistics Division and KEMCO via e-mails or phone calls. After collecting data, they arranged and analyzed it in Excel to create reports ordinarily. The need of new class of efficiency has not been on the rise in such a business process until the 'green' emerged as the keyword passing through this time. In a major move towards green growth everywhere including economy and society, the government declared the low carbon green growth as a national vision in 2008. To support this institutionally, the preparation for the Framework Act on Low Carbon, Green Growth (hereinafter, Green Act) is under discussion commonly. Naturally, as the KEMCO's stature and role has grown, for statistics and analysis business as well, they need to prepare the future changes with the stream of times. VA (Voluntary Agreement)-related business was picked up as the first target for innovation. VA is the non-compulsory energy saving measurement where a corporation sets itself the objective of energy saving or greenhouse gas emission reduction for five years and makes an agreement with government, and then the government helps the company fulfill this agreement to make the objectives achieved with the collaborative effort of two parties.

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KEMCO has collected and analyzed a number of information for evaluating and monitoring VA related corporations' fulfillment. As the demand for this statistical and analytical information has increased in an era of Green Act, the VA related business is chosen first as a target for innovation. Yeong-sang Yoon, Leader of Information Statistics Division, KEMCO, stated, "Analytic works related to VA has increased. It is because of increased corporations participating to VA, and Green Act is the key background as well. KEMCO manages the industrial development segment, one of targets to be managed by Ministry of Environment, with regard to the enforcement of Green Act." Actually, in addition to its existing job of establishing the energy saving goal and then monitoring and evaluating its enforcement, its statistical and analytical activity will be extended to the measurement, reporting and verification of greenhouse gas emission for the emission trading scheme between corporations regarding the industrial development initiatives. Solution KEMCO selected the new approach of BI (Business Intelligence) for innovating statistical and analytical business related to VA system. Making a decision that it was no more efficient to develop the screen each time needed, KEMCO viewed BI the best way, since the kind and the number of materials required to analyze increased. KEMCO grappled with the problem of finding technical methodology for implementing BI. It thought adding BI to VA would only have a marginal effect in the light of its own experience, unless it could overcome the limitations of OLAP dedicated tool. Yoon-geun Han, Director of RealWeb which was responsible for this BI project, explained, "KEMCO has ever introduced the PowerPlay of Cognos and OLAP tools developed by a domestic development firm. As it difficult to use these tools without expertise, its usage was not too high. Thus these proprietary tools were not appropriate for satisfying the needs of users to extract statistics they want if needed." The system developed during August to December 2008 was configured to make the data exported from VA systems operated on SQL Server 2005 and distributed and shared through the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007's Excel Services. The existing lookup screens were removed except the page used to access by its staff outside the company. Besides, About 10 data marts were created to reside on SQL Server 2008. Finishing BI development for VA system successfully, KEMCO is considering extending BI into its other systems step by step. Mr. Yoon stated, "We have noticed that BI was very useful from the case of VA system. Now we are in discussions with Microsoft about applying BI to Climate Change related business and have a plan of approaching to all sorts of statistical and analytical business which we do from a enterprise-wide BI perspective in the mid- and long-term."

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Benefits Complete the data collection that used to take 3 days in real time Staffs dealing with data analysis related to VA are feeling that all the before and after of BI implementation are certainly different. This is because they spend less time to collect materials, thus they have to only focus on writing reports. Mr. Yoon said, "If we failed to get information we want in the lookup screen, we have to request the materials to the Information Statistics Division and it took at least 2-3 days to receive it. Now we don't have to spend our time to wait materials. We can bring the data on data marts in system into Excel." Respond immediately to the request of a variety of statistical reports Analysts don't have to drill down to 10~20 lookup pages or request the materials they need to the information statistics division, which increase their responsiveness to businesses. Mr. Yoon said, "Unlike general enterprises, a public institution has to consider the statistics in building business systems. It has to submit the data to superior authorities if they request. After the SQL Server based BI system was implemented, we don't have to look up the law data case by case, freeing us to focus on our own tasks including writing graphs, which makes our responsiveness to statistical and analytical business increased." Reduce cost about 60% compared to that of OLAP dedicated tool KEMCO broke stereotypes that BI is the expensive tool from this project. It was not a challenge followed by big investment once the organization actually tried to do it. They found that their will and practice were important. Mr. Yoon explained, "While Introducing OLAP tool will need at least 100 million won to be invested, we spent less than 30 million won in this BI system implementation." KEMCO expects that these cost reduction effects will really come into its own in the case of applying BI into the system that many people use in the future. Unlike the VA system that 50 analysts use, in case of the system that has to support more users, cost benefits of Microsoft's BI solution is expected to be much higher compared to that of the traditional OLAP tool. Ensure a smooth transition One of results of moving from lookup screen to BI is the smooth transition of VA related business. Mr. Yoon said, "A person in charge is changed regularly in our organization, so there was a difficulty in transition for the successor in analytical business. Analysts often need their personalized environment due to the nature of statistical and analytical tasks. Thus in case of delivering information based on lookup screen in the past, the new analyst often requested a new screen to be developed. Now using Excel ensures a smooth transition

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Case Study 6: Faro Hospital

Overview: Faro Hospital provides medical services for citizens in the Algarve region of Portugal. The organisation wanted to improve decision making and increase efficiency. It deployed a business intelligence solution based on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 data management software. Funding and resourcing strategies are now based on accurate, real-time data, which has helped the hospital reduce costs and improve patient care. Business Needs Founded in 1979, Faro Hospital provides medical services for more than 250,000 people in the Algarve. The hospital complex covers 46,500 square meters and has 530 beds. In December 1999, it became a state-managed organisation, with specific government targets. In addition to providing high-quality medical care to patients, the hospital managers needed to streamline processes and minimize costs. Until recently, each department used its own applications to manage patient records and employee schedules. Francisco Serra, Head of IT Strategy for Faro Hospital, says: It was slowoften impossibleto share information across departments quickly. For example, any time nurses needed outpatient treatment information they had to request a manual transfer of the records from the outpatient clinic. This slowed patient treatments, and prevented the hospital from providing the quality of care to which it aspired. This lack of integration also delayed decision making. It took a long time to consolidate sufficient information to achieve an overview of the entire hospital, says Serra. Managers had no day-to-day view of the organizations activities, so it was difficult for them to make crucial decisions quickly. For example, if a problem occurred, such as a need to arrange cover for a surgeon or specialist, it was impossible to make a fast decision about how to resolve it. Collecting the data was also a lot of work for employees. Staff were spending too much time collecting, organising, and re-entering information, instead of doing their jobs. For example, if an employee needed information from another department, such as medical records, it would have to be requested and manually delivered. We needed to increase employee efficiency and start generating a better return on investment from our workforce, says Serra. Solution In January 2009, Faro Hospital engaged with Microsoft Services to create a hospital management solution based on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 data management software, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 business intelligence software. The solution consolidates data, such as patient records, appointments, and staff schedules, into a centralized repository.

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Office SharePoint Server 2007 acts as the hospital intranet where employees can update and view patient data. If a patient is transferred to a different department or specialist, this information is always captured in Office SharePoint Server 2007, ensuring that treatment history can be accessed by doctors and nurses in different departments. Benefits Since deploying SQL Server 2008, Faro Hospital can make decisions based on real-time data. This helps the hospital to manage resources effectively, minimize costs and reduce employee workloads. As a result, patient and employee satisfaction has increased.

Managers make more informed decisions. Faro Hospital creates reports with up-todate information about every part of the hospital, and can make intelligent decisions based on that data. Costs are reduced. With SQL Server 2008 R2, we can identify areas where we are failing to get a return on investment, says Serra. We can then reallocate these resources to make sure everything is as cost-effective as possible. Quality of care has improved. Patient appointments are easier to manage than before. Serra says: We can optimize the number of patient appointments in a day, because we can forecast them more accurately. By looking at historical data we can get a good idea of how many employees are needed to meet patient demands, and plan for cover if any personnel are absent on leave or as a result of sickness. Patient care has improved. Because different departments can collaborate more efficiently, patients get a better service. Serra says: All departments have access to accurate data, and can share information, such as medical records, with ease. As a result, patients receive a consistently good service across all departments, getting care very quickly. Employee satisfaction has increased. Employees have noticed a distinct improvement in services, and are much happier as a result. Theres less pressure on them because planning has improved, and they have more time available to do their jobs, says Serra. Improved shipping efficiencyand thus profitabilityby eliminating silos across business lines and enabling users to model and analyze shipments to determine where they can consolidate or add multiple stops to improve service or reduce costs Exceeded expectations for productivity improvements and cost savings at the eight sites deployed to date, already saving more than US$2 million Provided more predictable processes in outbound shipping, enabling planners to more quickly and easily manage exceptions, which now happens much less frequently Freed planners from day-to-day outbound shipping monitoring, instead enabling them to work on continuous improvement by reaching out to customers to see how they can better meet their needs

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Benefited from integrations between Oracle E-Business Suite, as well as third-party applications, which is helping to improve efficiency and reduce administrative effort

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Predictive Data Analytics Identified and Developed Case Studies

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Case Study 1: Ingersoll Rand

Overview: Ingersoll Rand is a global, diversified industrial firm providing products, services, and solutions that enhance the quality of air and comfort in homes, buildings, and transport and that protect food and perishables, secure homes and commercial properties, and increase industrial productivity and efficiency. Given the breadth of its product offerings and its global reach, the company has a complex network of manufacturing and distribution operations. To increase efficiency while ensuring that it continues to deliver the superior service its customers expect, Ingersoll Rand implemented Oracle Transportation Management to coordinate its outbound shipping across various lines of business and facilities. Even while the application was implemented currently at eight sites of the companys more than 70 locations, it already exceeded expectations for improved productivity and cost savings. With Oracle Transportation Management, users can view shipping plans across lines of business and facilities, enabling them to adjust shipments to increase efficiency, such as making multiple stops within one shipment. The application has already contributed to more than 2 million dollars in savings and increased on-time delivery rates. Challenges Provide superior customer service by ensuring quality, cost-effective, on-time delivery of products across multiple business lines, ranging from Trane heating and cooling systems to Schlage locks

Manage high shipping volumes, amounting to several thousand lines per day, from several facilities, including discrete manufacturing centers and warehouses Meet tight delivery windows for industrial products, such as compressed air systems, which must arrive when an installation crew is on site to deploy it to avoid undue customer costs and project delays

Solutions Deployed Oracle Transportation Management to replace legacy transportation management systems and provide a streamlined and integrated outbound shipping processleveraging truckload, less-than-truck-load, and parcel modesacross four diverse business sectors

Rolled out the application as part of an Oracle E-Business Suite implementation at eight sites with plans to roll out to all Ingersoll Rand manufacturing and distribution locations Increased the percentage of on-time deliverieswith on-time deliveries now averaging above 95%

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Case Study 2: EMC Insurance Companies

Overview: EMC Insurance Companies struggled with pinpointing the right amount of money to hold in reserve against potential case payouts; holding back either too much or too little could be disadvantageous to the firms bottom line. After a year in which the company experienced a runup in reserves, EMC took steps to improve financial reserve management. The company selected PolyVista, advanced data analytics software built on Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, to uncover anomalies, correlations, relationships, and patterns hidden within the firms warehouse of claim data. After deploying the solution, EMC was able to improve financial reserve management, identify claims requiring special attention, improve data quality, support executive decision making with improved analysis, and better manage expenses.

Situation EMC Insurance Companies sell workers compensation, property, and casualty insurance through independent insurance agents in 16 branch offices across the United States. Founded in 1911, EMC is one of the largest insurance companies in its home state of Iowa. With assets of approximately U.S.$3 billion, the insurance firm has the bulk of its volume in commercial lines of business, with the remaining 15 percent in personal lines. The Challenge of Financial Reserve Management EMC manages its loss reservesmoney set aside for paying future insurance claimsby setting up a reserve for every case that the company handles. When a claim walks in the door, we try to determine what is the most likely outcome for that claim, explains Rich Schulz, Senior Vice President of Claims for EMC Insurance Companies. Strategic management of financial reserves can be a key contributor to the success of any insurance firm, and they are important indicators that are looked at by both insurance regulators and investors. Its a real balancing act; you dont want to underreserve or overreserve accounts. Consistency is critical, says Schulz. In 2004, we saw that our loss reserves were starting to creep up and yet, with all the tools we had, we were unable to pinpoint exactly what was happening. We realized we had to get a better handle on the way we were setting our reserves, and I was brought in to EMC to improve our management of our financial reserves. Schulz wanted to be able to predict the companys claim outcomes on an ongoing basis and, hopefully, identify and closely monitor those cases likely to have negative outcomes such as increased costs, additional services, or a lengthy resolution. We had all this claim data and not an effective way to look at it, says Schulz. We wanted a tool that would allow us to look at trends that the company was experiencing and be able to figure out what was driving them. He looked at a number of predictive modeling tools available on the market, but found that initial investment costs were high and the cost of maintaining those tools was far beyond what the company was willing to pay. 30

The Need to Identify Trends EMC stored a great deal of data in its internal claim processing system, but managers needed the ability to sift through that data more efficiently. For example, executives at EMC wanted to track and understand company trends related to claim frequency, which is the ratio of claim volume to premium volume, and severity, which is the ratio of claim cost to premium volume. Not only did they need to track these measures in order to manage their business, but executives also were expected to provide explanations of sudden trend changes to industry analysts. Right before a first quarter earnings call, I was asked about a change in the severity and frequency of workers compensation claims, says Schulz. At the time, I had to call individual branches to inquire as to what was going on. EMC had no good system of reporting that could be quickly used to discover the reasons behind unexpected changes. Schulz also needed to be able to track expenses both across the company and by individual branch, and he wanted the flexibility to analyze expenses in consideration with other factors. Currently, most claim people are under a lot of stress about expenses, Schulz says. The ability to understand where expenses were running high is important. All of our adjustment expenses are open to analysis. [For example,] do we have one or two business units that are overusing certain types of vendors to investigate claims? Solution In need of an affordable and effective solution, EMC Insurance Companies heard about PolyVista business intelligence software, which provides two important capabilities: A business user can use it to drill up and down on data, and it can automatically identify anomalies, correlations, relationships, and patterns that are hidden in that dataall without requiring custom code or predefining the anticipated results. EMC was interested in determining whether the PolyVista software, which uses Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services as its core engine, could help the firm with its data analysis needs. Analysis Services has become the dominant multidimensional engine in the market. It provides a robust open development environment that allows us to build and enhance our unique sophisticated analytic product at an affordable price point. EMC decided to move forward with implementation of the business intelligence solution. Because the company had not previously used SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services, key IT personnel at EMC completed training. After EMC completed the training, PolyVista sent a senior consultant to EMC to train key IT staff members and business users on the business intelligence software. During the fall of 2007, the complete implementation of the business intelligence solution at EMC was finished in less than eight weeks. As of February 2010, there are 24 PolyVista users at EMC8 powers users and 16 casual users. EMC has relied on the power users to complete complex analysis and to assist other users with the software.

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Benefits From the beginning, EMC Insurance Companies anticipated many uses for the business intelligence solution. The initial goal was to improve reserve account management; however, the insurance firm is also building predictive modeling into the claim system and has improved the quality of data. Finally, EMC is improving decision making and controlling expenses. Effective Management of Financial Reserves EMC relies on PolyVista as its primary tool for managing case reserves. Since the implementation of the business intelligence solution, EMC has managed its financial reserves more accurately and the company has avoided the volatility that can occur when reserves are not consistently and accurately established. The software has helped the firm ensure that all branches are in compliance with the companys reserve guidelines. Predictive Modeling System for Improved Claim Outcomes EMC is using PolyVista to add predictive capabilities to the automated claim system. Now, the company can identify casualty and workers compensation claims that are likely to have a negative outcome and assign these claims to the companys most experienced people to help mitigate potential risks. If a claim is not properly identified or assigned, it can take longer to resolve and result in additional costs and services. By recognizing the complexity and risk factors early on, an experienced claim manager can expedite the claim with better results for both the claimant and EMC. Better Data Quality Enhanced reliability and accuracy of data with the business intelligence solution was an important realization for EMC. In the highly regulated insurance industry, data quality is an important aspect of compliance. For example, Schulz says, Under the federal governments Medicare Secondary Payer laws, we have to have the age of the claimant or insured in our system. We now can run reports showing the portion of claims that dont have an age or have an age that doesnt match other data or doesnt make sense. These reports allow EMC to identify and fix errors before submitting data to the Medicare program. Improved Executive Analysis to Support Decision Making During periods of rapid change, EMC relies on its business intelligence solution to help executives turn data into knowledge and make more informed decisions. When you have weather events or the economy is changing in a specific area, you need to understand how it is affecting the business, says Schulz. Effective Control of Expenses By using the business intelligence solution, EMC is able to track expenses and control costs that are tied to specific buys, and match data by business unit.

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Case Study 3: National Science Foundation

Overview: The NSF is helping to predict earthquakes across the world in real time. The system has been developed by a consortium of universities and government agencies, with funding from NSF (National Science Foundation), to provide an infrastructure of networked tools for research in ocean science constructing an internet-based system to collect and share data.

Real-time Seismic Monitoring Program This is a large system with 16,000 land and sea-based sensors, each sending several channels of seismic event data at a rate of 40 data points per second. The application executes in an Amazon EC2 Cloud on a cluster of SQLstream servers, connected by an AMQP message bus. SQLstreams AMQP adapter (built with RabbitMQ) enables the streaming SQL application to view the AMQP bus as a domain of input and output data streams. The initial prototype was upgraded to a full-scale system running on a cluster of servers without any changes to the streaming SQL application. SQLstreams contribution to the project, an application that processes seismographic data in realtime, demonstrates: 1. An operational deployment of streaming SQL for scientific calculations in real-time 2. Real-time distributed processing in an Amazon EC2 cloud using SQLstream and AMQP 3. Rapid development and rollout of real-time data applications using standards-based streaming SQL.

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Seismic Monitoring: The sensor network contains about 16,000 seismic sensors, organized into grids, covering large parts of the North American continent and the adjacent oceans (see illustration below). Each sensor measures the motion of the ground under it in three dimensions, and transmits its data as several digitized channels, typically sampled 40 times a second. While the rate of each signal channel is modest (since seismic waves are low-frequency), this adds up to a large amount of data to process in real time. Moreover, the rules for detecting a seismic event are heuristics that apply to a time interval of several minutes: so the application has to calculate some quantities from the raw data and to store these calculated values over a time window. But to detect an earthquake reliably, its better to monitor all the sensors at once, looking for a disturbance in the signals that first appear in one place, and then appear in nearby places: a disturbance signal that propagates and changes shape in a way consistent with the physics of a seismic wave. Real-time sensor network management in an EC2 Cloud Monitoring tens of thousands of signal channels arriving at 40 sample points per second is a complicated problem, but it can be made simpler by breaking it into stages. Were interested in earthquakes, which are infrequent, so SQLstream first reduces the amount of data by scanning each channel for patterns that suggest the beginning, the peak or the end of a quake: in other words reduce the dense signal to a sequence of interesting events. Then we can look for events detected on other channels that could be due to the same quake propagating in physical space and time. In the first phase, we built a real-time seismic event detector in streaming SQL. We translated a scientific algorithm into streaming SQL, and connected to the scientific sensor data infrastructure using our AMQP adapter. This involved less than 100 lines of streaming SQL. In the second phase, the prototype was scaled up to a full-size system, dealing with 16,000 sensor channels, running on multiple SQLstream server nodes created automatically in an Amazon Elastic Cloud. This expansion required no changes to the streaming SQL application developed for the initial prototype simply running the same streaming SQL application inside an elastic container/manager.

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Real-time Event Detection with Streaming SQL: The sensor data processing pipeline has five functional stages 1. Reading Messages over the AMQP adapter. A configuration parameter specifies which topics SQLstream subscribes to, that is, which set of sensor channels it receives. 2. Unpack Data a user defined transform (UDX) unpacks data channel messages into individual data points. 3. Signal Processing extract higher order information from the raw data to identify seismic events given background noise and non-seismic bumps. An example function would be to calculate the ratios of multiple rolling averages of the signal value (x) over different time windows.

4. Event Detection The next stage applies heuristic rules to the processed data streams the output is much sparser: a stream of significant events, each indicating a possible start/peak/stop of a seismic wave on a particular channel. If events of the correct type occur within a correct interval of each other (as shown in the Signal Plot Diagram), they are accepted as significant. 5. Writing Messages output (publish) significant events over the AMQP adapter.

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Case Study 4: Laboratorios Indas

Overview: Laboratorios Indas is the largest manufacturer of sanitary and hygiene products in Spain. Headquartered in Madrid, the company distributes its products through retail channels such as pharmacies, hypermarkets and supermarkets, as well as hospitals throughout the country. Business need: The companys existing method of collating sales data was neither reliable nor user-friendly, and the inability of sales teams to share client information prevented analysis of customer behavior, which limited potential sales revenue. Solution: Laboratorios Indas has implemented a business intelligence solution that provides precise intelligence on where and how sales efforts should be focused in order to maximize profitability. The company now integrates and analyzes large quantities of sales data captured and uploaded via sales reps PDAs, together with demographic data to build sophisticated statistical models that provide deep insights into likely sales patterns, at the individual product level, for pharmacies in different locations. Results: Increased average sales per pharmacy by 37 percent over the prior year. Reduced the average time it takes sales reps to compile sales data from store visits by 92 percent, from five minutes to 25 seconds. Benefits: Began generating commercial benefits just four months after implementation by providing insights into the likely product demand patterns for individual pharmacies. This enabled the company to target key pharmacies more systematically with visits, emails and mailings to help drive sales. Instrumented Captures all sales data and order history, plus client and customer demographics, in a central data warehouse for data mining. Interconnected This technology integrates sales information from PDAs in the field with population size, socioeconomic levels and number of pharmacies in the region, providing real-time predictive marketing support.

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Intelligent Increases sales per pharmacy by 37 percent by using statistical analysis to leverage real-time order history and local demand patterns. It also reduces effort for sales teams while optimizing sales visits, strengthening customer loyalty and expanding the business.

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