Hannover, Germany — March 13, 2003 — Enterprise software provider Baan this week launched its new iBaan Diagnostic Analyzer, designed to let companies perform structured and repeatable analysis of business data to help them identify the most likely causes of a particular operational problem.
Baan said the tool could help organizations focus on addressing the key operational issues that can have the most impact on return on capital employed and business performance, thus helping them to prioritize their investments for continued improvement.
The solution provider also unveiled a new version of its iBaan Decision Manager information solution. Baan said that version 2.2 of the solution uses a data warehouse infrastructure to enable businesses to optimize their reporting and analysis processes, providing executives with the information they need to help them make the most competitive, profitable decision.
These new solutions are key parts of Baan's "Measure Up!" initiative, which is aimed at helping discrete manufacturers in Baan's core markets of aerospace and defense, electronics, automotive, and industrial machinery and equipment to measure, monitor, analyze and manage business processes to optimize enterprisewide business performance.
"'Measure Up!' focuses on core performance measures such as demand forecast accuracy, lead-time reduction and new product introduction," said Dave Wangler, senior vice president of marketing at Baan. "This focus enables organizations to establish objective baselines, determine where opportunities lie and 'measure up' against these critical areas in order to improve return on capital employed, prioritize investment and establish continuous monitoring improvement initiatives."
Wangler added that the provider's new solutions will offer tools and metrics that can help manufacturing organizations make key decisions that drive their business performance improvement strategies.
The iBaan Diagnostic Analyzer solution offers structured searching for the causes of operational problems. This can help managers with their decision-making processes by allowing them to determine the areas of focus for their business performance improvement strategies. The analyzer uses predefined search models to reflect the business processes that played a possible role in an operational problem. By executing a search model, the user can source a weighted list of conclusions that can aid the decision-making process.
iBaan Decision Manager 2.2 offers a data warehouse infrastructure to translate complex transactional data from various sources into more consistent, easy-to-use business information. The solution is designed to help businesses further optimize their multidimensional data reporting and analysis processes, helping them take fuller advantage of the intelligence and trends locked in their transactional databases and strengthening support for the enterprisewide tactical decision-making that is increasingly important in the new generation of collaborative commerce environments.
"The basic premise of 'Measure Up!' is 'analyze before you prescribe'," said Ernie Eichenbaum, vice president of global industry marketing for Baan. "The unique combination of iBaan Decision Manager with iBaan Diagnostic Analyzer provides many companies with a first-time opportunity to clearly connect between balance sheet numbers and operational causes that impact them. By creating this cause and effect connection capability, managers can better attack the real problems, while objectively measuring results. This can help them to unlock new value from existing IT investments."
iBaan Decision Manager 2.2 and iBaan Diagnostic Analyzer form part of the new OpenWorldX information solutions family, planned to be available as early as summer 2003.
