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The 2007 Microsoft Office System in Manufacturing
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Executive summary
Demanding customers, globalization, product proliferation, shorter lifecycles, and increased
competition all add up to a challenging environment for manufacturers. To remain competitive in a
rapidly changing global market, manufacturers must develop and deliver innovative products to
meet changing customer demands, and collaborate effectively with their value chains of partners
worldwide. At the same time, they must also increase operational productivity and reduce product
unit cost. To do so, they need software that amplifies the impact of their people to drive innovation
and growth. They need software to connect people, helping them to exchange ideas and
information quickly and easily. With software that is easy to use and already familiar, people can
hit the ground running. They will have easier access to information; will make smarter decisions;
and be better equipped to cut costs, streamline processes, impress clients, react quickly to
changing demands, and take advantage of new opportunities.
This white paper highlights the key challenges facing the manufacturing industry and discusses
how the 2007 Microsoft' Office system can help maximize employee contributions and affect
business performance with innovative and powerful enterprise capabilities that extend far beyond
personal productivity to address the following:
- Drive product innovation. To bring profitable new products to market faster, at a lower cost,
and of a higher quality, people across the organization need to work together-exchanging
ideas, sharing information, and contributing insight. Design, engineering, sales, and marketing
information must be easily accessible to the people who need it and must be securely managed
to protect intellectual capital and competitive advantage. Recent research revealed no direct link
between research spending and profitability, yet found a common trait-connection and
collaboration-among a small set of companies who are achieving consistent positive returns
on research: ?High levels of cross-functional integration and collaboration-especially among
groups that deal with customers such as sales, marketing and customer service.1?
- Build customer centricity. In light of high customer expectations, companies must adopt a
customer-centric approach to manufacturing tailoring products and services to meet customers'
unique needs. Being customer centric means that every sales, marketing, and service decision
is made to maximize revenue and profitability by aligning customer value drivers with prices,
discounts, products, and services, in order to provide the best possible customer experience.
- Strengthen collaborative value chains. Gain real-time visibility into supply chains. Demand
and supply processes must readily adapt to evolving customer requirements and changing
market conditions. Through close collaboration and alignment with suppliers, distributors,
retailers, and interdepartmental operations, companies can develop an extended enterprise that
will help them react to changes quickly.
- Improve operational performance. To improve efficiency, manufacturers are initiating lean
manufacturing processes that help reduce inventory, improve production processes, empower
production workers with relevant and timely information, and foster a culture of teamwork and
group problem-solving. By achieving integration across multiple systems, companies can
improve operational performance and visibility into plant operations.
1 CIO Magazine, February, 2007, citing a Booz Allen Hamilton Study of Top Innovators.
Businesses don't garner insights, make decisions, close deals, develop new products, or find new
efficiencies. People do. Manufacturing companies excel when they empower their people.
Priorities, organization, motivation, and leadership ready your business for success. But people
also have to be given the right tools, information, and opportunities. Companies that do this are
poised for success. These are people-ready businesses. The role of software in a people-ready
business is to harness information, enabling people to turn data into insight, transform ideas into
action, and turn change into opportunity.
IT plays a strategic role in helping manufacturing companies pioneer processes for delivering
innovative products and creating a unique customer experience. Using IT, companies are
integrating engineering projects to align with and fulfill strategic goals. Unfortunately, a ?one size
fits all? technology solution that instantly delivers improved performance in all areas does not exist.
Technology alone can't solve business problems. But given the right tools, people can.
With the 2007 Office system, manufacturers can improve individual, team, and enterprise
productivity with software that is familiar, easy to use, widely supported, and easy to integrate.
This white paper will share with you examples of companies realizing business impact from their
early use of the 2007 Office system.
Twenty-first century manufacturing-an emerging
landscape
In today's rapidly evolving global economy, the manufacturing industry2 faces unique challenges in
maintaining quality, growth, and innovation while constantly reducing costs within ever-tightening
product life cycles. While trying to balance these opposing needs, manufacturers also must deal
with new complexities in the modern marketplace, including:
- Global economic uncertainties. Future-oriented manufacturing executives must consider the
long-term competitive structure of their company, its position within their industry, and their
industry as a whole.
- Complexity of global operations. It's necessary to balance the twin challenges of managing
complex global supply chains and operations while marketing goods and services to customers
in multiple markets-each of which has its own regulatory and local requirements.
- Extended partner networks. Difficulties can arise when dealing with a fragmented network of
partners. This situation often involves adapting to a global environment that may include
outsourcing business processes, production, design, and engineering to low-cost offshore
locations. It can be quite complex to manage the business processes involved in the design,
sourcing, production, delivery, and servicing of products that have been created within such an
extended partner network.
- Low-cost competition. Low-cost competition and the threat of commoditization affect
manufacturing more than any other sector, demanding greater emphasis on innovation and
differentiation in their products and services.
- Increasing compliance requirements. Government regulations like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of
2002 and those specific to the manufacturing industry (such as the Restriction of Hazardous
Substances [RoHS] and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment [WEEE] directives)
create additional constraints for manufacturers.
To capitalize on the many new opportunities presented by the global economy of the twenty-first
century, companies must make a dramatic shift toward collaboration with geographically dispersed
customers and partners. They must work to enhance responsiveness, and continually innovate in
order to differentiate their products. This shift can be difficult because manufacturers are facing key
challenges3 in four broad areas:
- Driving product innovation
- Building customer centricity
- Strengthening collaborative value chains
2 The manufacturing industry is vast and can be segmented in numerous ways. In this white paper, the manufacturing industry as a whole
includes the following subsectors: aerospace, automotive and industrial equipment (OEM and supplier), chemical, consumer packaged goods
(CPG), general manufacturing, high-tech (OEMs, consumer electronics, and semiconductors), oil / gas / utilities, and pharmaceuticals. For
the purpose of this white paper, the manufacturing industry consists of a single entity; however, when specific distinctions exist in the
subsectors, they have been duly highlighted.
3
An analysis of the key trends, issues, and challenges within the various subsectors of the manufacturing industry, based on leading market
analysis firms (Gartner, Forrester, Metagroup, and Datamonitor), has been summarized in this white paper.
- Improving operational efficiency
To succeed, manufacturers must adopt strategic and comprehensive solutions to meet these
challenges. Companies are realizing that there has never been a greater need for IT to become a
strategic asset. Expanding IT and the use of collaborative tools is the best way to add value while
supporting more cost-effective operations. An affordable computing infrastructure can help
transform manufacturing companies and enable their people to deliver quality products and
services, share data, work together, and make effective decisions more easily.
The worldwide 2006 survey of 1,400 CIOs published by Gartner shows that their technology
priorities focus on business intelligence, security, mobility, collaboration, and customer
relationships-IT priorities that align closely with the business challenges and trends that our
manufacturing customers are talking to us about today.4
Microsoft and its partners have responded to the manufacturing industry challenges with a
commitment to providing a complete set of capabilities that improve collaboration,
responsiveness, and innovation-to provide a better customer experience, and ultimately, to help
companies improve the bottom line and gain a competitive edge.
People drive business success. Microsoft is committed to creating and evolving the world's most
comprehensive collection of familiar, supported, connected, and innovative software that helps
people gain new insights and make informed decisions, so that they can achieve better results
faster.
4 Gartner Survey of 1,400 CIOs Shows Transformation of IT Organisation is Accelerating,? Gartner, January 23, 2006
(http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_143678_11.html)
Driving product innovation
Continuous demand for product innovation, and competitive pressure to meet high customer
expectations, are prevalent within the manufacturing industry. Over the past 20 years, the average
product lifetime has been cut in half every five years. Innovation is a top priority in more than 90
percent of companies surveyed5 by the Boston Consulting Group. The survey highlighted the fact
that 90 percent of CEOs count on internal growth through innovation (as opposed to growth
through mergers and acquisitions), yet companies encounter pain in getting there. The survey
further revealed that hundreds of executives across all industries said their organizations are:
- Not as fast as they need to be
- Not successful as often as they need to be
- Too fragmented across too many projects
Reducing design cycle times, delivering products that meet or exceed
customer expectations, and safeguarding competitive advantages are key.
To stay on top of competition and build sustainable advantage, the
manufacturer must develop an infrastructure and culture that sustains
continual innovation. Together, process excellence plus collaboration that
enables the company and its partners, suppliers, engineers, and product
designers to securely share information and ideas, will help foster timely
innovation while protecting IP assets.
Compliance has also come to the forefront of product design and innovation.
Regulations such as the RoHS Act, which requires manufacturers to design
new products and fix existing products for environmental compliance, means
that compliance considerations must be an integral part of product design.
With the Windows' operating system line of products pervasively deployed
throughout the manufacturing industry, Microsoft technology has emerged as
a significant foundation for collaboration and product innovation. The 2007
Microsoft Office system and related technologies help drive product
innovation through improved collaboration, efficiency, and compliance.
"The major features
[of Microsoft Office
Word 2007 and
Microsoft Office Excel'
2007], such as
document formatting
and XML format, that
we are using in this
scenario are working
really well and
automatically
generate value for our
engineers."
Tim Bosinius, Head of the IT department,
TGE, a major worldwide engineering,
procurement, and construction firm,
speaking about his company's use of the
2007 Microsoft Office system for
document management.
- Microsoft Office SharePoint' Server 2007 features and capabilities
include:
- Broad enterprise content management (ECM) capabilities
streamline document development, review, and approval.
Additionally, built-in workflow, validation of rules, and
integration with information rights management (IRM) help to
streamline regulatory and compliance requirements and can
scale to meet the needs of the most intensive ECM tasks.
- The Web-based Office SharePoint Server 2007 interactive
user interface provides workspaces for collaboration and knowledge sharing
throughout the design process, and for managing the life cycle of design documents. Enterprise portals based on Office SharePoint Server 2007 facilitate
collaboration across sales, marketing, design, and engineering teams worldwide.
These portals also facilitate customer needs management by enabling effective
collaboration with the customer during the design stage. Finally, enterprise portals
based on Office SharePoint Server 2007 facilitate rapid decision-making across a
company's suppliers and other value chain partners.
- Built in workflows boost employee productivity and simplify everyday business
activities by enabling automation and better visibility into common business
activities such as document review and approval, issue tracking, and electronic
signatures.
- Enterprise search capabilities increase productivity by helping people find existing
content for reuse, and reduce information overload by providing employees,
partners, and customers the ability to find relevant content across a wide range of
formats and locations. With Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for Search,
companies can take advantage of core search functionality, quickly and easily
deploying an enterprise-grade intranet or Internet search solution with the flexibility
of upgrading to the full complement of SharePoint Server functionalities and
enhanced search in the future.
- Office SharePoint Server 2007 integrates with existing systems to unlock business
data, with out-of-the-box connectors to data in SAP and Siebel systems. With the
Business Data Catalog, IT can create a pool of connections to business systems,
which can be reused easily by business users to create personalized, interactive
views of data from browsers, without writing code.
- Built-in validation rules and integration with information rights management (IRM)
help to ensure that critical business information can be collected with enhanced
security and accuracy.
- With Microsoft Office Word 2007, designers, engineers, and sales and marketing staff can
initiate documents (such as customer proposals or design specifications) faster. Design cycle
times can be reduced with the new Building Blocks features, which provide a gallery of
predefined content such as headers, footers, cover pages, and more that can be automatically
inserted and formatted.
- Microsoft Office Open XML Format helps employees improve their productivity by linking data
from back-end systems with Microsoft Office applications. For example, Office Word 2007 can
automatically include the most recent customer and pricing information in a quote. In addition,
Microsoft Office Open XML can interoperate with other systems and eliminate the need to rekey
order information to multiple systems.
- Microsoft Office Excel' 2007, and Excel Services, an Office SharePoint Server 2007
technology, make it simple for people to use, share, secure, and manage Office Excel 2007
workbooks as interactive reports in a consistent way throughout the company. The Open XML
Format also improves interoperability of workbooks with other data sources, which helps
engineers, designers, and other team members to quickly retrieve data from different sources.
Companies can also take advantage of the Office Excel 2007 calculation engine and integration
with Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 to help drive innovation. Engineers can complete
faster and more reliable engineering simulations to help speed product development.
- With Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for Search, companies can take advantage of core
search functionality, quickly and easily deploying an enterprise-grade intranet or Internet search
solution with the flexibility of upgrading to the full complement of SharePoint Server
functionalities and enhanced search in the future.
- Data-capture capabilities of the Microsoft Office InfoPath' 2007 information gathering program
improve the accuracy and management of data throughout planning, design, and production
with easy-to-use electronic forms. Team members use Office InfoPath 2007 and Office
SharePoint Server 2007 to automate forms and streamline workflow, share reports, manage
trading partner relationships, and for business-specific process automation scenarios.
- The Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 communication and collaboration server helps ensure
essential communications capabilities, such as e-mail, instant messaging, and integrated voice
and video.
- Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 helps companies more effectively manage and coordinate
work, from one-time projects to ongoing programs, across the entire project life cycle.
Companies can improve visibility and insight into the manufacturing process by taking
advantage of features for budget and cost tracking, data reporting, managing project plans and
operations activities before and after project completion, and sophisticated analysis.
- Microsoft Office Groove 2007 software, which provides a collaborative workspace environment,
adds context to teamwork (with open discussions, chats, and other collaborative forums and
availability of shared resources) and makes it easy to find, organize, and work on data and
deliverables. It provides a rich set of extensible tools for both structured information (documents,
proposals, spreadsheets) and unstructured information (discussions, brainstorming) data. Office
Groove 2007 workspaces support a broad range of project activities, from simple document
collaboration to defined projects such as a product launch, or custom solutions integrated with
business processes.
- Microsoft Office Visio 2007 drawing and diagramming software helps manufacturing
companies create new processes, using diagrams linked to data to provide a complete picture
of a process, project, or system. Effective analysis, reporting, and the availability of information
that allows people to act on key trends, issues, and exceptions is the end result, helping
companies to identify and correct potential bottlenecks in the manufacturing process, and
streamline overall operations.
- The Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 note-taking program helps teams capture ideas, and
organize and search rich content including text, images, voice, video, and data captured on
mobile devices. Teams can work together with the same information using shared notebooks.
They can even work together in the same notebook at the same time, or at different times from
different locations-and offline. Office OneNote 2007 helps teams create working knowledge
bases, making information easily available in order to avoid duplicate work and brief new teams
or people on projects more easily.
- Additionally, Microsoft product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions based on the 2007 Office
System products noted above, as well as other Microsoft technologies and Microsoft partner
solutions, offer a robust, secure, and scalable collaboration infrastructure to help companies
bring products to market faster. PLM strategies break down barriers to collaboration and
innovation throughout the product development process. A PLM framework based on the 2007
Microsoft Office system integrates collaborative product design and product portfolio management, with which companies can better allocate resources to design projects,
understand costs, track progress and manage product launch.
- Microsoft-based product development and collaboration solutions help manufacturers increase
collaboration across all departments and among all stakeholders, reduce production costs, and
deliver timely and relevant products to customers. Collaborative product development solutions are
helping manufacturers bring innovative new products to market faster while fostering a culture of
knowledge sharing that preserves institutional memory and sustains innovation for the future.
Building customer centricity
Meeting the increasing level of customer expectation and the need for tailored solutions are among
the biggest challenges that manufacturers face. Customers not only demand quality products, they
expect a complete experience that satisfies their needs and wants. Customers are also more
knowledgeable about their products and know the features they are looking for.
Improving customer service and retention is at the top of the list for executive
priorities, according to BusinessWeek Research Services.6 To remain
competitive, manufacturers need to be able to quickly respond to customer
needs and to create unique products at a lower cost.
Although the value of providing a more customer-centric approach may seem
obvious, large global manufacturers are struggling to implement this practice.
Marketing and sales departments struggle to integrate policies and controls
(for example, Sarbanes-Oxley and auditing requirements) while maintaining
customer focus. To do this successfully involves creating a ?compliance
culture? throughout the company.
To remain competitive, manufacturers must provide a unique customer
experience across the product life cycle-from planning, through
development and sales, to post-sales servicing options. Each customer
interaction is an opportunity to engage directly and to influence the
customer's experience and satisfaction. By finding tailored products and
services to fit the customer's specific needs, the customer is more likely to
return to the same manufacturer for future solutions.
"When a tool takes too
much time or grief,
people won't use
it...The beauty of
SharePoint Server
2007 is the speed and
ease with which our
users can view
measurements of our
performance and
results in critical areas.
Enhanced reporting
capabilities empower
us as a company to be
more flexible in
responding to customer
needs, marketplace
changes, and other
elements that much
faster and better."
Ian Corr, Vice President of Customer
Service for Electro Scientific Industries,
on his company's use of the 2007
Microsoft Office system for business
intelligence to improve customer
satisfaction.
To foster successful relationships, manufacturing companies must address
the following factors:
- Integrating sales and marketing to help tie demand generation to sales
coordination, and thus targeting the right customers with the right value
propositions for products that have the features they request.
- Taking advantage of existing sales data to gain insight into customer
preferences, predict trends, and plan future marketing campaigns.
Analysis of sales data will also help to balance front-end scheduling and
forecasting with customer demand, and in the long run, optimize capacity
utilization and return on assets.
- Providing effective tools to service and sales associates in the field, so
that they can represent the company in the best way possible-quickly
resolving issues, coordinating with other field representatives or product
teams-while connected in the office or on the road.
- Improving post-sales customer care by providing customer service
representatives with an integrated view of all the data necessary to handle
a customer call.
With Microsoft software, manufacturers can consolidate information across and within enterprises,
which will lead to improved customer service and lasting customer relationships. For example:
- Office Excel 2007 and Excel Services help employees accurately analyze sales data, perform
faster calculations, and identify customer trends with rich data visualization features. They also
help employees communicate information faster and more clearly, with professional-quality
charts and built-in galleries and styles. With server-based workbook storage and management,
dispersed teams can connect to shared data in a secure manner.
- Companies can build customer or partner extranets based on Office SharePoint Server 2007, to
improve cumbersome information-sharing processes and make it easier to collaborate
throughout the project process. With many out-of-the-box capabilities, Office SharePoint Server
2007 provides an enterprise-scale, integrated environment for information management and
also offers a high level of flexibility for customizing the user interface to meet your customers' or
partners' needs.
- For tracking and organizing data, people in the company from research and development (R&D)
to sales can use pre-built, out-of-the-box database solutions within Microsoft Office Access
2007. With the help of the new Office Access 2007 user interface, these solutions can be easily
customized to meet specific business needs such as tracking bill of materials for engineering
prototypes, tracking sample inventory, and tracking engineering issues or customer service
issues.
- With Office OneNote 2007 digital notebooks, individuals and teams can gather and organize
rich content including text, voice, video, and scanned images in one place. Office OneNote 2007
search capabilities help people find information that they could not find before, including spoken
words in audio and video recordings and text in scanned documents or pictures. Research and
development teams can gather new product ideas into shared notebooks, and mobile field sales
and service representatives can improve effectiveness by synchronizing information between
portable computers and mobile devices including written, typed, or voice notes, tasks, and
photos taken away from the office. Meeting productivity can be improved by using Office
OneNote 2007 to capture and share all meeting information in one place, and the ensure that
people leave meetings on the same page with a consistent set of action items. Office OneNote
2007 can also help reduce physical storage costs when integrated with Office SharePoint
Server 2007 to search, store, manage, and archive information across the enterprise.
- Office Groove 2007 allows people to dynamically and effectively work together across
departments and organizations regardless of location-without worrying about security or server
space. Mobile field representatives can share information and work together with other team
members, partners, suppliers, and customers, including those who are not connected to the
corporate network-even through corporate firewalls. Office Groove 2007 enhances team
efficiency by streamlining content creation-teams can share, review, revise, and publish files
all from a single workspace-and, the workspace itself can be created with two clicks.
- As a complement to the 2007 Office system, the Microsoft business performance management(BPM) solution offers comprehensive scorecarding, reporting, analysis, and dashboard
applications. Companies can use the BPM solution to improve sales, marketing analytics, and
decision-making by providing sales teams with broader access to critical information through
familiar and easy-to-use Microsoft Office system programs, including many of the ones noted above. With the greater visibility into factors affecting sales performance and marketing
effectiveness that the BMP solution provides, companies can build a unique customer
experience and increase revenue growth.
Strengthening collaborative value chains
Manufacturers today need to respond to changes in their environment and adapt to changing
customer requirements. Through close alignment with upstream and downstream partners,
manufacturers can rapidly react to changes such as short-term shifts in demand and supply. To
achieve this alignment, manufacturing companies must transform their traditional value chains and
work closely with partners, suppliers, and customers to create a collaborative, extended enterprise.
There are numerous approaches to building a collaborative value chain. Companies can reduce
disruptions by promoting the timely flow of information across the extended enterprise, and
creating contingency plans and crisis management teams. They can adapt to structural shifts in
markets by capturing the latest data, filtering out irrelevant data, and tracking key patterns. And
they can align the value chain by sharing information with vendors and customers; laying down
roles, tasks, and responsibilities for suppliers and customers; and sharing risks, costs, and gains.
Microsoft provides manufacturing companies with a comprehensive and integrated set of
collaboration and performance measurement tools. Using Microsoft solutions, manufacturers and
their partners can agree upon a common set of standard operating platforms, which will enable
people using disparate products to interact and collaborate effectively. Working with software tools
that share a common platform means that the underlying systems are linked by a collaborative
infrastructure layer, enabling them to interact safely and securely. A solution may include the
following products:
- Office SharePoint Server 2007 enables Web sites where teams can consolidate, manage, and
share information such as calendars, tasks, projects, vendor and purchasing documents, and
lists such as contracts and delivery notices. Employees can manage document review cycles
and document ownership status with accuracy, as well as keep teams and external partners
coordinated with alerts, discussion boards, schedule changes, status notifications, and more.
ECM features help to streamline content-driven collaborative business processes such as
proposal development and engineering change orders; provide document libraries and
document-level access controls; and automate tasks such as workflows, approval processes,
document archiving, and document and records expiration policies.
- Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help extend business processes across the organization and
enhance relationships with customers, partners, and suppliers by making forms-based business
processes easily accessible to them, even if they haven't installed client software. Built-in
validation rules and integration with IRM help to ensure that critical business information can be
collected with enhanced security and accuracy.
- Real-time collaboration via Microsoft Office Live Meeting allows operators and engineers to
work with various multimedia capabilities. Designs can be updated in real time, and operators
can work with the most current versions. Using webcams with Office Live Meeting enables twoway
video conferencing, with direct feedback in real time.
- For supply chain visibility, Office Groove 2007 connects companies to their partners and
suppliers in a dynamic collaborative environment to reduce cost and time to market, improve the
number of inventory turns, and react to changing market conditions with greater agility. Office
Groove 2007 workspaces are highly secure, and allow employees within the company to easily
share information with other stakeholders in the extended enterprise without involving IT.
- Office Excel 2007 also improves supply chain visibility, providing a familiar interface for users to
explore business intelligence (BI). Existing investments in line-of-business (LOB) systems or
other databases can be extended with Office Excel 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007,
which enables IT to manage external connections to other information systems and make them
available to people within the company. Users can then connect to these sources from within
Office Excel 2007. Additionally, with full support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis
Services, data hierarchies and key performance indicators (KPIs) that are built within cubes are
maintained when imported into Office Excel 2007.
- The Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution is a project management tool
composed of three products from the Microsoft Office Project 2007 family, including Microsoft
Office Project Professional 2007, Office Project Server 2007, and Office Project Portfolio Server
2007. Designed for portfolio optimization, resource allocation, and capacity utilization, it can
provide visibility to a company's strategic initiatives. The EPM Solution offers automatic alerts
and workflows to provide timely and accurate information, which supports informed decisionmaking.
The competition in the manufacturing industry has shifted from product-based to value chain'
based, and the winners are those who integrate most tightly with trading partners to respond to
changing market conditions. Microsoft and its partners help manufacturers to connect all tiers of
suppliers within the supply chain by having common tools and a single system. Solutions from
Microsoft and its partners include demand management tools, service parts management, master
planning, warehouse management, transportation management, supply chain performance
management, supply chain visibility and event management, and supplier relationship
management.
These solutions help to involve upstream and downstream players early in the planning life cycle.
They also increase a company's agility and accuracy while it is dealing with demand fluctuations,
disruptions, and changing expectations of the well-informed customer.
The company that takes advantage of the 2007 Office system and related solutions builds a
comprehensive technology system on which all partners can create complex business processes
that operate across organizational and system boundaries. The end results are reduced costs,
improved customer satisfaction, improved efficiency, and a lower cost of trading partner
collaboration.
Improving operational efficiencies
Companies that build their success on operational excellence provide ready and easy-to-use
technologies to enable their people to be highly efficient. Technology can offer increased visibility
into business processes-everything from tracking sales to plant floor operations-visibility that
managers can use to make decisions faster and to improve productivity.
"The software [Office
Excel 2007 and Office
InfoPath 2007] allowed
us to move away from a
labor-intensive process
with significant
duplication of work to a
streamlined formula
management system."
Michael Hayes, Director of Quality
Assurance, Del Monte Foods, discussing
how his company is implementing a
collaboration, workflow, and ECM
solution based on the 2007 Microsoft
Office system to automate manual
processes and reduce time-to-market.
Recently in the operations space, some critical initiatives have emerged that manufacturers are
now focusing on for the coming years, and where Microsoft can bring specific value:
- Lean and Six Sigma manufacturing processes. These manufacturing
performance processes focus on steps toward operational excellence,
such as phasing out work that does not add value, reducing inventory
costs, and eliminating stock-outs. The 2007 Microsoft Office system
provides provide a software backbone that allows companies to
implement Lean, Six Sigma, and International Organization for
Standardization programs.
- Plant visibility. Manufacturers can increase their operational
performance by improving cycle times and output, and increasing overall
effectiveness in control systems, execution and tracking, quality,
maintenance, and visibility. Microsoft provides technologies that enhance
visibility, which enables companies to gather and aggregate real-time and
historical data from many sources, summarize and format it, and deliver it
to decision-makers through dashboards and KPIs. Microsoft technologies
help connect plant floor applications with enterprise applications at the
corporate level to provide end-to-end visibility to drive operational
excellence-connecting the plant floor to the top floor.
- Compliance transparency. New compliance requirements have also
changed the way public companies store, secure, provide access to, and
manage company information and operations. Organizations subject to
these laws will need to develop new policies and procedures that provide transparency to their
operations. Several companies are also using the recent trends in compliance as a competitive
operational advantage. Compliance is an opportunity for companies to employ Microsoft
programs to lower operating costs and improve business performance by streamlining
processes, standardizing reporting, integrating technologies, and becoming fully prepared to
"close the books on demand."
Microsoft and its partners have honed products and developed tools that can help manufacturers
streamline their internal business processes, cut costs, and improve operating margins. The 2007
Microsoft Office system can help companies capitalize on business intelligence and collaboration,
constructing an integrated feedback loop among marketing, sales, and operations teams, and
providing key stakeholders with visibility into customer forecasts, plant constraints, supply chain
issues, and availability. A few examples:
- Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes tools within its workspaces to analyze results and
reports (for example, Pareto or trend) in a role-based view throughout the production process.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 can also be combined with Office Groove 2007-based workspaces and team sites to encourage secure community-style communication through wikis
and blogs.
- BI capabilities within Office SharePoint Server 2007deliver role-based information. With these
SharePoint tools, users can define customized KPIs and filters that can automatically trigger
alerts, e-mail, or workflows based on predefined threshold points. Real-time analysis allows for
continuous data reporting rather than batch reporting. Manufacturers that have relied on
complex spreadsheets for years can transfer the data to team sites using Excel Services and
make use of these BI tools and capabilities. Team sites can support the communication of
defects from production floor to engineers in real time through alerts and triggered workflows,
and can provide material managers with better forecasting abilities, which can help reduce
work-in-progress buffer stock.
- Office Visio 2007 helps manufacturers improve business processes, and identify trends, issues,
and exceptions. Manufacturers can improve supply chain visibility by linking Office Visio 2007
diagrams to data to monitor interconnected supply chain activities and quickly handle
bottlenecks and delays.
- The Microsoft BPM solution is a comprehensive solution that encompasses robust planning,
budgeting, scorecarding, forecasting, and financial analysis and reporting capabilities all
delivered through the familiar Microsoft Office system environment. Using the Microsoft BPM
solution, companies can align departmental or line-of-business plans and budgets with overall
corporate strategy. The Microsoft BPM solution also removes many of the obstacles to
gathering information, coordinating budgeting processes, and consolidating departmental
budgets into a coherent corporate plan.
The Microsoft value proposition for the manufacturing
industry
The 2007 Microsoft Office system and related technologies provide a complete suite of tools to
help manufacturing companies improve and streamline business processes, empowering their
people to drive business success. These tools help the manufacturing industry maximize
operational efficiencies, drive innovation, build highly collaborative operating models, and achieve
regulatory compliance while ensuring that products and services strengthen the overall customer
experience. Microsoft solutions connect applications and share structured and unstructured
information seamlessly across the value chain. Decision-makers are well-supported to improve
planning and achieve better alignment and more effective decision-making through improved
access, better visibility, and more timely and complete information. Microsoft-based solutions make
it easier for companies to do business with their customers, vendors, and partners.
Microsoft is dedicated to developing products for the manufacturing industry that provide best-inclass
performance along with great value. Microsoft offerings are distinctive in four key ways:
- Familiar and easy to use, maximizing the impact of people while minimizing complexity and
cost.
- Widely used and supported by a large community of partners, developers, and support
professionals in the world.
- Integration that works together with existing resources, helping companies maximize
technology investments and connect to the information you and your partners use today and
need tomorrow.
- Software that's innovative and responsive to real customer needs so that as the world
changes, Microsoft solutions continue to evolve to keep you competitive.
How manufacturers are using the 2007 Microsoft Office
system and realizing business impact
The 2007 Microsoft Office system is a complete set of desktop and server software that
manufacturing companies can use to streamline the way you and your people do business in
today's "always-on, always-connected" information-based economy. By helping people work
together across geographical and organizational boundaries and helping them make decisions
based on vast amounts of information, the 2007 Office system can help your company meet the
complex challenges of this new world of work.
Building on tools you're already familiar with, the 2007 Microsoft Office system:
- Helps simplify how people work together. Wherever people work in an organization, it's now
easier for them to share information and ideas more securely, keeping the whole team informed
regardless of their individual locations, to maximize productivity and reduce travel expenses.
- Helps streamline cumbersome business processes. Everyone in the business, from the
front office to the back office, can see improvement in the way they work. This means they can
spend more time with customers and less time searching for information and experts. Microsoft
technologies make applications easier to manage and maintain, so firms can increase
productivity and operational efficiencies while reducing their IT costs.
- Helps you create innovative products and services. Manufacturers can create innovative
offerings and obtain additional value from their current IT investments. Customers receiving
personalized, high-quality service across channels are more satisfied. In addition, Microsoft
products and partner applications create more choices in applications; speedier, more accurate
delivery; and competitive pricing. All of these variables contribute to greater brand differentiation
and enhanced customer retention.
- Helps improve business insight. People across an organization now have faster, easier
access to the information they need, so they can use customer information more intelligently.
This enables employees to serve the customer instead of searching for information. They can
also identify cross-selling opportunities and deliver high-quality service. And the appearance of
competence to the customer can significantly improve employee satisfaction.
The 2007 release features a new user interface, innovative collaborative and workflow tools,
content management and storage system, and powerful but easy-to-use enterprise search and
business intelligence tools. The 2007 Microsoft Office system simplifies the challenges of today's
workplace and gives you and your people the power to enhance the effectiveness of your
organization.
Examples of how manufacturers are benefitting from the 2007 Microsoft
Office system
| Company |
Business Process |
Benefits Realized |
Date Published |
| Del Monte Foods |
Streamline cumbersome
business processes |
Shortened formula
change process cycle
time by 33 percent (5
days reduction) |
2/28/07 |
| Hexcel |
Simplify working together |
Hexcel expects 30
percent more authors
to post and update
content
Hexcel expects to see
a 50 percent reduction
in time needed to
upload and revise
documents |
1/30/07 |
| Gates Corporation |
Simplify working together |
Reduce hardware
costs by 20 to 30
percent |
1/14/07 |
| Ampacet |
Simplify working
together
Create innovative
products and services |
Reduced R&D cycle
time by 50 percent
over the next 3 years
Expected U.S.$60
million increase in
revenues from the
additional new
products over the next
3 years |
4/2/07 |
| BWX Technologies |
Simplify working
together
Streamline
cumbersome
business processes |
Speeds forms
processing by up to
80 percent |
1/30/07 |
Are you ready?
From product innovation to distribution, outsourcing to in-sourcing, from government regulation to
globalization, the future for manufacturers is, as always, uncertain and constantly changing.
Manufacturers demand the flexibility to harness change for competitive advantage. Innovative
software from Microsoft and its worldwide network of partners establishes a flexible technology
platform that supports existing business needs while providing the foundation to meet tomorrow's
opportunities. Moving forward, Microsoft is helping the manufacturing industry improve the ways
that people interact with software.
Empowering the people at the heart of every business to thrive and succeed-working alone as
well as together-is essential for business success in this age of fast-paced change.
Are your people ready?
2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, BizTalk, Excel, Groove, InfoPath, OneNote, SharePoint, SQL Server, Visio, and
Windows are registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks
are property of their respective owners. Capgemini and Collaborative Business Experience are registered trademarks of Capgemini SA.
Capgemini, one of the world's foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, has a unique way of working with its
clients, called the Collaborative Business Experience. Through commitment of mutual success and the achievement of tangible value, the
company helps businesses implement growth strategies, leverage technology and thrive through the power of collaboration. More information
about individual service lines, offices and research is available at www.capgemini.com. Capgemini is also a Microsoft Gold Certified partner
The Consulting practice of Capgemini has been mandated by Microsoft to conduct an analysis of the business value of Microsoft solutions for
over 20 of its customers participating in the 2007 Microsoft Office Rapid Deployment Technology Adoption Program.
This is a preliminary document and may be changed substantially prior to final commercial release of the software described herein.
The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of
publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, this document should not be interpreted to be a commitment on
the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.
This white paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS
TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.
Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this
document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.
Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this
document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this document does not give you
any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property.
Appendix A - Case study bibliography
This bibliography contains case studies about how the 2007 Microsoft Office system is being used
in the manufacturing industry, as well as those that are quoted in this white paper.
| Case Study Title |
Company |
Situation |
Solution |
When
Published |
| Global Contractor
Increases Engineer
Productivity by
Improving
Document Control |
TGE Gas
Engineering |
The TGE Document
Control Department
faces challenges
ensuring that the
technical documentation
produced by engineers
complies with document
control procedures. |
TGE is implementing
a document
management solution
based on the 2007
Microsoft Office
system, including the
new Office Open
XML file formats. |
3/22/07 |
| Manufacturer Sees
Potential Savings
of Up to $500,000
with New Data
Reporting Solution |
Electro Scientific
Industries |
Electro Scientific
Industries (ESI) needed
to quickly implement a
powerful but costeffective
means of
analyzing and delivering
information. |
ESI is working with
SoftSource
Consulting to
evaluate a data
analysis and
reporting solution
using Office
SharePoint Server
2007. |
1/24/07 |
| Del Monte Foods
Automates Formula
Change Process to
Reduce Cycle Time
by 33 Percent |
Del Monte Foods |
The existing product
development and launch
process required users
to spend a great deal of
time manually routing,
approving, tracking,
filing, and archiving
product development-
related documents. |
Del Monte Foods is
implementing a
collaboration,
workflow, and
enterprise content
management solution
based on the 2007
Microsoft Office
system to automate
manual processes
and reduce time-tomarket. |
2/28/07 |
| Aerospace
Manufacturer
Streamlines
Sarbanes-Oxley
Compliance with
New Document
Management
Solution |
Esterline
Technologies
Corporation |
Esterline needs a more
secure, workflow-based
document management
solution to streamline
Sarbanes-Oxley
compliance and to
reduce spending on
external consultants. |
Esterline
implemented an
enterprise content
management (ECM)
solution based on
products of the 2007
Microsoft Office
system. |
11/10/06 |
Appendix B - For more information
More information about the 2007 Microsoft Office system, the Microsoft Office suites, and Microsoft
product and solution offerings for the manufacturing industry is available at the following links:
2007 Microsoft Office System
Microsoft Office Suites
Microsoft and Manufacturing
Microsoft Office System Solution Showcase
Contents
Contents
Executive summary
Twenty-first century manufacturing-an emerging landscape
Driving product innovation
Building customer centricity
Strengthening collaborative value chains
Improving operational efficiencies
The Microsoft value proposition for the manufacturing industry
How manufacturers are using the 2007 Microsoft Office system and realizing business impact
Examples of how manufacturers are benefitting from the 2007 Microsoft Office system
Are you ready?
Appendix A - Case study bibliography
Appendix B - For more information
Improving business processes and driving growth in manufacturing
A whitepaper developed in collaboration with Capgemini. The value propositions developed by Microsoft in
this white paper are based on Capgemini's point-of-view of key industry trends and challenges.
Published: March 2007
Republished: May 2007
Version 1.5
For more information about the 2007 Microsoft Office system, please visit
www.microsoft.com/officesystem