Crossroads 2002 A-List Award Winners

Formation Systems
Southborough, MA

Optiva
> Product Lifecycle Management for Process Manufacturers

CUSTOMERS AT WORK

Formula-based manufacturers advance their business by speeding the delivery of new products to their customers. Formation Systems provides product development teams with an information backbone for optimizing that process. A top beverage manufacturer, a chemical coatings group, and a fast- food supplier were among the reference customers. Common strategic objectives included:

§ Increasing the scale and speed of product innovation

§ Developing unique higher-margin products for top markets

§ Rationalizing products and raw materials

§ Improving R&D productivity

WHY FORMATION SYSTEMS?

Formation Systems creates a product information backbone for formula-based manufacturers. In the Optiva environment, product developers manage formulas and all related information: formula versions, raw materials, ingredients, and processing data. With Optiva, manufacturers can establish a structure for the product knowledge base, leverage design tools for specification and regulatory management, and safeguard their data and processes by configuring business process flows and user permissions.

BUSINESS IMPACT

Near-term value: For formula-based manufacturers, the immediate ROI is increased revenue and gross margins. One organization cut their average time to generate a formula revision from four hours to less than 20 minutes. One executive said that they have transitioned their staff away from chasing the paper trail and returned the focus to new product development.

Enterprise innovation: Top manufacturers stake their financial performance on their ability to utilize their manufacturing value chain fully and leverage their global distribution or customer networks. Multiple versions of the same data slow decision making and often prevent the reuse of existing intellectual property. One company removed manual labor and paper-based processes, tripling the number of product development projects along the way. Another company has given its supply chain partners access to its Optiva knowledge base. This not only cut time to market and improved quality control for the company but also enhanced security by providing a digital audit trail for intellectual property protection.

Technology gains: Organizations can drive better accountability and data integrity by moving product developers off disparate spreadsheets and database applications. Almost all organizations reported that product developer productivity improved dramatically due to the use of an integrated knowledge base.

SUCCESS FACTORS

Project strategy: All of Formation’s customers stressed the need to understand the target business process. In many organizations, developer teams have not had to follow set processes. Companies will need to develop a clear map of how the organization should work.

Learning: Formation Systems’ clients noted that their developers value the spreadsheet-like user interface of the Optiva formula design tools. The biggest leap forward was educating their product teams on the practice of reusing past project information instead of starting from scratch.

Resources: Existing data remediation was a challenge for Optiva’s customers as they moved from a set of legacy applications to a standards-based system.

Fit: Formula-based manufacturers with multiple business units should consider the Optiva application for their organization.

COMPANY INFO

Formation Systems is a private company with 80 employees.

508.303.6200
www.formationsystems.com
Published: January 2002