Lean Database Development
For some time we have been seeing a growing trend in the industry towards a demand orientated IT infrastructure. Not only did the downturn in the global economy force companies to consider consolidation measures (the cost savings achieved by standardising systems throughout the business) but also upgrading to more powerful and truly integrated software – e.g. databases, accounts and CRM.
Consolidation not only saves resources, but helps achieve simplicity of information management across the entire business. By standardising and linking the separate ordering, stock control, communications, logistics and financial processes a more efficient operation is born. Less duplication of effort, less form-filling, more transactional throughput and a centralised database and accounts system help to enhance employee productivity and reduce the administrational burden that prevents a company from moving forward.
‘Pull Scheduling’ driven database solutions from Save9
When customer demand is first established in the form of a quotation request or a confirmed order, the organisation begins the sales or production process by sending signals (via our software) in a ‘backward’ direction. All the preceding processes send signals to the ongoing processes. These signals come in the form of an “electronic card” called Kanban. Kanban is a Japanese word meaning signboard.
Kanban is a reverse production order signal that guides every preceding process to produce what is needed, in necessary quantity and at necessary time for the next process. Kanban works not only within different departments of a company, but also between vendors supplying products, parts or services to it. Here is a diagram that shows how it works in a manufacturing-based assembling process.
The two kinds of Kanban demonstrate the management of assembly lines and order fulfilment:
The gains from Kanban can be immediate and quite dramatic. The impact on customer satisfaction through rapid order fulfilment, increased employee morale, improved staff retention, lower running costs and the company’s ability to take on more work in the economic upturn is very welcome for businesses looking for growth or diversification.
Think Lean
Everyone wants to be Lean these days, whether it’s when stepping off a scale in the morning or when reviewing the cost of running a successful business. Lean IT is a business and technology imperative for increasing value and reducing waste in the delivery of business processes and systems. But how can you become Lean in a myriad of existing complex system portfolios, processes and sourcing models?
The truth is, you must embrace Lean from three perspectives — people, process and technology — and put everything in the context of your business and systems environment. Lean IT is a way of thinking and working that empowers software development professionals, business process experts and knowledge managers to work closely within the business to more rapidly assemble solutions that deliver, just in time, the needed capabilities, information and insights. It’s the right way to deliver agile, fit-for-purpose, efficient solutions and it is a big change from how business and IT typically work together today.
Lean Software Development
In lean software development the idea is that Save9 will maximise your flow of information in order to deliver value. The idea that the flow of data, e.g. the admin process to service a customer’s new sales order, is based on information and fulfilment being ‘pulled’ by demand. No information management duties are performed by your staff on our database software systems unless processes are initiated by a downstream workflow process requirement – i.e. a ‘pull’.
As in lean production, maximising workflows does not mean automation alone – our aim is to limit what information is transferred, ensuring that whenever data is managed it is done via the quickest route and in the shortest timescale possible.
Today’s reality is forcing these issues:
- Business innovation is hard to enable. To survive is to innovate, but building environments that foster innovation requires radical changes to traditional business structures — moving from traditional approaches that focus on efficiency to ones that encourage maximum exploitation of the value chain.
- Bloatware reigns. Whether it’s excessive weight and complexity in applications, processes or information management, the bloated software and paper administration solutions that we use today often hinder business results. Most enterprises suffer from overweight application and information infrastructure and overly complex processes that are hard to change and only loosely linked to today’s top business concerns.
- ‘Fit-to-purpose’ is the new mantra. Becoming Lean is the antidote to the bloatware problem, but Lean is more than a software development or process improvement methodology. The trend toward Lean has been building for years, but a global recession has accelerated that momentum.
By embracing Lean IT from Save9, you’ll be well-positioned to tap into technology solutions that propel the business forward as the economy develops. In fact, embracing Lean is a critical imperative for helping your organisation move toward business technology — where business and IT work seamlessly together to drive the business to new levels of competitiveness. Whether you’re focused on Lean/Agile business process management, sustainability, just-in-time information or better workforce collaboration you need to be prepared to deploy open database development models and the innovative use of middleware that link custom built systems to off-the-shelf software.
In summary, Lean thinking and Lean practices must affect the choices you make as a business manager or leader, helping you to determine the best tools for your people, and helping implement agile processes streamlined to best improve your business operations.