No Good Secrets

The dawn of the intelligent enterprise has changed manufacturing forever. The ability of the c-suite to have real-time visibility into the enterprise from financial, operations, supply chain, workforce, and sales perspectives has moved from nice-to-have to must-have. The need for intelligence inside and outside the enterprise has created a new generation of business intelligence tools finding their way inside the manufacturing sector.


The manufacturing sector’s early acceptance of six sigma tools, like familiarity with DMAIC (define-measure-analyze-improve-control) exercises, gives most manufacturers a solid basis for intelligent enterprise transformation. Given the level of automation found in many manufacturing plants and the increased use of wireless technology within any given plant, one would think that manufacturers lead the way.

When Alan Mulally arrived at Ford Motor from Boeing, however, he did not find that. A 37-year veteran of an aerospace company known for intelligent large-scale systems integration, Mulally was confronted by a siloed giant containing fiefdoms with a history of hoarding information and sabotaging previous restructuring efforts. The problem was not that the information wasn’t being collected: the problem was that it was not being shared. Mulally instituted a weekly management meeting in which every iota of data was shared with the executive corps in charts that detailed reports of newly-formed product teams and skill teams.

Neutralizing “information hoarders” can be done by a manager like Mulally, but it is even more efficient to take the keys away before hoarding occurs. Next generation BI software, which goes beyond traditional ERP systems, is giving manufacturers the ability not just to collect real-time information on the enterprise, but deliver to management fast, flexible, and scalable reporting solutions. BI provides what every great manager wants: a single version of the truth... and no secrets.

Tapping Into Innovation

Two years ago, we were tasked with finding out whether corporations were building purpose-built nano research facilities at the same pace as universities were. Dozens of calls were made to corporations, thought leaders, equipment suppliers, architecture and engineering firms and other targets. We concluded that what was happening in the universities bore no resemblance to the way corporations did nano-scale material research. For the most part, companies work with research universities or national labs on basic research- they utilize their equipment, their eminent scholars, their best graduate students. When something shows promise or a solution is imminent, the companies bring the project back in-house for commercialization. The disaggregation of corporations from the capital equipment (scanning or transmission electron microscopes, plasma etchers, oxidation & diffusions furnaces, optical or EUV lithography, etc) that does the heavy lifting is a fairly new phenomenon. Because of the high cost of this equipment, business models have evolved that rely on collaboration to control costs, extend current technologies, and commercial new ones. This pragmatic approach has paid off for corporations.


Proctor and Gamble has embraced disaggregation to the point where they not only don’t need the R&D equipment, they don’t need to own the product development engineer. P&G’s connect + develop initiative has taken the practice of accessing externally developed intellectual property for one’s own business and allowing one’s internally developed assets and know-how to be used by others to a new level. P&G is using MillionBrains in addition to their own portal.

This sort of pragmatic, cost-effective, “coopertition,” will deliver innovation without the cost of R&D equipment or basic product development experts. P&G, a global consumer products company, will continue to delight customers by tapping into innovative idea wherever they might be found.

“When a man is healthy, he has many dreams. When he is sick, he has but one.”

True regardless of socioeconomic status or geographic location. GE, Siemens, and Philips manufacture world-class diagnostic equipment. But one, GE Healthcare, has focused on delivering diagnostic solutions to people at the top and at the bottom of the pyramid.


GE began because Edison, the inventor who eventually held 1,093 US patents, wanted to solve problems for everyday people: problems related to illumination, power, sound, communication, and transportation. He wanted to make life better for the average man and he understood that accessibility to solutions would only happen if the affordability gap was addressed. Edison stated “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.”

GE Healthcare has R&D facilities in a number of countries, but it was the research team in Bangalore that carried the water to GE corporate in terms of providing affordable diagnostic equipment to doctors and clinics serving India’s poorest. The biggest challenge for the team was not functionality: it was bringing the device to market within a price range that would be accepted by Indian healthcare workers and institutions. While equivalent GE devices could sell for tens of thousands of US dollars, the research team recognized that a diagnostic device developed for this market would have to sell for $500-1000. The research team, with GE approval, developed a value segment. The new value segment focused two things: a) keeping product costs down while keeping quality intact, and b) learning how/if the existing sales/marketing assets could be leveraged to sell to this segment.

They did it. GE’s MAC series has forever altered global accessibility to critical cardiac diagnostics.

Then, in another moment of brilliance, the company realized that with a little reengineering and without substantially cannibalizing sales of high-end products, GE could bring a mobile device, the MAC 800, to the US market. Bloomberg Businessweek titled the trend trickle-up innovation but adds that not all manufacturers are comfortable selling emerging market hand-me-ups in the West.

GE Healthcare. Best in class. Best of show. Deliverer of dreams.