DevonWay Emerges As A Contender In The Operational Risk Software Market

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1 DevonWay Emerges As A Contender In The Operational Risk Software Market A U G U S T W W W. V E R D A N T I X. C O M

2 DevonWay Emerges As A Contender In The Operational Risk Software Market This report forms one in a series covering software providers in the emerging market for operational risk management software. DevonWay, headquartered in San Francisco, was founded in 2005 with a focus on improving operational efficiency and risk management for nuclear facilities. The vendor has developed a configurable platform which provides digital workflows and mobile apps to support work management, quality control, risk and safety management initiatives. Few vendors with a core proposition focused on operational efficiency are targeting the operational risk management opportunity which puts DevonWay in a unique position. The vendor s ability to digitize complex and sometimes highly unique operational processes and support contractor management with usage-based pricing means customers have a platform to improve risk controls through JHA, PHA, permit to work, safety observations and flexible risk analytics. T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S DevonWay Offers Core Capabilities For Operational Excellence Initiatives... 3 DevonWay Provides A Flexible Platform For Safe And Efficient Operations DevonWay Functionality Aligns With The New Operational Risk Management Agenda O R G A N I Z A T I O N S M E N T I O N E D Apple, Entergy, Framatome, GE Healthcare, IBM, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Microsoft, Rolls-Royce, US Department of Energy 2

3 DevonWay Offers Core Capabilities For Operational Excellence Initiatives Operational risk management (ORM) software is emerging as a new category of technology investment as a range of digital innovations converge with a new approach to safe operations (see Verdantix The Future Direction Of Operational Risk Management Software). Vendors with different heritages are converging on this new market opportunity and this report forms one in a series covering the ORM software landscape. To find out what DevonWay offers for operational risk management we spoke with CEO Chris Moustakas and Director of Product Management Michael Lentz. We heard that DevonWay has: Developed a configurable platform to enhance operational management. Reflecting its roots in the nuclear industry where every customer has very specific requirements, DevonWay offers a flexible no-code platform to design and redesign business processes. The safety, quality and risk software now has many pre-installed best practices templates and 80 per cent of workflows are available out-of-the-box. The pre-built workflows mean that for a first time deployment, customers can expect a 1:1 software to services cost ratio which is the norm for cloud-based software. Proven its reliability and security with customers in the nuclear sector. The original commercial focus for DevonWay in the mid-2000s was to improve the operational efficiency and safety of nuclear facilities. Successfully winning customers such as Los Alamos National Laboratory and the US Department of Energy required DevonWay to meet high standards for cyber-security and reliability. Reflecting this hurdle, the vendor has a 100% success rate with all implementations in its 13 year history. Additional reference customers include Entergy, Framatome and Rolls-Royce. Innovated with usage-based pricing which suits contractor-heavy customers. Where most vendors of safety, quality and risk software charge on a per module and per user basis, DevonWay s usage-based pricing reflects the peaks and troughs in contract workers. For a power utility, an outage may require triple the number of workers to undertake maintenance and use the DevonWay software than under business as usual conditions. Usage-based pricing provides flexibility tied to operational needs and predictability of future costs. The software is also available as on premise and cloud-hosted due to customers cyber-security policies. DevonWay Provides A Flexible Platform For Safe And Efficient Operations Headquartered in California, DevonWay has grown from its roots in the US nuclear industry to provide a configurable platform to customers in other sectors such as bio-tech and construction. DevonWay s unique platform consists of functionality that: Delivers operational efficiencies by digitizing processes. Since its inception, DevonWay s focus has been on improving the efficiency of operational processes. The core value proposition still reflects this concept of making work management more efficient by moving frontline workers from paper and to a digital workflow. Specific functionality for operational efficiency includes electronic work packages, work order management, equipment calibration and digital process design. To support compliance issues in the nuclear industry, the software logs every change to a field in the system. Improves risk, quality and safety management with audits, inspections and observations. The DevonWay application has been developed to monitor and resolve asset-level operational risks. 3

4 Functionality on offer includes audits and assessments, corrective and preventative actions, nonconformance reports, worker safety observations and incident reports. For corrective actions, DevonWay offers integration between their application, asset management software such as IBM Maximo and their mobile app which enables tracking of equipment-related actions from open to closure. Enables continuous improvement with action tracking and metrics. Joining up the functionality for operational efficiency and risk management, the DevonWay software also provides users with a continuous improvement dashboard. This is populated with content relating to cost saving ideas, performance metrics, project tracking and process improvements. DevonWay uses an inmemory NoSQL database which eliminates manual coding to categorize data and create indices. Customers such as GE Healthcare access the information via a role-specific, tile-based dashboard. Covers a wide range of mobile usage scenarios for efficient operations. Since 2012, DevonWay has offered customers native mobile apps on Android, Apple ios and Microsoft Windows mobile operating systems. The current portfolio of mobile apps covers job hazard analysis, permit to work, work order execution, work procedure documentation, incident reports and safety observations. Mobile apps have extended usage scenarios for DevonWay s work management, risk and safety workflows. DevonWay Functionality Aligns With The New Operational Risk Management Agenda Since its launch in 2005, DevonWay has developed a set of best practice templates to improve operational efficiency and enhance risk, safety and quality processes at firms with complex workflows. DevonWay s software and expertise working with high risk industrial facilities has the potential to support: Digitization of operational risk management processes for industrial assets. A recent Verdantix survey found that the most common driver of investment in ORM software is an operational excellence programme. DevonWay has demonstrated how it can digitize operational processes for projects at nuclear power plants and biotech facilities. This asset-level digital process design is an underlying requirement for success with operational risk management. DevonWay provides the essential plumbing linking up equipment and workers required to implement risk controls. Application of risk controls through JHA, PHA and permit to work apps. A significant value add of ORM software relates to functionality designed to identify and control risks as part of a work assignment. Whether it is job hazard analysis, such as conducting an assessment of risks posed by examining an underground oil storage tank, or process hazard analysis which involves a multistep risk assessment, digitizing the pre-work process significantly enhances the ability to identify and control risks. DevonWay s workflow engine and mobile apps enable customers to apply industry specific and even asset specific risk controls. Production of risk analysis using graph database technology. The future direction of ORM software product architecture is towards graph databases and digital twin modelling. Through its use of a NoSQL database which stores data in a more flexible format than traditional relational (SQL) database, DevonWay has begun to explore how operational risk data can be collated, analysed and queried to improve performance and better control risks. Given very few vendors have experience with NoSQL or graph databases for operational risk management this puts DevonWay in a small group of innovators with a competitive advantage. 4

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