Analytical Tools 1 Analytical Tools Jennifer Dilly Ferris State University November 20, 2011
Analytical Tools 2 Lawson Enterprise Performance Management Software Overview Lawson provides multiple software options including clinical software, management software for finance, human resources, manufacturing, and supply chain, as well as an overall Business Intelligence software line called Enterprise Performance Management. The provision of software with the ability to combine various pieces of data throughout the business is the vision of Lawson. The Enterprise Performance Management is broken down into different applications and tools that provide data collection and storage along with analysis capabilities to provide an increase in organizational performance. Lawson s applications are usable with their Business Process Platform called the Business Process Management suite and a middleware, System Foundation, both powered by IBM. The Process Management suite provides a workflow tool to automate various processes within the software, as well as a configuration tool and XML-based web services. Business Intelligence The Tools Lawson s Business Intelligence technology analyzes data and provides views of organization-wide performance through dashboards, scorecards, and graphs. Data regarding finances, customers, organizational processes and human resources is drawn directly from Lawson as well as other systems. Lawson boasts highly detailed reports including the ability to drill down to the transaction level. Demos are provided by the company using these links: http://www.lawson.com/other/video/medium/lbi-demo-s3 http://www.lawson.com/other/video/medium/lbi-demo-m3 Business Performance Warehouse The Performance Warehouse product builds the data warehouse for the business intelligence tools and implements extraction, transformation and load (ETL). The data comes from Lawson and other systems and includes multiple data types. The highlight of this product includes the capability of managing information efficiently and in-expensively. Opportunity Analyzer The Opportunity Analyzer is a decision support tool enabling business leaders to set targets for achievements in various objectives including financial growth. The tool s intent is to
Analytical Tools 3 help identify and prioritize initiatives that will help management implement best practices and achieve efficiency ultimately leading to increased opportunities in financial improvement. S3 Add-ins The Lawson S3 add-ins allow for ease of data access from Microsoft Office Excel and Word documents for the creation of various reports. Users can opt to use Lawson s pre-defined reports using XML, PDF, TXT, CSV, or Crystal formats. M3 Analytics The M3 Analytics are used for management of sales, finance, and supply monitoring. These tools provide performance reports related to various key performance indicators. There are specific Analytics for Food and Beverage and Manufacturing both with individual performance indicators drilling down to supplier, products and customers. Healthcare Analytics Lawson s Healthcare Analytics allows facilities to pull clinical and financial data in tandem for organizational decision-making. Data from supply chain, human resources, finance, and clinical systems can be obtained helping management monitor overall cost savings while allowing for an increased focus on quality care. Implementation of this tool can be done in a few weeks as compared to other tools that could take a considerable length of time. Staff Training Lawson provides multiple ways to learn including hands-on training with instructors, online learning including a Learning Suite, workshops, and another type of software, the Learning Accelerator, which allows the organization to create personalized learning programs and simulations. The training consists of the general overview of the software, the application and technical training for implementing the solutions, user training specific to the organization s usage of the product, as well as some advanced training for more of the features of the product. Maintenance and Support Two types of maintenance plans are given as options. Both cover product updates and upgrades, assistance via email and telephone, including a timeframe (one hour) for response, and tracking of issues addressed. The higher level maintenance plan also includes a few more support services such as an appointed account manager and planning assistance for installation updates. Online support is available for facilities with a service agreement and who have already received training. There is also help available for those who require help with installation.
Analytical Tools 4 SAS Analytics Software Overview SAS Incorporated has many software options available to be used in a wide range of industries from casinos, to healthcare facilities, to transportation. Each industry has its own needs and SAS provides software that covers many of those needs for business intelligence, analytics, and various types of management. The SAS Analytics software includes data mining and analysis, multiple graphics for viewing of data analysis, forecasting, workflow management and modeling, project managing, and monitoring of improvements with statistical analysis. The goal of this software is to provide businesses with an overall view of performance to reveal new processes for future improvements. The Tools Predictive Analytics and Data Mining The components of SAS Analytics include data mining on the users desktop through use of JMP Pro software combined with SAS analytics. SAS s Enterprise Miner is a graphical interface that creates the modeling and is capable of processing large amounts of data. Interface capabilities include use with Microsoft Excel. Figure 1 Side by Side Modeling Data Visualization SAS Visual Data Discovery provides the visualization of the data. Graphs and presentation of the data is interactive and allows the user to insert animations or even provide 3 dimensional views of the data. An unlimited amount of data can be used and inserted when
Analytical Tools 5 needed. Figure 2 gives an example of use of multiple data variables perhaps from research or surveys. Figure 2 Multiple Variables Used Forecasting There are two components to SAS s Forecasting Software, the SAS/ETS software and the Forecast Server. These components provide forecasting for various processes over varying timeframes. SAS has the ability to access other databases from the government and commercial vendors as well as from some international data. The forecasts can include large amounts of data and can include multiple variables such as holidays, certain events, promotions, etc. Figure 3 includes an example of the forecasting capabilities. Figure 3 SAS Forecasting
Analytical Tools 6 Model Management and Monitoring SAS has a Model Manager which produces predictive analytical models. The models can be customized to the organization s needs, including regulatory agency compliance, and monitoring of effectiveness can be done in real-time. Figure 4 is an example of the Model Manager, while Figure 5 shows the capability of tracking progress of multiple projects through the use of a dashboard. Figure 4 Model Manager Figure 5 Tracking Multiple Projects Quality Improvement SAS/QC software provides monitoring of processes for overall improvement. The software can pull multiple types and large amounts of data thought to help identify the true root
Analytical Tools 7 cause of process issues. This is accomplished through use of statistical process control charts, histograms, Pareto charts and others. Figure 6 shows an example of one such chart. Figure 6 Pareto chart Statistics The statistics software from SAS has two components, Interactive Matrix Programming (IML) and Statistical Analysis. IML includes a SAS/IML Studio interface which allows mathematical formulas to be translated in to programming statements and ultimately interface with the SAS/IML software to graph and view the data (see Figure 7). The data analysis is completely customizable, the user can decide what data to include and exclude within graphs and models. Figure 7 SAS/IML Studio Example The Statistical Analysis component includes SAS/STAT software. This software is required for many of the other software suites to run as it provides many different types
Analytical Tools 8 statistical analysis for the user to choose (Figure 8). Many different types of graphics are also created. Only Base SAS is required for this software and it will run on multiple platforms. Figure 8 Choosing the Analysis Text Analytics SAS Text Analytics has four components, Enterprise Content Categorization (with optional add-ons), Ontology management, Sentiment analysis, and unstructured text mining. The Enterprise content captures key phrases within text while the Ontology management software captures text that would not necessarily mean anything unless there has been clear definition of the semantics within the data. This allows data from documents that may not have thought to be related to be linked. Sentiment analysis allows capture of opinions or customer sentiments from multiple formats. The Text mining component extracts, transforms, and loads data for mining and can present it either at a high overview level or in greater detail. Figure 9 shows how to search within the Text mining software. Figure 9 Filtered Searching
Analytical Tools 9 Staff Training Training for the various software products is broken down into job roles. For example, those who would need training on the Business Intelligence software may include Project Managers, or Business Intelligence Content or Application Developers. There are various types of training available including classroom setting, live web classroom and online learning. Training is broken down in to four different levels, from beginner all the way to expert. There are also opportunities for an instructor to provide on-site training or even private mentoring. Maintenance and Support System administrators at individual facilities provide the software installation, updates, and hot fixes as part of the maintenance for the software. If there are any issues and needed maintenance, SAS sends the system administrators the maintenance releases for application. There are multiple resources listed for support either online or via phone. Problems can be submitted, updated, and tracked for resolution. There is even a resource provided to check on licensing details or troubleshooting. Comparison The table below contains highlights of both company s software. The numbers represent how helpful each highlight would be to this specific organization, with a 3 being most helpful. Traits Lawson SAS 3 3 Comprehensive Data (ability to pull across different software and other vendors) Text Data Capturing 2 3 Customizable Reports 2 3 Drill Down Capabilities 2 3 Trainability 3 3 Maintenance/Upgrades 2 2 Multiple Pieces of Software Needed 3 2 User Support 2 3 Overall Cost 3 2 Platform IBM Multiple Both companies provide similar abilities to pull data across their own different software pieces as well from non-lawson or non-sas software, but SAS seemed to have better capability for reliably capturing text data. The reporting capability of both would suffice; however, SAS has slightly better reporting capabilities to fit the organization s needs for customizable, high level and drill down types of reports. Both companies provided some level of maintenance
Analytical Tools 10 with Lawson providing two different types of plans, while SAS seemed to rely on the organization s system administrators to apply upgrades, etc. SAS provides a way for organizations to report issues and track them for resolution and both companies provide different levels of user support. The overall cost of Lawson may be cheaper, however dependent upon how much an organization requires or needs, SAS offers many parts and pieces of valuable software that can be stand-alone (does not require other software to run). SAS is able to run on varying platforms while Lawson runs on IBM.
Analytical Tools 11 References Havenstein, H. (April 3, 2006). SAS touts its integration, storage tools for BI projects. Computerworld. Retrieved from http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/110123/sas_touts_its_integration_storage_t ools_for_bi_projects Howson, C. (November 2005). Beyond statistics: SAS takes on mainstream BI. Retrieved from http://0- go.galegroup.com.libcat.ferris.edu/ps/retrieve.do?sghitcounttype=none&sort=da- SORT&inPS=true&prodId=CDB&userGroupName=lom_ferrissu&tabID=T003&searchI d=r1&resultlisttype=result_list&contentsegment=&searchtype=advancedsearc hform¤tposition=12&contentset=gale A139038342&&docId=GALE A139038 342&docType=GALE&role= Lawson (2011). Enterprise Performance Management. Retrieved from http://www.lawson.com/solutions/software/enterprise-performance-management/ Lawson Software releases new version of Lawson Talent Management Suite. Worldwide Computer Products News 19 Feb. 2010. Computer Database. Web. 14 Nov. 2011. Document URL http://0- go.galegroup.com.libcat.ferris.edu/ps/i.do?id=gale%7ca219327193&v=2.1&u=lom_f errissu&it=r&p=cdb&sw=w SAS (2011). SAS Analytics. Retrieved from http://www.sas.com/technologies/analytics/