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| Information Bridges ENTERPRISE INFORMATICS QUARTERLY eNEWSLETTER
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At Enterprise Informatics we believe the only way to manage the cost of meeting compliance requirements and mitigating information-related risk is through the use of enterprise information management. While enterprise applications create, consume and use information to perform business functions, they only manage the information needed to do this. Even when they have the connections to information in other applications they are really only concerned in the “form factor” of this information that best enhances their application. There is nothing wrong with this, in fact products that are better at “tuning” information to meet the needs of their application users are generally more successful. However, from an enterprise information management perspective having multiple views of information is problematic. What information can be trusted? What is the impact of changing information in one system and not another? What is the impact of not knowing why or how information is related? And what is the cost of keeping those relationships current, updated, and constantly growing in knowledge richness? We have seen via our customers the need to tie multiple information sets together using eB. This information linking allows them to easily manage the change of information necessary not only to meet industry regulatory requirements, but also to efficiently provide visibility into the performance of key operating processes. Traditional datasets include those owned by work maintenance systems, training/certification systems, and engineering systems. And over the last year or so we have seen the explosive arrival of one of the biggest new information datasets within an application – Microsoft SharePoint. Microsoft tells us they have sold over 100 million SharePoint licenses. This product has made portal, collaboration, and content management technology available to thousands of companies who previously could not afford to purchase and administrate these kinds of tools. This is really fantastic for those of us who want to help companies manage information. Microsoft SharePoint has single-handedly provided the means to collect and harvest information that would normally be inaccessible to a product like eB. Once this information is in SharePoint, an information management system can be used to properly identify, classify, and relate this information within the context of the enterprise. A properly designed information management system could even be used to manage the expansion and provisioning of a SharePoint implementation. Microsoft has provided the means to access an information dataset that has been largely inaccessible. Like any information dataset it needs to be managed in the context of all the other information related to it–in and out of SharePoint. As a Microsoft Gold Certified partner working with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 before it was even released as beta, we are prepared to offer complementary products based on the same Microsoft technology that enables organizations to reduce the cost of managing compliance requirements when the information is in SharePoint. This week at DEMOFall 2008, the premier event that showcases the latest, best technologies, we have been invited to launch our newest solution, eB for SharePoint. Visit our website soon to learn how this new eB solution extends SharePoint's benefits by adding governance, visibility, and control, all while maintaining its ease-of use and productivity. Sincerely, Alan Kiraly CEO, Enterprise Informatics -------
Feature Story The paperwork required for such a massive, dynamic organization is daunting. The sheer output of documents alone is intimidating–but all aspects of a document's lifecycle–capture, tracking, distributing, protecting, preserving, retrieving, authenticating and archiving–is complicated. And when multiplied by the millions, it is a monumental endeavor. CLV's existing method of managing records and documents did not integrate with the city's ERP system (Hansen/Infor), was too expensive to maintain and too difficult to use. Moreover, the Freedom of Information Act, which requires public agencies to disclose information upon any public request, demanded that CLV improve the speed, accuracy and thoroughness of fulfilling each request. CLV established the specific requirements and goals for its new system, including:
Download the complete case study and view the on-demand webinar detailing CLV's successful implementation of eB and its plans for future expansion of the system here. -------
Industry Perspective NEAC is composed of experts representing customers and industry representatives throughout the nuclear industry. This year the Council included:
Industry representatives provided unique insight during the meeting, with Steve Easterbrook presenting methods for achieving effective Configuration Management through effective training and Vince Gilbert leading a discussion focused on how Knowledge Management can be supported by IT, and how eB is particularly suited to this function. Thanks again to all of our participants – through your support, collaboration and deep industry experience we are able to provide the strongest enterprise information management solution for nuclear industry. -------
Product Profile For many of us baby–boomers, we feel more comfortable rendering electronic documents to hardcopy to get that ‘wet–ink’ signature to provide the undeniable proof of content approval. Knowing the paper media type is transportable and accessible regardless of network connectivity or power issues gives us a sense of control, even though we may feel a bit guilty for depleting the rain forests. As part of their mission to move the information process forward, NIRMA (Nuclear Information and Records Management Association) has had an interest in document digital signatures for years. Due to the lack of standardization many interesting techniques have been used to achieve the equivalent of a wet–ink signature. These techniques tend to give the Nuclear Records departments extra work to ensure that the electronic document carries some form of an approval indicator. Technology advancements have assisted in providing different approaches to satisfy the requirements for marking document content as approved, but there has been no standardization to date for our industry to comply with the requirements defined in standards like 10CFR 50 Appendix B, sections 6 and 17, and others. The difference between digital signatures and digital approval is that a digital signature is embedded into the document using an encryption algorithm which is invalidated whenever the document is changed, while digital approval is an integrated process that is captured in the details of an approval workflow. AmerenUE's Callaway Nuclear Plant has recently transitioned to a digital approval process. The process that Ameren replaced was to scan a wet-ink signature and then associate the signature copy to the electronic file(s) representing the approved document. Their new digital approval process emulates their signature sheet (traveler) using workflow automation. The signature sheet carries the signatures of the responsible persons involved in the process of document creation or revision, review, approval and release (validation and verification). The routing of the signature sheet is a work process that consists of predefined tasks depending on the type of document. The data captured about the actions associated with each task is recorded and identifies the action, who completed it (only a person designated for each task has authorization), and when it was completed satisfactorily. Work flow templates for each of the different approval level process needs are predefined and are associated to each document and record type to ensure consistency. Strict data management and authentication rules are enforced to ensure that all the data associated with the process has the highest level of integrity possible and cannot be altered once the process is completed. Criteria applied to ensure the integrity of the data includes the following:
Hardcopy Signature Page (Click image for larger image)
Digital Approval Record (Click image for larger image) Applying a Digital Approval process can offer many benefits to an organization. Key benefits include the elimination of the intensive manual process, increased visibility to the approval process and a stored quality record that contains the complete history defining who, when and why each document was approved. If the information is stored in XML data format as is done by Enterprise Informatics' eB, then each organization can choose to tailor the output to meet their business needs using an XML style sheet. -------
News Enterprise Informatics' growing customer list includes Nuclear, Healthcare and Information Security contracts Enterprise Informatics has celebrated significant wins during the last quarter, with the addition of Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Company and the expansion of existing contracts with Nuclear Fuel Services and Constellation Energy, along with the addition of new customers in the UK. Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Company (WCNOC), a single unit operating company located approximately 90 miles south of Kansas City, has selected the Design Engineering solution from the eB Nuclear Application Suite. WCNOC selected eB in part because the out-of-the-box application met the majority of their requirements, and will be using eB for Records Management as well. In addition, eB's Design Engineering solution is in use at their sister plant Callaway, with proven benefits, supporting Enterprise Informatics' in-depth knowledge of the nuclear industry. A customer since 2006, Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS) has now contracted Enterprise informatics to implement its Design Engineering application from the eB Nuclear Application Suite. NFS is a leader in the application of innovative technologies involving nuclear material and a specialty fuel manufacturer specializing in nuclear fuel enrichment. Established in 1957, their primary customer has been the US Navy, and they are now expanding into the commercial market space. NFS' initial eB implementation was for drawing management, controlled documents and records management, as well as for their design work, which they group into the category of Configuration Management. In addition to Design Engineering, eB is now being rolled out as a general content management tool. Constellation Energy initially selected eB to manage the configuration management of their plants in 2003. Since then eB implementation has been expanded to include Records and Controlled documents, and a robust and industry-leading Corrective Action and Human Performance application being deployed across their Fleet. After further evaluation, eB Nuclear Design Engineering Application has now been selected to control their consolidated Master Equipment List. The implementation of eB Nuclear Design Engineering will be a two stage effort. The first is to implement the Master Equipment List application, which is a subset of the eB Nuclear Design Engineering solution. The second stage will be the implementation of the balance of the Design Engineering applications. In Europe, BT Healthcare, through associates 6PM, has selected eB to support the capture of accident and emergency documents at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London, a Trust Hospital within the UK's National Health Service. Initially, Kofax Capture will be implemented as the front-end to eB, using barcode recognition to identify documents and group them into Episodes of Treatment for a specific patient. Using the object modeling feature of eB, they will create a person object to represent the patient, so that in the future a much wider set of information can be linked and made available in context with the patient and their complete set of medical records. In addition, eB will be integrated with a system called Cerner, a Patient Administration System that provides a series of clinical applications in use across the hospital. Detica, a UK-based company specializing in providing solutions to secure information against potential terrorist and organized crime threats, has selected eB for use by their Electronic Systems Group. This division specializes in the design of products used in the defense environment, and will be using eB as a configuration management system to support their internal design and engineering activities. Detica serves a wide range of clients in the global financial services, defense and national security, and corporate market sectors. This important customer win underlines the ability of eB to provide best-in-class configuration management functionality, coupled with its well proven enterprise-strength information management capabilities. Enterprise Informatics expands Leadership Team George Castle has joined the Enterprise Informatics Leadership Team as Vice President, Alliances. In this position George will be responsible for developing and executing worldwide partner initiatives that align the company with the industry's most prominent consulting, services and technology firms. George brings over 20 years of enterprise systems sales and strategic alliances experience to the Enterprise Informatics management team. His proven experience in the areas of strategic selling, alliances, and consulting services will accelerate key growth initiatives. George most recently served as Global Alliance Manager at EMC, an information infrastructure technology and solutions provider. In this role he managed the global business relationship and go to market strategy between EDS and EMC/Documentum. Prior to joining EMC, George held sales and management positions at a number of technology and services organizations - including Epicentric, SDRC and Schlumberger. eB Highlighted in Nuclear Testimonial Ads A new ad campaign has been rolled out in Nuclear News, an industry-leading publication widely read within the Nuclear community. These ads feature testimonials from leaders in the industry, Janice Hoerber of AmerenUE/Callaway and Mike Stout, Founder and Former Chairman of CMBG. In case you have not had a chance to see them, here are the first two ads to appear:
Nuclear News ad campaign (Click images for larger PDF version) -------
September 7-9 - San Diego, CA
Sep 29 - Oct 1, 2008 - Stuttgart, Germany
October 5-8 - Orlando, FL
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October 1, 9:00 am PDT, 1 Hour
Enterprise Informatics will demonstrate how the eB Nuclear Design Engineering application provides unprecedented visibility to all affected items, ensures the accuracy of all related information, fully automates the design change process and integrates with other key systems and departments. Register Now
October 8, 9:00 am PDT, 1 Hour
Enterprise Informatics will demonstrate how eB for SharePoint provides unique information models that identify and classify information, establish relevant information relationships and manage the information and related items through their lifecycle to ensure information integrity - providing information governance without negatively affecting SharePoint's ease-of-use. Register Now
Ongoing Webinar Review
In this one hour webinar learn how the City of Las Vegas deployed Enterprise Informatics' eB as their city-wide information and records management platform. eB provides a central information repository that enables fast access to accurate business critical information city-wide — Building & Safety, Planning & Development, Code Enforcement, Municipal Courts, Fire Protection, Business Licensing, Traffic Engineering — and more. more |
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