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  • Navigating the Unpredictable Swinging of the Financial Regulation Pendulum

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Written by Guest Blogger: Maureen Clifford, Sr Product Marketing Manager, Oracle The pendulum of the regulatory clock is constantly in motion, albeit often not in any particular rhythm.  Nevertheless, given what many insurers have been through economically, any movement can send shock waves through critical innovation and operational plans.  As pointed out in Deloitte’s 2012 Global Insurance Outlook, the impact of regulatory reform can cause major uncertainty in the area of costs.  As the reality of increasing government regulations settles in, the change that comes along with it creates more challenges in compliance and ultimately on delivering the optimum return on investment.  The result of this changing environment is a proliferation of compliance projects that must be executed with an already constrained set of resources, budget and time. Insurers are confronted by the need to gain visibility into all of their compliance efforts and proactively manage them. Currently that is very difficult to do as these projects often are being managed by groups across the enterprise and they lack a way to coordinate their efforts and drive greater synergies.  With limited visibility and equally limited resources it is no surprise that reporting on project status and determining realistic completion of these projects is only a dream. As a result, compliance deadlines are missed, penalties are incurred, credibility with key stakeholders and the public is jeopardized and returns and competitive advantage go unrealized. Insurers need to ask themselves some key questions: Do I have “one stop” visibility into all of my compliance efforts?  If not, what can I do to change that? What is top priority and how does that impact my already taxed resources? How can I figure out how to best balance my resources to get these compliance projects done as well as keep key innovation and operational efforts on track? How can ensure that I have all the requisite documentation for each compliance project I undertake? Dealing with complying with regulatory efforts is a necessary evil. Don't let the regulatory pendulum sideline your efforts to generate the greatest return on investment for your key stakeholders.

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  • Oracle Unveils Oracle’s Primavera Inspire for SAP 8.0

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    “To successfully manage large capital projects and maintenance operations, organizations need clear visibility into materials, resources, schedule and financial information,” said Yasser Mahmud, vice president, Oracle’s Primavera Global Business Unit. “With the enhancements delivered in Oracle’s Primavera Inspire for SAP 8.0, partners and customers can benefit from an integrated solution that not only reduces risk, but also helps ensure that projects are completed on-time and within budget. This combination simplifies management and extends customers’ investments in existing SAP project management modules.” Read all about the new release at http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1666350?sc=OPR-TW

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  • The Benefits of Smart Grid Business Software

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Smart Grid Background What Are Smart Grids?Smart Grids use computer hardware and software, sensors, controls, and telecommunications equipment and services to: Link customers to information that helps them manage consumption and use electricity wisely. Enable customers to respond to utility notices in ways that help minimize the duration of overloads, bottlenecks, and outages. Provide utilities with information that helps them improve performance and control costs. What Is Driving Smart Grid Development? Environmental ImpactSmart Grid development is picking up speed because of the widespread interest in reducing the negative impact that energy use has on the environment. Smart Grids use technology to drive efficiencies in transmission, distribution, and consumption. As a result, utilities can serve customers’ power needs with fewer generating plants, fewer transmission and distribution assets,and lower overall generation. With the possible exception of wind farm sprawl, landscape preservation is one obvious benefit. And because most generation today results in greenhouse gas emissions, Smart Grids reduce air pollution and the potential for global climate change.Smart Grids also more easily accommodate the technical difficulties of integrating intermittent renewable resources like wind and solar into the grid, providing further greenhouse gas reductions. CostsThe ability to defer the cost of plant and grid expansion is a major benefit to both utilities and customers. Utilities do not need to use as many internal resources for traditional infrastructure project planning and management. Large T&D infrastructure expansion costs are not passed on to customers.Smart Grids will not eliminate capital expansion, of course. Transmission corridors to connect renewable generation with customers will require major near-term expenditures. Additionally, in the future, electricity to satisfy the needs of population growth and additional applications will exceed the capacity reductions available through the Smart Grid. At that point, expansion will resume—but with greater overall T&D efficiency based on demand response, load control, and many other Smart Grid technologies and business processes. Energy efficiency is a second area of Smart Grid cost saving of particular relevance to customers. The timely and detailed information Smart Grids provide encourages customers to limit waste, adopt energy-efficient building codes and standards, and invest in energy efficient appliances. Efficiency may or may not lower customer bills because customer efficiency savings may be offset by higher costs in generation fuels or carbon taxes. It is clear, however, that bills will be lower with efficiency than without it. Utility Operations Smart Grids can serve as the central focus of utility initiatives to improve business processes. Many utilities have long “wish lists” of projects and applications they would like to fund in order to improve customer service or ease staff’s burden of repetitious work, but they have difficulty cost-justifying the changes, especially in the short term. Adding Smart Grid benefits to the cost/benefit analysis frequently tips the scales in favor of the change and can also significantly reduce payback periods.Mobile workforce applications and asset management applications work together to deploy assets and then to maintain, repair, and replace them. Many additional benefits result—for instance, increased productivity and fuel savings from better routing. Similarly, customer portals that provide customers with near-real-time information can also encourage online payments, thus lowering billing costs. Utilities can and should include these cost and service improvements in the list of Smart Grid benefits. What Is Smart Grid Business Software? Smart Grid business software gathers data from a Smart Grid and uses it improve a utility’s business processes. Smart Grid business software also helps utilities provide relevant information to customers who can then use it to reduce their own consumption and improve their environmental profiles. Smart Grid Business Software Minimizes the Impact of Peak Demand Utilities must size their assets to accommodate their highest peak demand. The higher the peak rises above base demand: The more assets a utility must build that are used only for brief periods—an inefficient use of capital. The higher the utility’s risk profile rises given the uncertainties surrounding the time needed for permitting, building, and recouping costs. The higher the costs for utilities to purchase supply, because generators can charge more for contracts and spot supply during high-demand periods. Smart Grids enable a variety of programs that reduce peak demand, including: Time-of-use pricing and critical peak pricing—programs that charge customers more when they consume electricity during peak periods. Pilot projects indicate that these programs are successful in flattening peaks, thus ensuring better use of existing T&D and generation assets. Direct load control, which lets utilities reduce or eliminate electricity flow to customer equipment (such as air conditioners). Contracts govern the terms and conditions of these turn-offs. Indirect load control, which signals customers to reduce the use of on-premises equipment for contractually agreed-on time periods. Smart Grid business software enables utilities to impose penalties on customers who do not comply with their contracts. Smart Grids also help utilities manage peaks with existing assets by enabling: Real-time asset monitoring and control. In this application, advanced sensors safely enable dynamic capacity load limits, ensuring that all grid assets can be used to their maximum capacity during peak demand periods. Real-time asset monitoring and control applications also detect the location of excessive losses and pinpoint need for mitigation and asset replacements. As a result, utilities reduce outage risk and guard against excess capacity or “over-build”. Better peak demand analysis. As a result: Distribution planners can better size equipment (e.g. transformers) to avoid over-building. Operations engineers can identify and resolve bottlenecks and other inefficiencies that may cause or exacerbate peaks. As above, the result is a reduction in the tendency to over-build. Supply managers can more closely match procurement with delivery. As a result, they can fine-tune supply portfolios, reducing the tendency to over-contract for peak supply and reducing the need to resort to spot market purchases during high peaks. Smart Grids can help lower the cost of remaining peaks by: Standardizing interconnections for new distributed resources (such as electricity storage devices). Placing the interconnections where needed to support anticipated grid congestion. Smart Grid Business Software Lowers the Cost of Field Services By processing Smart Grid data through their business software, utilities can reduce such field costs as: Vegetation management. Smart Grids can pinpoint momentary interruptions and tree-caused outages. Spatial mash-up tools leverage GIS models of tree growth for targeted vegetation management. This reduces the cost of unnecessary tree trimming. Service vehicle fuel. Many utility service calls are “false alarms.” Checking meter status before dispatching crews prevents many unnecessary “truck rolls.” Similarly, crews use far less fuel when Smart Grid sensors can pinpoint a problem and mobile workforce applications can then route them directly to it. Smart Grid Business Software Ensures Regulatory Compliance Smart Grids can ensure compliance with private contracts and with regional, national, or international requirements by: Monitoring fulfillment of contract terms. Utilities can use one-hour interval meters to ensure that interruptible (“non-core”) customers actually reduce or eliminate deliveries as required. They can use the information to levy fines against contract violators. Monitoring regulations imposed on customers, such as maximum use during specific time periods. Using accurate time-stamped event history derived from intelligent devices distributed throughout the smart grid to monitor and report reliability statistics and risk compliance. Automating business processes and activities that ensure compliance with security and reliability measures (e.g. NERC-CIP 2-9). Grid Business Software Strengthens Utilities’ Connection to Customers While Reducing Customer Service Costs During outages, Smart Grid business software can: Identify outages more quickly. Software uses sensors to pinpoint outages and nested outage locations. They also permit utilities to ensure outage resolution at every meter location. Size outages more accurately, permitting utilities to dispatch crews that have the skills needed, in appropriate numbers. Provide updates on outage location and expected duration. This information helps call centers inform customers about the timing of service restoration. Smart Grids also facilitates display of outage maps for customer and public-service use. Smart Grids can significantly reduce the cost to: Connect and disconnect customers. Meters capable of remote disconnect can virtually eliminate the costs of field crews and vehicles previously required to change service from the old to the new residents of a metered property or disconnect customers for nonpayment. Resolve reports of voltage fluctuation. Smart Grids gather and report voltage and power quality data from meters and grid sensors, enabling utilities to pinpoint reported problems or resolve them before customers complain. Detect and resolve non-technical losses (e.g. theft). Smart Grids can identify illegal attempts to reconnect meters or to use electricity in supposedly vacant premises. They can also detect theft by comparing flows through delivery assets with billed consumption. Smart Grids also facilitate outreach to customers. By monitoring and analyzing consumption over time, utilities can: Identify customers with unusually high usage and contact them before they receive a bill. They can also suggest conservation techniques that might help to limit consumption. This can head off “high bill” complaints to the contact center. Note that such “high usage” or “additional charges apply because you are out of range” notices—frequently via text messaging—are already common among mobile phone providers. Help customers identify appropriate bill payment alternatives (budget billing, prepayment, etc.). Help customers find and reduce causes of over-consumption. There’s no waiting for bills in the mail before they even understand there is a problem. Utilities benefit not just through improved customer relations but also through limiting the size of bills from customers who might struggle to pay them. Where permitted, Smart Grids can open the doors to such new utility service offerings as: Monitoring properties. Landlords reduce costs of vacant properties when utilities notify them of unexpected energy or water consumption. Utilities can perform similar services for owners of vacation properties or the adult children of aging parents. Monitoring equipment. Power-use patterns can reveal a need for equipment maintenance. Smart Grids permit utilities to alert owners or managers to a need for maintenance or replacement. Facilitating home and small-business networks. Smart Grids can provide a gateway to equipment networks that automate control or let owners access equipment remotely. They also facilitate net metering, offering some utilities a path toward involvement in small-scale solar or wind generation. Prepayment plans that do not need special meters. Smart Grid Business Software Helps Customers Control Energy Costs There is no end to the ways Smart Grids help both small and large customers control energy costs. For instance: Multi-premises customers appreciate having all meters read on the same day so that they can more easily compare consumption at various sites. Customers in competitive regions can match their consumption profile (detailed via Smart Grid data) with specific offerings from competitive suppliers. Customers seeing inexplicable consumption patterns and power quality problems may investigate further. The result can be discovery of electrical problems that can be resolved through rewiring or maintenance—before more serious fires or accidents happen. Smart Grid Business Software Facilitates Use of Renewables Generation from wind and solar resources is a popular alternative to fossil fuel generation, which emits greenhouse gases. Wind and solar generation may also increase energy security in regions that currently import fossil fuel for use in generation. Utilities face many technical issues as they attempt to integrate intermittent resource generation into traditional grids, which traditionally handle only fully dispatchable generation. Smart Grid business software helps solves many of these issues by: Detecting sudden drops in production from renewables-generated electricity (wind and solar) and automatically triggering electricity storage and smart appliance response to compensate as needed. Supporting industry-standard distributed generation interconnection processes to reduce interconnection costs and avoid adding renewable supplies to locations already subject to grid congestion. Facilitating modeling and monitoring of locally generated supply from renewables and thus helping to maximize their use. Increasing the efficiency of “net metering” (through which utilities can use electricity generated by customers) by: Providing data for analysis. Integrating the production and consumption aspects of customer accounts. During non-peak periods, such techniques enable utilities to increase the percent of renewable generation in their supply mix. During peak periods, Smart Grid business software controls circuit reconfiguration to maximize available capacity. Conclusion Utility missions are changing. Yesterday, they focused on delivery of reasonably priced energy and water. Tomorrow, their missions will expand to encompass sustainable use and environmental improvement.Smart Grids are key to helping utilities achieve this expanded mission. But they come at a relatively high price. Utilities will need to invest heavily in new hardware, software, business process development, and staff training. Customer investments in home area networks and smart appliances will be large. Learning to change the energy and water consumption habits of a lifetime could ultimately prove even more formidable tasks.Smart Grid business software can ease the cost and difficulties inherent in a needed transition to a more flexible, reliable, responsive electricity grid. Justifying its implementation, however, requires a full understanding of the benefits it brings—benefits that can ultimately help customers, utilities, communities, and the world address global issues like energy security and climate change while minimizing costs and maximizing customer convenience. This white paper is available for download here. For further information about Oracle's Primavera Solutions for Utilities, please read our Utilities e-book.

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  • Building in Change: Project Construction in Asset Intensive Industries

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    According to a recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Oracle, only 51% of project owners rated themselves as effective at delivering their projects to scope, budget, and schedule when confronted with change. In addition only 43% rated themselves as effective at anticipating potential change. Even with the best processes and technology in place, change is often an unavoidable part of the construction process. How organizations respond to change can mean the difference between delays and cost overruns, and projects being completed on schedule and on budget. Implementing Enterprise Project Portfolio Management and using a solution to help manage and automate those process can help asset intensive organizations: Govern project and program compliance and regulatory requirements for project success Unite project teams and stakeholders through collaboration and strong feedback methods to speed project completion Reduce the risk of cost and schedule overruns and any resulting penalties to deliver on time and on budget Effectively manage change throughout the project life cycle Ensure sufficient capacity, utilization, and availability of people, skills, and other resources to meet commitments. The results of the recent EIU survey, sponsored by Oracle:"Building in Change: Project Construction in Asset-Intensive Industries", will be revealed in an upcoming webinar with Hart Energy / Oil & Gas Investor, featuring the Economist Intelligence Unit and Oracle on April 11th at 1pm CST. Click here for further information or visit http://www.oilandgasinvestor.com/

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  • EPPM Webcast Series Part II: Build – Consistently delivering successful projects to ensure financial success

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Oracle Primavera invites you to the second in a series of three webcasts linking Enterprise Project Portfolio Management with enhanced operational performance and better financial results. Join us for the next installment of our 'Plan, Build, Operate' webcast series, as we look to address the challenges organizations face during the execution phase of their projects. Webcast II: Build – Consistently delivering successful projects to ensure financial success. This webcast will look at Three key questions: How do you maintain consistency in delivery whilst maintaining visibility and control? How do you deal with project risk and mitigation strategies? How do you ensure accurate reporting? Hear from Geoff Roberts, Industry Strategist from Oracle Primavera. Geoff will look at how solutions can help to address the challenges around: Visibility and governance Communication and complex coordination Collecting and reporting progress Measuring and reporting It is imperative that organizations understand the impact projects can have on their business. Attend this webcast and understand how consistently delivering successful projects is vital to the financial success of an asset intensive organisation. Register today! Please forward this invite to your colleagues who you think may benefit from attending.

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  • Project Management Helps AmeriCares Deliver International Aid

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Excerpt from PROFIT - ORACLE - by Alison Weiss Handle with Care Sound project management helps AmeriCares bring international aid to those in need. The stakes are always high for AmeriCares. On a mission to restore health and save lives during times of disaster, the nonprofit international relief and humanitarian aid organization delivers donated medicines, medical supplies, and humanitarian aid to people in the U.S. and around the globe. Founded in 1982 with the express mission of responding as quickly and efficiently as possible to help people in need, the Stamford, Connecticut-based AmeriCares has delivered more than US$10.5 billion in aid to 147 countries over the past three decades. Launch the Slideshow “It’s critically important to us that we steward all the donations and that the medical supplies and medicines get to people as quickly as possible with no loss,” says Kate Sears, senior vice president for finance and technology at AmeriCares. “Whether we’re shipping IV solutions to victims of cholera in Haiti or antibiotics to Somali famine victims, we need to get the medicines there sooner because it means more people will be helped and lives improved or even saved.” Ten years ago, the tracking systems used by AmeriCares associates were paper-based. In recent years, staff started using spreadsheets, but the tracking processes were not standardized between teams. “Every team was tracking completely different information,” says Megan McDermott, senior associate, Sub-Saharan Africa partnerships, at AmeriCares. “It was just a few key things. For example, we tracked the date a shipment was supposed to arrive and the date we got reports from our partner that a hospital received aid on their end.” While the data was accurate, much detail was being lost in the process. AmeriCares management knew it could do a better job of tracking this enterprise data and in 2011 took a significant step by implementing Oracle’s Primavera P6 Professional Project Management. “It’s a comprehensive solution that has helped us improve the monitoring and controlling processes. It has allowed us to do our distribution better,” says Sears. In addition, the implementation effort has been a change agent, helping AmeriCares leadership rethink project management across the entire organization. Initially, much of the focus was on standardizing processes, but staff members also learned the importance of thinking proactively to prevent possible problems and evaluating results to determine if goals and objectives are truly being met. Such data about process efficiency and overall results is critical not only to AmeriCares staff but also to the donors supporting the organization’s life-saving missions. Efficiency Saves Lives One of AmeriCares’ core operations is to gather product donations from the private sector, establish where the most-urgent needs are, and solicit monetary support to send the aid via ocean cargo or airlift to welfare- and health-oriented nongovernmental organizations, hospitals, health networks, and government ministries based in areas in need. In 2011 alone, AmeriCares sent more than 3,500 shipments to 95 countries in response to both ongoing humanitarian needs and more than two dozen emergencies, including deadly tornadoes and storms in the U.S. and the devastating tsunami in Japan. When it comes to nonprofits in general, donors want to know that the charitable organizations they support are using funds wisely. Typically, nonprofits are evaluated by donors in terms of efficiency, an area where AmeriCares has an excellent reputation: 98 percent of expenses go directly to supporting programs and less than 2 percent represent administrative and fundraising costs. Donors, however, should look at more than simple efficiency, says Peter York, senior partner and chief research and learning officer at TCC Group, a nonprofit consultancy headquartered in New York, New York. They should also look at whether organizations have the systems in place to sustain their missions and continue to thrive. An expert on nonprofit organizational management, York has spent years studying sustainable charitable organizations. He defines them as nonprofits that are able to achieve the ongoing financial support to stay relevant and continue doing core mission work. In his analysis of well over 2,500 larger nonprofits, York has found that many are not sustaining, and are actually scaling back in size. “One of the biggest challenges of nonprofit sustainability is the general public’s perception that every dollar donated has to go only to the delivery of service,” says York. “What our data shows is that there are some fundamental capacities that have to be there in order for organizations to sustain and grow.” York’s research highlights the importance of data-driven leadership at successful nonprofits. “You’ve got to have the tools, the systems, and the technologies to get objective information on what you do, the people you serve, and the results you’re achieving,” says York. “If leaders don’t have the knowledge and the data, they can’t make the strategic decisions about programs to take organizations to the next level.” Historically, AmeriCares associates have used time-tested and cost-effective strategies to ship and then track supplies from donation to delivery to their destinations in designated time frames. When disaster strikes, AmeriCares ships by air and generally pulls out all the stops to deliver the most urgently needed aid within the first few days and weeks. Then, as situations stabilize, AmeriCares turns to delivering sea containers for the postemergency and ongoing aid so often needed over the long term. According to McDermott, getting a shipment out the door is fairly complicated, requiring as many as five different AmeriCares teams collaborating together. The entire process can take months—from when products are received in the warehouse and deciding which recipients to allocate supplies to, to getting customs and governmental approvals in place, actually shipping products, and finally ensuring that the products are received in-country. Delivering that aid is no small affair. “Our volume exceeds half a billion dollars a year worth of donated medicines and medical supplies, so it’s a sizable logistical operation to bring these products in and get them out to the right place quickly to have the most impact,” says Sears. “We really pride ourselves on our controls and efficiencies.” Adding to that complexity is the fact that the longer it takes to deliver aid, the more dire the human need can be. Any time AmeriCares associates can shave off the complicated aid delivery process can translate into lives saved. “It’s really being able to track information consistently that will help us to see where are the bottlenecks and where can we work on improving our processes,” says McDermott. Setting a Standard Productivity and information management improvements were key objectives for AmeriCares when staff began the process of implementing Oracle’s Primavera solution. But before configuring the software, the staff needed to take the time to analyze the systems already in place. According to Greg Loop, manager of database systems at AmeriCares, the organization received guidance from several consultants, including Rich D’Addario, consulting project manager in the Primavera Global Business Unit at Oracle, who was instrumental in shepherding the critical requirements-gathering phase. D’Addario encouraged staff to begin documenting shipping processes by considering the order in which activities occur and which ones are dependent on others to get accomplished. This exercise helped everyone realize that to be more efficient, they needed to keep track of shipments in a more standard way. “The staff didn’t recognize formal project management methodology,” says D’Addario. “But they did understand what the most important things are and that if they go wrong, an entire project can go off course.” Before, if a boatload of supplies was being sent to Haiti and there was a problem somewhere, a lot of time was taken up finding out where the problem was—because staff was not tracking things in a standard way. As a result, even more time was needed to find possible solutions to the problem and alert recipients that the aid might be delayed. “For everyone to put on the project manager hat and standardize the way every single thing is done means that now the whole organization is on the same page as to what needs to occur from the time a hurricane hits Haiti and when a boat pulls in to unload supplies,” says D’Addario. With so much care taken to put a process foundation firmly in place, configuring the Primavera solution was actually quite simple. Specific templates were set up for different types of shipments, and dashboards were implemented to provide executives with clear overviews of every project in the system. AmeriCares’ Loop reports that system planning, refining, and testing, followed by writing up documentation and training, took approximately four months. The system went live in spring 2011 at AmeriCares’ Connecticut headquarters. While the nonprofit has an international presence, with warehouses in Europe and offices in Haiti, India, Japan, and Sri Lanka, most donated medicines come from U.S. entities and are shipped from the U.S. out to the rest of the world. In addition, all shipments are tracked from the U.S. office. AmeriCares doesn’t expect the Primavera system to take months off the shipping time, especially for sea containers. However, any time saved is still important because it will allow aid to be delivered to people more quickly at a lower overall cost. “If we can trim a day or two here or there, that can translate into lives that we’re saving, especially in emergency situations,” says Sears. A Cultural Change Beyond the measurable benefits that come with IT-driven process improvement, AmeriCares management is seeing a change in culture as a result of the Primavera project. One change has been treating every shipment of aid as a project, and everyone involved with facilitating shipments as a project manager. “This is a revolutionary concept for us,” says McDermott. “Before, we were used to thinking we were doing logistics—getting a container from point A to point B without looking at it as one project and really understanding what it meant to manage it.” AmeriCares staff is also happy to report that collaboration within the organization is much more efficient. When someone creates a shipment in the Primavera system, the same shared template is used, which means anyone can log in to the system to see the status of a shipment. Knowledgeable staff can access a shipment project to help troubleshoot a problem. Management can easily check the status of projects across the organization. “Dashboards are really useful,” says McDermott. “Instead of going into the details of each project, you can just see the high-level real-time information at a glance.” The new system is helping team members focus on proactively managing shipments rather than simply reacting when problems occur. For example, when a container is shipped, documents must be included for customs clearance. Now, the shipping template has built-in reminders to prompt team members to ask for copies of these documents from freight forwarders and to follow up with partners to discover if a shipment is on time. In the past, staff may not have worked on securing these documents until they’d been notified a shipment had arrived in-country. Another benefit of capturing and adopting best practices within the Primavera system is that staff training is easier. “Capturing the processes in documented steps and milestones allows us to teach new staff members how to do their jobs faster,” says Sears. “It provides them with the knowledge of their predecessors so they don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel.” With the Primavera system already generating positive results, management is eager to take advantage of advanced capabilities. Loop is working on integrating the company’s proprietary inventory management system with the Primavera system so that when logistics or warehousing operators input data, the information will automatically go into the Primavera system. In the past, this information had to be manually keyed into spreadsheets, often leading to errors. Mining Historical Data Another feature on the horizon for AmeriCares is utilizing Primavera P6 Professional Project Management reporting capabilities. As the system begins to include more historical data, management soon will be able to draw on this information to conduct analysis that has not been possible before and create customized reports. For example, at the beginning of the shipment process, staff will be able to use historical data to more accurately estimate how long the approval process should take for a particular country. This could help ensure that food and medicine with limited shelf lives do not get stuck in customs or used beyond their expiration dates. The historical data in the Primavera system will also help AmeriCares with better planning year to year. The nonprofit’s staff has always put together a plan at the beginning of the year, but this has been very challenging simply because it is impossible to predict disasters. Now, management will be able to look at historical data and see trends and statistics as they set current objectives and prepare for future need. In addition, this historical data will provide AmeriCares management with the ability to review year-end data and compare actual project results with goals set at the beginning of the year—to see if desired outcomes were achieved and if there are areas that need improvement. It’s this type of information that is so valuable to donors. And, according to York, project management software can play a critical role in generating the data to help nonprofits sustain and grow. “It is important to invest in systems to help replicate, expand, and deliver services,” says York. “Project management software can help because it encourages nonprofits to examine program or service changes and how to manage moving forward.” Sears believes that AmeriCares donors will support the return on investment the organization will achieve with the Primavera solution. “It won’t be financial returns, but rather how many more people we can help for a given dollar or how much more quickly we can respond to a need,” says Sears. “I think donors are receptive to such arguments.” And for AmeriCares, it is all about the future and increasing results. The project management environment currently may be quite simple, but IT staff plans to expand the complexity and functionality as the organization grows in its knowledge of project management and the goals it wants to achieve. “As we use the system over time, we’ll continue to refine our best practices and accumulate more data,” says Sears. “It will advance our ability to make better data-driven decisions.”

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  • Drive project success & financial performance with business critical Enterprise Project Portfolio Management

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Oracle Primavera invites you to the first in a series of three webcasts linking Enterprise Project Portfolio Management with enhanced operational performance and better financial results. Few organizations fully understand the impact projects have on their business. Consistently delivering successful projects is vital to the financial success of an asset intensive organization. Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) is not a new concept yet for many organizations it is not considered "business critical". Webcast 1: Plan – Aligning project selection and prioritization with corporate objectives This webcast will look at 2 key questions: Are you aligning portfolio decisions with strategic objectives? How do you effectively measure the success of your portfolio decisions? Hear from Accenture who'll present a compelling case for why asset intensive organizations should consider EPPM as business critical. They'll explore: How technology is being used to enhance project delivery How collaboration enhances delivery performance The major challenges associated with the planning phase of a project Next hear from Geoff Roberts, Industry Strategist from Oracle Primavera. With over 30 years experience in project management/project controls in the construction, utilities and oil & gas sectors, Geoff will investigate how EPPM is a best practice and can support an organization through project selection and prioritization ensuring that decisions are aligned with corporate objectives. Don’t miss out, register today!

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  • What Poor Project Management Might Be Costing You

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    For project-intensive organizations, capital investment decisions define both success and failure. Getting them wrong—the risk of delays and schedule and cost overruns are ever present—introduces the potential for huge financial losses. The resulting consequences can be significant, and directly impact both a company’s profit outlook and its share price performance—which in turn is the fundamental measure of executive performance. This intrinsic link between long-term investment planning and short-term market performance is investigated in the independent report Stock Shock, written by a consultant from Clarity Economics and commissioned by the EPPM Board. A new international steering group organized by Oracle, the EPPM Board brings together senior executives from leading public and private sector organizations to explore the critical role played by enterprise project and portfolio management (EPPM). Stock Shock reviews several high-profile recent project failures, and combined with other research reviews the lessons to be learned. It analyzes how portfolio management is an exercise in balancing risk and reward, a process that places the emphasis firmly on executives to correctly determine which potential investments will deliver the greatest value and contribute most to the bottom line. Conversely, it also details how poor evaluation decisions can quickly impact the overall value of an organization’s project portfolio and compromise long-range capital planning goals. Failure to Deliver—In Search of ROI The report also cites figures from the Economist Intelligence Unit survey that found that more organizations (12 percent) expected to deliver planned ROI less than half the time, than those (11 percent) who claim to deliver it 90 percent or more of the time. This fact is linked to a recent report from Booz & Co. that shows how the average tenure of a global chief executive has fallen from 8.1 years to 6.3 years. “Senior executives need to begin looking at effective project delivery not as a bonus, but as an essential facet of business success,” according to Stock Shock author Phil Thornton. “Consolidated and integrated visibility into individual projects is the most practical solution to overcoming these challenges, which explains the increasing popularity of PPM technologies as an effective oversight and delivery platform.” Stock Shock is available for download on the EPPM microsite at http://www.oracle.com/oms/eppm/us/stock-shock-report-1691569.html

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  • Out-of-the-Box Integration Links Primavera Solutions with PeopleSoft Projects Applications

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    In a move that brings best-in-class enterprise project portfolio management to Oracle’s PeopleSoft enterprise resource planning customers, Oracle announced the integration of Oracle’s PeopleSoft projects applications and Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management. The combination of PeopleSoft financial controls and Primavera portfolio management capabilities brings greater oversight of end-to-end processes to help organizations improve the planning and execution efforts needed to deliver projects on time and within budget. “As an organization with many high-value, project-driven initiatives, we are very pleased to see Oracle’s investment in this important integration,” says Janardhanan Sankar, senior vice president for technology and quality at ITC Infotech India Ltd. Oracle’s PeopleSoft projects applications enable project-centric organizations and departments to establish core operational processes for full project lifecycle management across operations and finance. The integration with Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management means organizations can eliminate costly and difficult-to-maintain proprietary integrations. Organizations can also standardize on the Oracle technologies to Align back-office budgets and costs with project operations to help ensure accurate forecasting of costs, resources, and schedules Provide an accurate single source of truth to financial managers and analysts using Oracle’s PeopleSoft projects applications, and to project managers using Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management  Enhance project collaboration and execution by having all users utilizing common solutions to communicate, plan, and deliver projects “By bringing together Oracle’s PeopleSoft projects applications and Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management, we are able to provide customers with the infrastructure they need to achieve a single source of truth on the projects they are managing,” says Paco Aubrejuan, Oracle’s group vice president and general manager, PeopleSoft. “This real-time visibility drives profitability, increases productivity, and improves operations.” For more information, view the on-demand Webcast, “Bridging Business Processes for Optimal Portfolio Performance,” or read about the new integration.

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  • Oracle Brings Analytics to Project Management

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Excerpt from PROFIT - ORACLE - by Alison Weiss  Nonprofit and for-profit organizations have many differences, but there is one way they are alike—managers struggle with huge amounts of data generated every day. Project data by itself has limited use—but any organization that can gain insight to make accurate predictions or to use resources more effectively can gain an operational advantage. Oracle’s Primavera P6 Analytics 2.0 business intelligence solution enables organizations using Oracle’s Primavera P6 Professional Project Management to do just that: identify critical issues and uncover trends in stores of project data. Primavera P6 Analytics provides management with the ability to look at not only how a single effort is progressing, but also how the entire organization is doing from a project perspective. The latest release includes new features that make it even easier to gather and analyze critical information. For example, the addition of geocoding gives Primavera P6 Analytics users the ability to track resources geographically on longitude and latitude and use a map to get an overall view of how projects, programs, and activities are deployed. “A nonprofit with relief projects in Vietnam, for example, can drill down to the project and get a world view and a regional view,” says Yasser Mahmud, vice president of product strategy and industry marketing in Oracle’s Primavera Global Business Unit. “Then they can drill down further to show statistics; key performance indicators; and how that program, portfolio, or project work is actually getting done.” The addition of new mobile capabilities to Primavera P6 Analytics puts deep-dive analysis into project managers’ hands with compatibility with major tablet operating systems. Now, nonprofits or for-profits working in remote locations can provide real-time visibility into projects to alert management if issues are occurring that need to be addressed immediately. “Primavera P6 Analytics generates information that can help organizations improve their utilization and trim down overall operating costs,” says Mahmud. “But more importantly, it gives organizations improved visibility.”

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  • Five Ideas: Project Management

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
     Except from Profit Magazine “For everyone to put on the project manager hat and standardize the way every single thing is done means that now the whole organization is on the same page as to what needs to occur from the time a hurricane hits Haiti and when a boat pulls in to unload supplies.” —Rich D’Addario, consulting project manager in the Primavera Global Business Unit at Oracle, on helping AmeriCares deliver aid to Haiti “Primavera P6 Analytics generates information that can help organizations improve their utilization and trim down overall operating costs. But more importantly, it gives organizations improved visibility.” —Yasser Mahmud, vice president of product strategy and industry marketing in Oracle’s Primavera Global Business Unit “Organizations are constantly looking for ways to improve the speed and precision of their decisions and work without creating environments and systems that limit their personnel through rigid structures and inflexible processes. The latest release of Primavera Portfolio Management meets this demand by further streamlining processes and supporting enhanced decision-making, helping drive better value from portfolios. In addition, the new UI clearly demonstrates Oracle's commitment to providing a seamlessly integrated enterprise project portfolio management product suite.” —Mike Sicilia, senior vice president, Oracle's Primavera “Make it a business project, not an IT project. All levels of functional management must have ownership, responsibility, and accountability for the success of the implementation.” —from Eaton Operations Services Manager Marcos Baccetto's 9 Project Management Tips “AEC firms must strategically pursue standardization opportunities in the project management area while preserving the spirit of entrepreneurism and flexibility at an individual project manager level. An enterprise technology platform doesn't only help with standardization of key project management processes across the enterprise; it also improves performance management, team collaboration and client specific reporting at an individual project level.” —Maneesh Chhabra is a director of Industry Strategy and Insight at Oracle

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  • Business Insight, IT Execution: 9 Project Management Tips

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Excerpt from Profit Magazine - by David Rosenbaum When Marcos Baccetto was first asked to be the business-side project lead on Eaton Corporation’s Vehicle Group South America (VGSA) Oracle project, the operations services manager responsible for running manufacturing was, he confesses, “a little afraid” because of his lack of IT experience. Today, Baccetto calls the project “a fantastic experience,” and he is a true believer in the benefits of a close relationship between IT implementers and their line-of-business peers. Through his partnership with Jesiele Lima, then VGSA IT manager, Baccetto and Eaton’s South American operations team came to understand several important principles of business and IT. Here he shares nine tips managers should consider when working on an enterprise technology project. 1. Make it a business project, not an IT project. All levels of functional management must have ownership, responsibility, and accountability for the success of the implementation. 2. Share responsibility. Business owners should sign off on tests and data conversion. 3. Clean your data. Dedicating a team to improve core data quality prior to project launch can be a significant time-saver. 4. Select resources properly. Have functional people who can translate business needs to IT and can influence organizational change. 5. Manage scope. Follow project management methodologies and disciplines. 6. Adopt common processes, global solutions. Avoid customized, local solutions. The big-picture business goals can get lost in the details. 7. Implement processes prior to the go-live date. Change management can be key. Keep the workforce informed and train users in advance. 8. Define metrics milestones. Assume there will be a crisis during deployment. Having baseline metrics to compare against will help implementers keep their cool—and the project moving forward. 9. The sponsor’s commitment is critical. It is needed to support the truly difficult decisions.

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  • For 2D games, is there any reason NOT to use a 3D API like Direct3D or OpenGL?

    - by Eric Palakovich Carr
    I've been out of hobby Game Development for quite a while now. Back when I did it, most people used Direct Draw to create 2D games. By the time I stopped people were saying OpenGL or Direct3D with an orthogonal projection is just the way to go. I'm thinking about getting back into creating 2D games, in particular on mobile phone but maybe on the XNA platform as well. To make something using OpenGL I'd have a (hopefullly) small learning curve to acclimate myself to 3D development. Is there any reason to skip that and instead work with a 2D framework where I just have a Width x Height frame buffer I need to fill with pixels?

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  • Projected Results

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Excerpt from PROFIT - ORACLE - by Monica Mehta Yasser Mahmud has seen a revolution in project management over the past decade. During that time, the former Primavera product strategist (who joined Oracle when his company was acquired in 2008) has not only observed a transformation in the way IT systems support corporate projects but the role project portfolio management (PPM) plays in the enterprise. “15 years ago project management was the domain of project management office (PMO),” Mahmud recalls of earlier days. “But over the course of the past decade, we've seen it transform into a mission critical enterprise discipline, that has made Primavera indispensable in the board room. Now, as a senior manager, a board member, or a C-level executive you have direct and complete visibility into what’s kind of going on in the organization—at a level of detail that you're going to consume that information.” Now serving as Oracle’s vice president of product strategy and industry marketing, Mahmud shares his thoughts on how Oracle’s Primavera solutions have evolved and how best-in-class project portfolio management systems can help businesses stay competitive. Profit: What do you feel are the market dynamics that are changing project management today? Mahmud: First, the data explosion. We're generating data at twice the rate at which we can actually store it. The same concept applies for project-intensive organizations. A lot of data is gathered, but what are we really doing with it? Are we turning data into insight? Are we using that insight and turning it into foresight with analytics tools? This is a key driver that will separate the very good companies—the very competitive companies—from those that are not as competitive. Another trend is centered on the explosion of mobile computing. By the year 2013, an estimated 35 percent of the world’s workforce is going to be mobile. That’s one billion people. So the question is not if you're going to go mobile, it’s how fast you are going to go mobile. What kind of impact does that have on how the workforce participates in projects? What worked ten to fifteen years ago is not going to work today. It requires a real rethink around the interfaces and how data is actually presented. Profit: What is the role of project management in this new landscape? Mahmud: We recently conducted a PPM study with the Economist Intelligence Unit centered to determine how important project management is considered within organizations. Our target was primarily CFOs, CIOs, and senior managers and we discovered that while 95 percent of participants believed it critical to their business, only six percent were confident that projects were delivered on time and on budget. That’s a huge gap. Most organizations are looking for efficiency, especially in these volatile financial times. But senior management can’t keep track of every project in a large organization. As a result, executives are attempting to inventory the work being conducted under their watch. What is often needed is a very high-level assessment conducted at the board level to say, “Here are the 50 initiatives that we have underway. How do they line up with our strategic drivers?” This line of questioning can provide early warning that work and strategy are out of alignment; finding the gap between what the business needs to do and the actual performance scorecard. That’s low-hanging fruit for any executive looking to increase efficiency and save money. But it can only be obtained through proper assessment of existing projects—and you need a project system of record to get that done. Over the next decade or so, project management is going to transform into holistic work management. Business leaders will want make sure key projects align with corporate strategy, but also the ability to drill down into daily activity and smaller projects to make sure they line up as well. Keeping employees from working on tasks—even for a few hours—that don’t line up with corporate goals will, in many ways, become a competitive differentiator. Profit: How do all of these market challenges and shifting trends impact Oracle’s Primavera solutions and meeting customers’ needs? Mahmud: For Primavera, it’s a transformation from being a project management application to a PPM system in the enterprise. Also making that system a mission-critical application by connecting to other key applications within the ecosystem, such as the enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain, and CRM systems. Analytics have also become a huge component. Business analytics have made Oracle’s Primavera applications pertinent in the boardroom. Now, as a senior manager, a board member, a CXO, CIO, or CEO, you have direct visibility into what’s going on in the organization at a level that you're able to consume that information. In addition, all of this information pairs up really well with your financials and other data. Certainly, when you're an Oracle shop, you have that visibility that you didn’t have before from a project execution perspective. Profit: What new strategies and tools are being implemented to create a more efficient workplace for users? Mahmud: We believe very strongly that just because you call something an enterprise project portfolio management system doesn’t make it so—you have to get people to want to participate in the system. This can’t be mandated down from the top. It simply doesn’t work that way. A truly adoptable solution is one that makes it super easy for all types users to participate, by providing them interfaces where they live. Keeping that in mind, a major area of development has been alternative user interfaces. This is increasingly resulting in the creation of lighter weight, targeted interfaces such as iOS applications, and smartphones interfaces such as for iPhone and Android platform. Profit: How does this translate into the development of Oracle’s Primavera solutions? Mahmud: Let me give you a few examples. We recently announced the launch of our Primavera P6 Team Member application, which is a native iOS application for the iPhone. This interface makes it easier for team members to do their jobs quickly and effectively. Similarly, we introduced the Primavera analytics application, which can be consumed via mobile devices, and when married with Oracle Spatial capabilities, users can get a geographical view of what’s going on and which projects are occurring in various locations around the world. Lastly, we introduced advanced email integration that allows project team members to status work via E-mail. This functionality leverages the fact that users are in E-mail system throughout the day and allows them to status their work without the need to launch the Primavera application. It comes back to a mantra: provide as many alternative user interfaces as possible, so you can give people the ability to work, to participate, to raise issues, to create projects, in the places where they live. Do it in such a way that it’s non-intrusive, do it in such a way that it’s easy and intuitive and they can get it done in a short amount of time. If you do that, workers can get back to doing what they're actually getting paid for.

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  • How to set up bridged networking in Xen?

    - by Joe Carr
    I have 2 domU virtual machines installed on a 11.10 Oneiric Dom0. My internal network is on the 192.168.1 subnet, and when the domU's start, they get ips on the 192.168.122 subnet. I have attempted to follow the instructions here : http://wiki.kartbuilding.net/index.php/Xen_Networking xend-config.sxp is configured correctly, but neither of my domU's have a config file in /etc/xen to modify. ifconfig reports that I have the following devices : eth0, lo, tap3.0, vif3.0, vif4.0, virbr0 bridge-utils is installed. I also just attempted to follow these steps : http://serverfault.com/questions/233201/bringing-the-xenbr0-interface-up-on-xen-under-ubuntu-8-04 sudo brctl addbr xenbr0 sudo brctl addif xenbr0 vif3.0 device vif3.0 is already a member of a bridge; can't enslave it to bridge xenbr0. Any ideas on next steps are greatly appreciated!

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  • How do I fix "Grub Rescue"? Uninstallation?

    - by Julien Mackenzie
    I am currently dual-booting windows 7 and Ubuntu. I am about to sell my computer so I was following a tutorial on how to uninstall Ubuntu. I had deleted my partitions like the tutorial said and now I get this: error : no such partition grub rescue_ I am now looking for help on Getting out of this "grub rescue" Uninstalling Ubuntu and/or factory reset Notes -Newbie - No windows disks -I have spare CDs

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  • Webcor Builders Coordinates Construction Schedules and Mitigates Potential Delays More Efficiently with Integrated Project Management

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} With more than 40 years of commercial construction experience, Webcor Builders is a leading builder of distinguished, high-profile projects, including high-rise condominiums and hotels, laboratories, healthcare centers, and public works projects. Webcor is also known for its award-winning concrete, interior construction, historic restoration, and seismic renovation work. The company has completed more than 50 million square feet of projects to date. Considering the variety and complexity of the construction projects Webcor undertakes, an integrated project management solution is critical to ensuring optimal efficiency and completing client projects on time and on budget. The company previously used a number of scheduling systems for its various building projects. These packages provided different levels of schedule detail and required schedulers, engineers, and other employees to learn multiple systems. From an IT cost and complexity perspective, the company had to manage multiple scheduling systems and pay for multiple sets of licenses. The company looked to standardize on an enterprise project management system, and selected Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management. Webcor uses the solution’s advanced capabilities to schedule complex projects, analyze delays, model and propose multiple scenarios to demonstrate and mitigate delays and cost overruns, and process that information efficiently to deliver the scheduling precision that public and private projects require. In fact, the solution was instrumental in helping the company’s expansion into public sector projects during the recent economic downturn, and with Primavera P6 in place, it can deliver the precise schedule reporting required for large public projects. With Primavera P6 in place, the company could deliver the precise scheduling and milestone reporting capabilities required for large public projects. The solution is in managing the high-profile University of California – Berkeley Memorial Stadium project. Webcor was hired as construction manager and general contractor for the stadium renovation project, which is a fast-paced project located near the seismically active Hayward Fault Zone. Due to the University of California’s football schedule, meeting the Universities deadline for the coming season placed Webcor in a situation where risk awareness and early warnings of issues would be paramount. Webcor and the extended project team needed a solution that could instantly analyze alternate scenarios to mitigate potential delays; Primavera would deliver those answers.The team would also need to enable multiple stakeholders to use an internet-based platform to access the schedule from various locations, and model complicated sequencing requirements where swift decisions would be made to keep the project on track. The schedule is an integral part of Webcor’s construction management process for the stadium project. Rather than providing the client with the industry-standard monthly update, Webcor updates the critical path method (CPM) schedule on a weekly basis. The project team also reviews the schedule and updates weekly to confirm that progress and forecasted performance are accurate. Hired by the University for their ability to deliver in high risk environments The Webcor team was hit recently with a design supplement that could have added up to 70 days to the project. Using Oracle Primavera P6 the team sprung into action analyzing multiple “what if” scenarios to review mitigation means and methods.  Determined to make sure the Bears could take the field in the coming season the project team nearly eliminated the impact with their creative analysis in working the schedule. The total time from the issuance of the final design supplement to an agreed mitigation response was less than one week; leveraging the Oracle Primavera solution Webcor was able to deliver superior customer value With the ability to efficiently manage projects and schedules, Webcor can ensure it completes its projects on time and on budget, as well as inform clients about what changes to plans will mean in terms of delays and additional costs. Read the complete customer case study at :  http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/customers/customersearch/webcor-builders-1-primavera-ss-1639886.html

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  • Arçelik A.S. Uses Advanced Analytics to Improve Product Development

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    "Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management’s advanced analytics gives us better insight into the product development process by helping us to identify potential roadblocks.” – Iffet Iyigun Meydanli, Innovation and System Development Manager, R&D Center, Arçelik A.S. Founded in 1955, Arçelik A.S. is now the leading household appliance manufacturer in Turkey, and the third-largest household appliance company in Europe. It operates 14 production facilities in five countries (Turkey, Romania, Russia, China, and South Africa), with international sales and marketing offices in 20 countries. Additionally, the company manages 10 brands (Arçelik, Beko, Grundig, Blomberg, Elektrabregenz, Arctic, Leisure, Flavel, Defy, and Altus). The company has a household presence in more than 100 countries, including China and the United States. Arçelik’s Beko brand is among the top-10 household appliance brands in world, as a market leader for refrigerators, freezers, and washing machines in the United Kingdom. Arçelik implemented Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management for improved management of its design and manufacturing projects. With the solution, Arelik has improved its research and development (R&D) with the ability to evaluate technology risks when planning its projects. Also, it is now more easy to make plans for several locations, monitor all resources, and plan for future projects.  Challenges Improve monitoring of R&D resources?including human resources and critical laboratory equipment?to optimize management of the company’s R&D project portfolio Establish a transparent project platform to enable better product and process planning, gain insight into product performance, and facilitate advanced analytics that support R&D and overall business decisions Identify potential roadblocks for better risk management Solutions Worked with Oracle Partner PRM to implement Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management to manage the entire household-appliance, R&D project portfolio lifecycle, enabling managers and project leaders to better track and monitor resources and deliverables in real time Improved risk analysis and evaluation abilities for R&D projects Supported long-term planning needs Used advanced reporting features to capture data needed for budgeting and other project details, including employee performance evaluations Improved monitoring abilities and insight into the overall performance of products postproduction Enabled flexible, fast, and customized reporting with the P6 dashboard on a centralized platform to meet custom reporting needs for project leaders and support on-time and on-budget deliverables Integrated with other corporate departments, such as accounts payable, to upload project invoice data into the Primavera solution and the company’s e-mail system, so that project leaders will be alerted about milestones and other project related information Partner“Oracle Partner PRM provided us with a quick, reliable, and solution-focused approach to its support,” said Iffet Iyigun Meydanli, innovation and system development manager, R&D Center, Arçelik A.S. “The company’s service covered the entire spectrum of our needs, including implementation, training, configuration, problem solving, and integration.”

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  • Successfully Deliver on State and Local Capital Projects through Project Portfolio Management

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} While the debate continues on Capitol Hill about which federal programs to cut and which to keep, communities and towns across America are feeling the budget crunch closer to home. State and local governments are trying to save as many projects as they can without promising too much to constituents – and they, in turn, want to know where their tax dollars are going. Fortunately, with the right planning and management, you can deliver successful projects and portfolios on a limited budget. Watch the replay of our recent webcast with Oracle Primavera and Industry Product Manager Garrett Harley that will demonstrate how state and local governments can get the most out of their capital projects and learn how two Oracle Primavera customers have implemented project portfolio management practices to: Predict the cost of long-term capital programs and projects Assess risk and mitigation strategies Collaborate and track performance across government agencies Speakers: Garrett Harley, Industry and Product Manager, Oracle Primavera Cory Davis, Director of Capital Renovation and New Construction, Chicago Public Schools Julie Owen, PSP™, CCC™, Sr. Project Controls Manager,LA Metro Transit Authority With the right planning and management, state and local governments can deliver successful projects on a limited budget. 1024x768 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}

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  • How to Reap Anticipated ROI in Large-Scale Capital Projects

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Only a small fraction of companies in asset-intensive industries reliably achieve expected ROI for major capital projects 90 percent of the time, according to a new industry study. In addition, 12 percent of companies see expected ROIs in less than half of their capital projects. The problem: no matter how sophisticated and far-reaching the planning processes are, many organizations struggle to manage risks or reap the expected value from major capital investments. The data is part of the larger survey of companies in oil and gas, mining and metals, chemicals, and utilities industries. The results appear in Prepare for the Unexpected: Investment Planning in Asset-Intensive Industries, a comprehensive new report sponsored by Oracle and developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Analysts say the shortcomings in large-scale, long-duration capital-investments projects often stem from immature capital-planning processes. The poor decisions that result can lead to significant financial losses and disappointing project benefits, which are particularly harmful to organizations during economic downturns. The report highlights three other important findings. Teaming the right data and people doesn’t guarantee that ROI goals will be achieved. Despite involving cross-functional teams and looking at all the pertinent data, executives are still failing to identify risks and deliver bottom-line results on capital projects. Effective processes are the missing link. Project-planning processes are weakest when it comes to risk management and predicting costs and ROI. Organizations participating in the study said they fail to achieve expected ROI because they regularly experience unexpected events that derail schedules and inflate budgets. But executives believe that using more-robust risk management and project planning strategies will help avoid delays, improve ROI, and more accurately predict the long-term cost of initiatives. Planning for unexpected events is a key to success. External factors, such as changing market conditions and evolving government policies are difficult to forecast precisely, so organizations need to build flexibility into project plans to make it easier to adapt to the changes. The report outlines a series of steps executives can take to address these shortcomings and improve their capital-planning processes. Read the full report or take the benchmarking survey and find out how your organization compares.

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  • Today's Links (6/24/2011)

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Fusion Applications - How we look at the near future | Domien Bolmers Bolmers recaps a Logica pow-wow around Fusion Applications. Who invented e-mail? | Nicholas Carr IT apparently does matter to Nicholas Carr as he shares links to Errol Morris's 5-part NYT series about the origins of email. David Sprott's Blog: Service Oriented Cloud (SOC) "Whilst all the really good Cloud environments are Service Oriented," says Sprott, "it’s very much the minority of consumer SaaS that is today." Fast, Faster, JRockit | René van Wijk Oracle ACE René van Wijk tells you "everything you ever wanted to know about the JRockit JVM, well quite a lot anyway." Creating an XML document based on my POJO domain model – how will JAXB help me? | Lucas Jellema "I thought that adding a few JAXB annotations to my existing POJO model would do the trick," says Jellema, "but no such luck." Announcing Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting | Theresa Hickman Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting is designed to help companies track and report greenhouse emissions. Yoga framework for REST-like partial resource access | William Vambenepe Vambenepe says: "A tweet by Stefan Tilkov brought Yoga to my attention, 'a framework for supporting REST-like URI requests with field selectors.'" InfoQ: Pragmatic Software Architecture and the Role of the Architect "Joe Wirtley introduces software architecture and the role of the architect in software development along with techniques, tips and resources to help one get started thinking as an architect."

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  • Cannot create a new domain in an existing active directory forest

    - by Mackenzie Carr
    I have a domain controller setup on Windows Server 2008 R2 (Forest) and I have another Windows Server 2008 R2 (New Domain) and I want to create a new domain in an existing forest. I get the following error: An Active Directory domain controller for the domain mackdev.mackenziecarr.com could not be contacted The error was "no records found for the given DNS query" The query was for the SRV record for: _ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.mackdev.mackenziecarr.com I've seem to have tried everything even tried adding this record to the DNS server of the primary forest. I even successfully joined this server to the domain without any issues but trying to create a new domain under the existing forest is no luck. The primary forest I.P. address is 192.168.2.20 the server that I am using to try to make a child domain is 192.168.2.21 My ipconfig are as follows: I.P. Address: 192.168.2.21 Subnetmask: 255.255.255.0 Gateway: 192.168.2.1 Primary DNS: 192.168.2.20

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  • If I can take a screen capture of a graphical anomaly, can it still be a hardware issue?

    - by Jay Carr
    I have a strange graphical anomaly going on my iMac right now (green and magenta boxes are appearing sporadically), I'm slowly trying to work through different possibilities but I thought I'd start with the basics: Can a graphical anomaly that I can screen capture still be a hardware issue? I know, it seems really obvious. If it's hardware, it should show up well after the operating system has had it's say. And since the operating system is (I assume) doing the screen capture, it seems like it shouldn't see the anomaly unless the problem is software in nature. But, as I've researched this problem I see a lot of people taking their computers in to service people for hardware issues and Apple then resolving said issue. To further complicate things, I also have Windows 8 installed via bootcamp, and the issues seems to be showing up there as well. Anyway, it feels like it must be a driver issue, since I assume that's what the two OSes have in common, but...I thought I'd come here for some disambiguation. In my case, yes, I can screen capture the anomaly (at least in OSX I can), so I assume it's somehow a software (or driver) issue. But I wanted to double check because the internet is being ambiguous...

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  • Macbook Pro won't boot from DVD with SSD

    - by Adam Carr
    Here's the timeline of events. Had a running MBP 17 Early 2011 Thunderbolt with OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD 115GB drive. Installed Windows 7 via bootcamp. I have done this multiple times before and every time I need to format the bootcamp partition before installing. I think this time I actually deleted the partition and then selected the freespace to install. This worked fine for the most part but I wasn't able to boot the boot camp partition using vmware fusion. I gave up and used the boot camp assistant to revert back to one mac partition. I was getting some odd behavior so I rebooted the machine. It then came up with a message saying no bootable partiton. This made me think (and still does) that the windows install using the free space versus the boot camp partition caused the windows MBR boot loader to get installed incorrectly and mucked up the OS X installation. Ok, fine, I can just reinstall. I can't seem to boot from the original MBP installation DVD. I hold down c on boot but I never get past the all grey screen. I hear the DVD drive spin up but it eventually stops. I put the original HD back in it and everything works fine but when I put the SSD in, I can't boot from the DVD drive. I have already set up an RMA with OWC to send back the drive but considering the order of events, I feel as though it isn't a hardware issue but can't seem to figure out how to fix it. I can always send it back in but figured I would check and see if anyone could offer some guideance/assistence before doing so.

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  • Intel NIC X540-T1 non-functional in Ubuntu Server 12.04

    - by Jeff Carr
    I have installed three Intel X540-T1's in servers running Ubuntu Server 12.04, but all are non-functional, no link lights, no packets sent or received, and no connection on ip4 or ip6 whether set up as dhcp or static. Also, dmesg doesn't detect cable connection or disconnection. I updated the default ixgbe driver to Intel's latest version (3.11.33) with no change. The ethernet controller is being reported as X540-AT2 (which might be a problem that I can't figure out how to fix), but the subsystem is X540-T1 so I believe that might be intended. Does anyone have any experience with this that could assist? ifconfig eth2 eth2 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr a0:36:9f:14:5f:ea inet addr:192.168.101.1 Bcast:192.168.101.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1<br> RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) ethtool -i eth2 driver: ixgbe version: 3.11.33 firmware-version: 0x8000037c bus-info: 0000:08:00.0 supports-statistics: yes supports-test: yes supports-eeprom-access: yes supports-register-dump: yes lspci -vvnns 08:00.0 08:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller 10 Gigabit X540-AT2 [8086:1528] (rev 01) Subsystem: Intel Corporation Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X540-T1 [8086:0002] Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr+ Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx+ Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 32 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16 Region 0: Memory at e8000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=2M] Region 4: Memory at e8200000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=16K] [virtual] Expansion ROM at e8280000 [disabled] [size=512K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ixgbe Kernel modules: ixgbe

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