Questions & answers and audio interview by Outlook Series on Kovair Value Stream Delivery Enables Industry 4.0
Question from Michael: Welcome Akshay! As CTO for Kovair, having completed over 3 years there as a tech advisor and CTO, Akshay, what are the key benefits of using Kovair’s VSMP/VSDP: Value Stream Management and Delivery Platform for helping Transition Enterprises towards Industry4.0?
Response from Akshay:Thanks for the question…Michael!
Let’s first define Industry4.0
Industry 4.0 is the information-intensive transformation of manufacturing (and related industries) in a connected environment of big data, people, processes, services, systems and IoT-enabled industrial assets with the generation, leverage, and utilization of actionable data and information as a way and means to realize smart industry and ecosystems of industrial innovation and collaboration.
On Industry4.0, and the different Industrial Revolutions, I believe, we have gone from the Steam Engine, to the Combustion Engine, to the Cloud-based Search Engine, to now the 5G-Enabled Automated Workflow Engine.
Kovair’s uniquely positioned for Industry4.0 service enablement and management.
First: Kovair’s PPM: Project and Portfolio Management solution within it’s VSMP/VSDP solution set can provide stakeholders a unified platform to manage budgets, schedules, resources, risk and hazard management, and field data through a single interface, along with Revenue Management, and the Logistics of Payment/Invoice Management, which is always needed in any Industrial setting.
Secondly: Kovair allows IT to develop it’s software as a product using Kovair DevOps and ALM solutions, manage the delivery of it using Kovair’s CI/CD functions in the Cloud or on-prem, manage the lifecycle for the product, “ideate” it’s API’s and process workflows to the product with Kovair’s Gartner Cool Vendor Awarded Omnibus, as an Enterprise Service Bus to the product, with Role-based and Policy-controls, and now provide Revenue Management functions too within Kovair’s VSMP/VSDP solutions.
Thirdly: Kovair’s VSMP (Value Stream Management Platform), VSDP (Value Stream Delivery Platform), PPM (Project and Portfolio Management) for DevSecOps, and Omnibus as an iPaaS: integration Platform as a Service helps clients automate and seamlessly manage their workflows helping enable Industry4.0, with product lifecycle management, governance, and process compliance all seamlessly integrated.
Kovair’s value proposition for Industry4.0 is:
- Kovair manages all flows using open communication standards and exposes the data through standard APIs and web services, with security engineered in.
- Kovair’s solutions enable the development of business applications and business analytics software on top of Enterprise Service Bus middleware which can compute the information collected from millions of devices, and enable newer services with Drag-and-Drop Agility of Certified Solutions!
Question from Michael: Akshay, When it comes to S/W teams, how do they embark on this journey transitioning to Industry4.0?
Response from Akshay: Good Question, Michael,
The recommendations for CIOs, CTOs, and IT Leaders include the following:
- First, They need to form an Industry4.0 Team structure that identifies the volume, variety and velocity of data from systems, business processes and internal data lakes, and then the team can capture what Industrial applications are needed, as well as performance, and resiliency requirements, and where these need to run.
- Second: They need to identify all the data sources in motion and at rest, where and how it flows, the networks it runs over, where it will be used and consumed while protecting data privacy and addressing security vulnerabilities. A firewall alone is insufficient. Role-based Access Controls, ZTNA: Zero Trust Network Access methods, and secure encryption of all data with policy controlled API’s need to be implemented.
- Third: Newer Innovations can be explored like Advanced Risk Management through appropriate risk management analysis, by building valid data models and scenarios, with resiliencies and backup plans identified: supply chains, logistics, etc. This can be accomplished through product lifecycle management (PLM), with Risk and Hazard Management, along with the development of digital twins of processes, product and user behavior patterns, as well as for societal and environmental risk awareness, and applying newer AI/ML or predictive analytics, to anticipate needs and mitigate when needed.
- Fourth: Monetization. Monetize data, people, processes, services, as well as API’s in newer B2B systems by including contextualization of data exchanges to fuel the right data models together with the right business models. Data and analytics governance for industry organizations engaging in Industry4.0 and it’s ecosystems can harness the full value of information assets, including newer APIs.
Once the Industry4.0 Team is formed, and the internal s/w solutions are identified, for those needing localized edge computing support due to ultra-low latency requirements and resiliency requirements, the solutions can be made into “5G Edge Computing Cloud-based” products provided as a Service, some applications will be ALM-based like on-prem embedded systems, and some can external cloud-based in the public cloud offerings, and if External B2B APIs are needed to be developed whether it’s B2B, Business to Business, or B2C: Business to Consumer, these APIs must be made secure, process-compliant with the correct dashboards, with role-based policy controls to ensure the correct usage is occurring, with ideally DRaaS: disaster recovery as a service built-in.
All of which Kovair provides…and enables…
Typically Industry4.0 will require Industrial Applications like SAP for Logistics, or for Industrial Engineering solutions, may require solutions from Dassault Systems, Siemens Teamcenter, PTC Windchill, Aras Innovator, all of this can be provided with Kovair’s Omnibus as an iPaaS: integration Platform as a Service, Enterprise Service Bus which allows for pre-built integrations to 120+ applications like SAP, Salesforce, MSFT Dynamics, Cisco Appdynamics, as well as internally built applications at major organizations including leading Government agencies, Fortune 1000 firms, as well as smaller enterprises, with additional benefits including:
- Process Controls, with dashboards and metrics including Revenue Management.
- Security with Resiliency: inter-application delivery of services and information is often required to be secure, with role-based policy controls and DRaaS: disaster recovery as a service, built-in.
All this should enable a better collaborative environment for better quality, better productivity, better security, and support for better operational resiliency.
Question from Michael: Akshay, Monetization is often key to digital transformation and likely is imperative in Industry4.0. So, how can firms increase revenue with their Industry4.0 program? What are some of the different Business Models?
Response from Akshay: Michael, Enterprises are transforming with Digital Transformation moving to the Cloud, looking at Industrial IoT, looking at newer solutions like AI/ML, eKiosks, Mobile Applications, eCommerce, but this will fall flat if Monetization and Revenue Management is neglected. This Key Critical Capability needs to be addressed, as they look to transition to Industry4.0, within newer business models.
Enterprises can charge their customers using their solutions in different ways, charge for the final product like buying a car or truck, charge per transaction which is analogous to a usage fee like taking an Uber, charge by a subscription model which is analogous to an Annual Maintenance Agreement or a Leasing Arrangement, charge API access to their platform as an upsell or charge for newer updates like what Ford is now charging customers for on-demand Logistics services with their VIIZR announcement with Saleforce or GM charges for OnStar, charge based on revenues generated in rev-share approaches which is often PPP Models like Public Private Partnerships as in the case toll-roads where the City and Highway Construction firms share in the proceeds, or perhaps not charge at all but collect analytics proving increased sales of other products have occurred from the seamless integration, or decreased costs from operational efficiencies gained.
Kovair can provide the dashboards to help manage the Revenue Management and Payment Processing in this journey.
Kovair’s PPM solution delivers greater value to the organization by connecting the entire lifecycle from planning to execution. It enables IT leaders to optimize their project portfolios, manage the capacity of resources against the demands raised from different projects, and connects plans and resources to the actual project execution.
The Kovair PPM solution within it’s VSMP solution set not only provides complete visibility across the entire value stream but also provides complete visibility of the delivery lifecycle from the quintuple perspectives of Revenues, Risk, Resource, Time & Cost, to the C-Level executives as well as to the stakeholders of the projects through role-based real-time reports & dashboards.
Question from Michael:Thanks, Akshay, to wrap-up, what are the implications to business leaders for Kovair’s VSMP/VSDP for Industry4.0 announcement recently?
Response from Akshay:There are many competing siloed VSMP/VSDP solutions as well as siloed Industry4.0 solutions in the marketplace: some with Industrial Applications, some with data lakes and data migration solutions, some with API middleware pre-packaged with Low Code / No Code configuration capabilities, some with siloed ALM (applications lifecycle management) tools support, some with DevOps tools support to migrate to Cloud applications, some with dashboard and analytics data lakes and repositories, but only Kovair packages all of the above within one framework, with workflow automation functions, as well as product lifecycle management functions, for not only Technical Leaders, but Business Leaders as well. Only Kovair uniquely offers all of the above with Revenue Management and Payment Invoice Management as an added capability.
Question from Michael: Thanks, Akshay, Any final thoughts? Where can our audience get more information on Improving Business Models with Kovair VSMP/VSDP for Industry4.0?
Response from Akshay: Thanks Michael, www.kovair.com has a wealth of information there.
- One final thought, I would highlight from Kovair.com people can try Kovair on the Cloud, as a Proof of Concept trial, and try before you buy. Kovair can support remote management via dashboards showing all the process metrics and statuses to be visualized in real-time, and provide remote control of workflow pipelines via email, with role-based policy controls, it supports multiple databases, across hybrid multi-clouds, including 5G Edge Clouds, and Kovair’s Workflow Process Engine is unique with Task-based models which supports concurrency, which is more representative of real-world teams as teams are likely working on multiple tasks concurrently and remotely, across different environments.
- These are challenging times now but with newer solutions, and newer thinking, hopefully this will all be alleviated with better solutions from platform providers like Kovair as we discussed. Hopefully the result is better harmony within IT teams, and better business outcomes… from innovations by Kovair
- So hopefully this is a Game-changer!
Comment from Michael: Indeed it is! Thank you Akshay!
Source: Outlook Series Value Stream Delivery Enables Industry 4.0