DECEMBER 2015MANUFACTURINGTECHNOLOGYINSIGHTS.COM9available to researchers when and where they need it and at the same time, collect information about the use of our products and by whom. We were able to enhance our existing NEB freezer program by adding a tablet on the front of each freezer, allowing scientists to authentic themselves, view available products, open freezers and scan products for check-out. Every step of this process is automated and connected on the back-end to Salesforce where NEB can monitor the products being purchased, send automated purchase confirmation emails, and track new buying trends and interests of scientists in real time. Additionally, we connected the Salesforce1 Platform to our back end SAP system and automated inventory replenishment.The Transforming IT ArenaIn the past, IT was always considered a necessary expense to do business. When a scientist thought of IT, it was only when they needed something related to their phone or their PC. IT was more of a ticket taker back then and was not thought of as a business partner. I believe that has changed. As the company needs have changed, so too has the response from IT. The IT team spends a lot of time with their business colleagues and works with them to solve their problems and brainstorm ways to provide efficiencies. I spend a lot of time working with my peers to understand the business itself and have frequent discussions on how IT can support and enable their business goals. Some aspects of IT can be considered a commodity, but there is much more to it where technology can add business value and provide competitive advantages.Key Initiative to Drive the ChangeIT is one of the few departments that has a unique perspective in that we have visibility and impact across all departments, from one end of the company to the other. IT is playing a very major role to drive change in a key initiative to move our production planning and manufacturing to our ERP platform, SAP. Much of the business processes that happen today are done manually with Excel spreadsheets. A major value of this initiative is to relook at the processes and determine how to take advantage of not only automation, but efficiencies. This is transformational for NEB and will provide tremendous value in understanding our business processes and in managing our product costing, inventory and production capacity. All the things we need to do as a growing company. Improved Security Security is always a concern and is a frequent topic when I talk to vendors and my peers at other companies. There are hundreds of documents and many software solutions that provide information and protection in various ways. We at NEB are in a unique type of environment. Scientists work best when they collaborate with other scientists. I don't want to inhibit research in any way, but I do want to provide an intelligent and thoughtful level of security at NEB. We do stay on top of security and consistently monitor for vulnerabilities. However, one of the best things I can do is make sure to provide frequent and consistent messaging to our employees. The more they understand how to protect themselves, the better off NEB will be. Let's face it, I can install tight security barriers around NEB, but the biggest risk is always going to be one click away by an employee in an innocent looking email.An Advice for Business Efficiency The key thing for any CIO is to learn and understand the business itself. I often wonder how you can you be a good business partner if you don't understand their problems. I would recommend to learn as much as you can as early as you can. In order to get a working knowledge of NEB's products, I actually attended a two-week Molecular Biology `boot camp' this past summer to learn the science behind our products. It was an amazing experience to actually use NEB products in true experiments. As a CIO, you also must become a master at anticipating needs of the business so you can suggest new solutions and ideas. In order to do that, a CIO must know what is going on across the company.We are deploying our SAP ERP system to help plan and manage our production and manufacturing environments
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