Digital Solution Group

Potpourri

Our “Potpourri” section is a diverse collection of articles that shine a light on how we perceive and influence the retail, Consumer Products, and Consumer Goods industries. Discover insights on:

How does your data affect your AI strategy?

Corporations are engaged in some form of AI strategy to enhance their business operations primarily focused on customer service and some form of digesting documents that have been sheltered from direct access. However, there is a gap between automating customer service or traversing thousands of previously untapped documents and actually apply AI to the detailed information that profiles what they engineer as products they deliver to market. This gap exists because AI can’t process information a

MDM vs Digital Fluidity Throughout the SolutionScape

The purpose of this article is to provide a summary of the distinct differences of using an MDM for centralized data visibility vs the use of Digital Fluidity as a means of ensuring that data is formally integrated between and reportable from all systems that make up an organization’s SolutionScape. The begin with, let’s define the terms MDM, SolutionScape, and Digital Fluidity. MDM (or Master Data Management) is often defined providing … “a unified view of data across multiple systems to meet

Ambiguousness: A means to no end.

I have been in the business of formalizing and executing activities that achieve the basis and details of agreements for decades and the one thing that I have found is that: If you are ambiguous in defining the agreement between you and your customer, you are sure to have controversy, which leads to strife and an unhealthy experience. An example (though simplistic) would be where the requirements definition (which is in fact an agreement) states that a consulting company will produce all report

Rats Nest vs Digital Fluidity: Easy Choice when done through the process of incrementalism.

The adaptation of technology as a means of automating or in some manner reducing manual labor / activity is something that has benefited businesses both in (1) expediting the delivery of products to market yielding higher revenue / margins, and (2) enabling its agility to respond appropriately to changing market conditions. This is what is referred to as the Digital Fluidity of the Mind to Market process of Retail. When I led the effort to introduce enterprise level PLM to the Retail Market back

Digital Solution Group Applies KISS to Systems Integration

I was recently chatting with an ex-military retiree that is now serving as a greeter at a national retail chain, and we got into the basics of how one is instructed to salute an officer. Being an Air Force veteran myself, I recalled that the military instructors used the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) method to instruct us new recruits on how to salute an officer. The process applied was to answer the following questions. Why? What? When? and How?WHY: To show respect to an officer of the Air For

Riddle Me This ...

If I asked someone to travel 1 city block to grab an envelope that contained $10,000 located atop a box in front of a coffee shop BEFORE anyone else gets there, they would SPRINT as fast as possible in hopes of getting there before anyone else. However, why is it that if I approached someone responsible for merchandising, designing, developing or sourcing products in the RETAIL industry and asked them to get their products to market at the right time and at the right price AND in the right locat

Digital Transformation: Involves the transformation of people too...

Digital Transformation often requires showing respect for the old times and the old timers. To just write those words without some form of validation is like saying the sky is blue to someone without the benefit of eyesight. So, the purpose of this writing is to provide an analogy that is something that has a reasonableness to occur in the lives of a newlywed couple going through a life transformation, having their own holdouts. In the minds of most, Digital Transformation is something that perf

Overcoming Fear ...

I recall when I was much younger than today, I would engage opportunities with an unbridled sense of what was to be accomplished; the challenge was never paired with the danger; the goal was never matched with the disaster that could face me because there was no experience of such. Time passed in life and the possibility of failure became coupled with the desire for success and it was never more apparent than when I faced my first challenge to dive off a 45’ bridge in my hometown of Herkimer, NY

Making Cents of PLM Based Systems Integrations

One of the hardest things to engage in is the cost justification of a technology and its positive impact on an organization. In general, there are objective and there are subjective benefits from the implementation and adoption of a system into an organization’s operational profile. Objective benefits are those that have calculable value – such as the savings of the time spent by a person (of a specific role) to perform a specific function. Example being the elimination of the multiple entry

Systems Integration vs Human Relationships

As the title implies, this article will provide a comparative of how Systems Integration is as vital to business operations as Human Relationships are to a civilization; or as Oxford would define civilization as “the stage of human social and cultural development and organization that is considered most advanced”. It is common knowledge that all normal humans seek out a range of relationships with other humans, consisting of a family (mother, father, son, daughter, brother, or sister), social (f

The Need for a Systems Integration Strategy / Tactical Plan

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems in support of the Retail Market have always been targeted to provide centralized organization of all product data and basic product development in one system. I know this because I led the effort in developing / delivering the retail market’s first enterprise PLM system. This followed years of experience as I led the birth and penetrated use of PDM/PLM in the Aerospace, Automotive, High Tech (Discrete) industries where CAD “vaulting” / management, parts

The Extended Value of PLM in Retail

The extended value of PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) has been proven in a wide range of Hardline industries, such as Aerospace, Automotive, Discrete, High Tech, and Medical Devices. In these industries there has been developed an intimacy of integration between a company’s PLM system and the CAD/CAM, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). These integrations added value to a company’s PLM system by creating a high degree of operationally efficiency becau

Tail Wagging the Dog

The term “tail wagging the dog” is one that is often used when something that is “downstream” takes a prime position over something “upstream”. Though it was the basis of the name of a 1997 movie “Wag the Dog”, the purpose of this writing is to instead identify the situation that is all too prevalent as manufacturing businesses (such as Consumer Products) reach a point where they have sufficient product offerings in market and shift their focus and priorities to the Manufacturing / Financial Ma

Defining SolutionScape and Digital Fluidity

The term SolutionScape is defined by Digital Solution Group (“DSG”) as the array of systems, applications, and services that are engaged to bring a company’s product from mind to market. As one can assemble, this includes (for most companies) some form of: product line or assortment planning, 2D and/or 3D product design, (potentially) voice of the customer, product lifecycle management, product development of a “tech pack”, some level of materials management, some form of color (or finish)

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