4-page Case Study - Posted 4/30/2007

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Ampacet

Office Business Application for Ideation Speeds Profitable Ideas to Market

Situation
Ampacet, based in Tarrytown, New York, is a specialty chemical manufacturer that is the world's leading volume provider of color and additive master-batch solutions for both rigid and flexible packaging applications ranging from toothpaste tubes to bread bags. The company has 17 manufacturing sites on four continents and four research and development (R&D) facilities across the globe in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. With 1,500 employees worldwide, the company earned 2005 revenue of about U.S. $660 million.

Ideation Goals
Innovation is vital to the success and growth of Ampacet. Thus, the company draws upon the creativity of its workers to generate, review, and advance new ideas for potential Ampacet products and processes. To support this innovation, Ampacet created channels through which ideas could be contributed for review and advancement. While many successful products were developed through these channels, Ampacet recognized that much more could be done to:

• Capture and advance a greater number of profitable ideas to production.
• Halt the expense of valuable resources spent on less strategic ideas.

Ideation Limits
After extensive review, Ampacet identified several factors which either inhibited the advancement of profitable ideas or led to the waste of valuable resources on redundant and non-profitable ideas. These included:

• Limited resources for new ideas.
• Unstructured and disconnected idea submission.
• Inconsistent scoring and progression of ideas.
• The inability to track or provide business intelligence across the ideation pipeline.

Limited resources for new ideas
Ampacet had no standardized process to encourage or capture ideas from its workforce. If a worker had an idea, the ill-defined process discouraged submission of the idea. If the worker did find a way to submit the idea, it could be lost between its submission and review at the regular, but not frequent meetings of the Research and Development (R&D) team. Additionally, because the R&D team only reviewed ideas at these meetings, the review of an idea that survived the process could be delayed for weeks or more. Thus, the likelihood of an idea making it from the mind of a worker to the R&D team for consideration was low. Equally importantly, there was no process in place to capture the ideas of Ampacet’s customers, distributors, and suppliers, whose input is highly valued by Ampacet. 

Because Ampacet realized the value of the ideas that were being untapped, lost, and delayed, it desired a solution that would create an easy way for all of its workers and its business partners and customers to contribute ideas for immediate review and potential advancement.

Unstructured and Disconnected Idea Submission and Review
Once submitted, ideas often became projects through informal channels, such as phone calls, Email messages, or other conversations which were often limited to a local region. This led to a duplication of effort on redundant ideas across regions, prolonged investment in ideas needing prompt curtailment, and insufficient investment in promising ideas that were mistakenly dropped or delayed. In some cases, ideas that had already been deemed unsuitable by one group would be advanced by other groups. Also, because there was no system to categorize each idea, it was difficult to assign its review to the people who would be able to best determine its value.

Ampacet needed a solution that would eliminate wasted resources and lost ideas and would rapidly and automatically assign its best people to determine the value of each idea, based on its type and geography.

Inconsistent Scoring and Progression of Ideas
Ampacet had no standardized process in place to ensure the efficient and adequate review of ideas. This frequently resulted in profitable ideas stalling or progressing too slowly and unprofitable ideas draining resources and attention beyond the point at which they should have been dismissed. Thus, Ampacet needed a solution that would provide a standard scoring method to quickly and adequately determine the value of each idea.

Inability to Track or Provide Business Intelligence Across the Ideation Pipeline
Because there was no visibility into its ideation, Ampacet had no clear way of seeing what ideas were in its pipeline, nor of knowing how each idea was progressing. In addition, there was no way for individuals to view their tasks or be alerted to their responsibilities on a particular idea in the process. Thus, Ampacet needed a solution that would provide individuals, teams, and executives with real-time access to the business information they required.

Critical Success Factors
To determine the success of the ideation that Ampacet desired, it identified several critical success factors and associated key performance indicators (KPIs):

• Improved quantity and quality of new product ideas that are introduced into the product development process (KPI: number of new ideas collected).
• Better incorporation of customer feedback information in each phase of the product development process across the extended company (KPI: customer satisfaction score).
• Allocation of technology resources to the right products with the highest likelihood of success and the greatest revenue potential (KPI: new, commercialized products).
• According to Dr. Victor J. Mimeault, Senior Vice President, Technical & Strategic Procurement, Ampacet:  “One of the critical success factors is more effective use of our global technical resources working on the right projects, resulting in a better return of our R&D dollars.”

Solution
To improve its ideation and product development processes, Ampacet chose to deploy an Office Business Application (OBA) developed by DataLan, a Microsoft® Gold Certified partner.  By building on the 2007 Microsoft Office system, DataLan was able to develop an OBA that:

• Opens ideation to more workers, business partners, and customers.
• Streamlines and structures the review of new ideas.
• Standardizes the progression of ideas across the organization.
• Provides visibility and improved business intelligence on ideas as they are advanced across the enterprise.
• “The [OBA] allows us to improve product innovation by identifying the most promising product ideas from around the world and allocate global technical resources on projects that have the highest likelihood of commercial success,” says Mimeault.

Figure 1. Idea Collection Form (left) and Idea Investigation Site (right)

Open Ideation to Capture More Ideas

To encourage and harvest the creativity of all its workers and many of its business partners and customers, Ampacet now has a quick and easy way for ideas to be submitted for review.  Now, when an idea is conceived for a new product or process, workers complete a brief idea collection form (see Figure #1). This form can also be used to submit ideas from business partners and customers through Ampacet’s Voice of the Customer initiative. 

This custom form, developed with Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007, is available to workers via InfoPath Forms Services, running on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. By using InfoPath Forms Services, Ampacet is able to provide every worker with access to the Web-enabled form without having to install InfoPath 2007 on the worker’s desktop.

So, now, wherever and whenever an idea is conceived, it can be immediately captured for review and potential advancement, development, and profit. Additionally, workers know that when they submit an idea, their contribution of that idea will be captured by the process for future recognition.

Streamlined and Structured Process for More Effective Review
Once an idea is submitted, a workflow is initiated to assign tasks and teams, move the ideation forward, and provide ongoing reports of its progress. This workflow capability is based on Windows® Workflow Foundation, a component of the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0, the managed code programming model for Windows.
 
The first action within the workflow is the generation of an Idea Investigation site (see Figure #1). This site, a customized Microsoft Windows® SharePoint® Services template automatically:

• Captures the XML data of the Idea Submission form and publishes it to the site via the Business Data Catalog service in SharePoint Server 2007.
• Provides an environment for communication and collaboration on the specific idea. 
• Assigns a team to review and collaborate on the idea.  This team is assigned based on custom rules triggered by the Idea Collection form.  These include details such as the type of idea and the location where the idea was submitted.  This assures that the team is in the right place with the right expertise to provide the best review.
• Sets security for the site, based on the roles of each assigned team member.
• Sends notifications to assigned team members, informing them of the idea, the site, their roles, and any upcoming tasks.
• Creates a document library to provide teams from different facilities the ability to collaborate across Ampacet’s globally dispersed facilities.

Now, whenever and wherever an idea arises, the right people are immediately gathered to review that idea for ongoing consideration. Thus, the process is both global in reach, yet manageable from the desktop.

Figure 2. Idea Development Site

Standardized Process for More Effective Idea Progression or Abandonment
Once a team has been assigned to review the idea, rather than waiting for a meeting, or having to determine the best way to review the idea, the team is provided with a customized InfoPath form to score the idea on several specific, consistent factors, including:

• Strategic fit: How does the idea fit within the company?
• Market attractiveness: How attractive would the product be to customers?
• Technical feasibility: Can the idea be implemented?

Similar to the idea collection form, the scoring form is provided via InfoPath Forms Services and the information from the form is published to the site through the Business Data Catalog. The result is an environment that supports the open collaboration of ideas and an independent scoring mechanism.

The application also incorporates a flexible scoring module which determines the number of scores that are required, based on the category of the idea. Once the required scoring forms are collected, if an idea fails to receive the necessary scores at this initial level or any subsequent level, it is immediately abandoned. This quickly eliminates wasted resources and reallocates those resources to more strategic ideas.

On the other hand, if an idea meets the scoring standard, a new page is added to the site to provide the environment for further collaboration and more thorough investigation.  At this point, new forms and business rules are applied, and actions in Business Data Catalog initiate a new workflow through which the idea moves to the second ideation level. 

Only if an idea survives the two review cycles within the idea development process, is it advanced to the more rigorous, Stage-Gate product development methodology. At this stage, a team site is created for the more thorough steps and expanded input required for the development process (see Figure 2).

To maintain continuity for tracking and business intelligence, the new site refers back to the initial idea site. While much of the basic workflow and scoring is similar, the Stage-Gate team site provides for the expanded communication and collaboration requirements to capture input across divisions and geography.

The Stage-Gate process includes four stages at which ideas are either advanced or abandoned. These include:

• Product Investigation
• Development (see Figure 2)
• Testing and Validation
• Launch and Post Imp Review
  

Visibility and Improved Business Intelligence
Whereas previously, Ampacet had little visibility into the idea process, nor any way to measure the effectiveness of the process, Ampacet now has a process that provides real-time access to the information and analysis individuals, teams, and executives need to accomplish their work and make informed decisions.  

The OBA provides executives with in-depth, real-time analysis of new product ideas throughout the idea generation process (see Figure 3). In addition to pre-built reports, including cycle times, portfolio analysis, and risk/reward assessments, delivered via Microsoft Office Excel Reporting Services, Ampacet also has the ability to create custom summary views to provide executives with the specific insight and analysis that they require by using PivotTable® and PivotChart® dynamic views of Microsoft Office Excel 2007 spreadsheets.

Figure 3. Executive view of ideas in pipeline (left) and personal view of ideation tasks (right)

Additionally, the expanded conditional formatting rules, extensibility, and visualization capabilities of Excel 2007 make it possible to provide executives with views such as heat maps, data bars, and performance indicator icons, leading to improved analysis and decisions regarding ideas in process. 

In addition to the visibility provided to R&D management and executives, the solution also provides individuals with a comprehensive view of their various tasks, contacts, and roles across any ideas to which they have been assigned (see Figure 3).

Developing the Solution
According to John Arnold, Solution Architect, DataLan, “The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides the perfect platform that Ampacet needs for improved Ideation, Stage-Gate product development, and portfolio management and to support a culture of innovation.”     

The Business Data Catalog (BDC):  The BDC within SharePoint Server 2007 facilitates the use of XML in the application and permits a single repository of the XML content from the idea collection and scoring InfoPath forms which can be reused as needed across the enterprise and the idea generation process.

Content Types:  Content Types differentiate between types of documents and tasks and thus improves the search and presentation of data within the ideation and Stage-Gate sites. They also improve security because permissions can easily be set based on Content Types and user roles. Content Types are also key to providing the specific information individual workers need to see within their personal view of ideation tasks.

Workflow: According to Robin Williams, Director of Tech Services, DataLan, “We were able to develop almost all of the workflow and data view web parts, using Microsoft SharePoint Designer. This was possible due to its interface for applying XSLT to the XML data screens or web service calls and the ability to quickly and easily create and alter custom actions.” 

Rob Jersey, Lead Developer, DataLan, adds “Using SharePoint Designer we were also able to develop workflows more quickly. Thanks to its graphical rather than code environment, we were able to assign junior members of our team to develop many pieces of the solution.” 

In addition, DataLan also used Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005 to refine and customize some of the actions and took advantage of the ability to re-use workflows throughout the application.

Excel Services: By using Microsoft Excel® Services running on Office SharePoint Server 2007, to the application provide employees and executives with real-time, interactive access to centrally located and maintained Microsoft Office Excel® 2007 spreadsheets. This insures that any calculations, metrics, or analysis is being performed against the most up-to-date information.

Benefits
The OBA provides Ampacet with a new level of structure for its idea-generation process by encapsulating the business rules for effective ideation within the workflow and data management capabilities of SharePoint. 

Business Benefits
As a result, Ampacet anticipates significant benefits, including:

Increased Sales from New Short-cycle Products of up to $60 Million: By deploying more efficient forms-based ideation and Stage-Gate processes, Ampacet anticipates doubling the number of new short-cycle products it deploys each year. As more ideas are captured, fewer resources are wasted on non-strategic ideas, and profitable ideas are advanced more quickly, Ampacet expects to develop 12 to 15 more new products over the next three years, resulting in an increase in sales by $48 million to $60 million. 

Increased Sales of Long-Cycle Products by $350 Million over Ten Years: Many ideas Ampacet expects to develop will provide continuous improvement of existing products, providing an anticipated benefit of $350 million over the next 10 years.

Improved R&D Productivity: Ampacet anticipates that while the streamlined idea generation process will significantly enhance the effectiveness of its R&D, the costs across the organization associated with that effort will be significantly reduced.

Enhanced Customer Relationships: By inviting customers into its ideation, Ampacet is able to develop products that are more responsive to its customers’ needs and is able to do so more quickly and efficiently by soliciting their input throughout the development process. In addition, by incorporating customer input, Ampacet demonstrates its commitment to serving the specific and changing needs of its customers.

More Effective Business Decisions: Thanks to real-time, comprehensive views of ideas as they advance across the enterprise, Ampacet executives and R&D management will be able to make more effective business decisions, such as the allocation of resources to advance particularly profitable ideas, the synchronization of resources to contribute in a timely fashion, and the anticipation of the needs and opportunities of ideas on the horizon. 

Mimeault concludes, “We have been searching for a way to improve both our revenue and market share from the development of new products, and we believe this new customized SharePoint solution will enable us to accomplish these goals in a shorter timeframe.”

Developer Benefits
According to Dave Wallen, Business Development Director, DataLan Corporation, “You can build solutions with SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services much faster than traditional development techniques because you can work in an assemble-and-configure way. You determine the capabilities and services you want to utilize and do as much ‘development’ as possible simply by configuring services through browser-based administrative pages.” 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer Speeds Development: The Ampacet OBA relies heavily on XML data. As they developed the solution, DataLan developers were impressed with the interface SharePoint Designer has for applying XSLT to those XML data streams or web service calls. According to Williams, “This significantly reduced the time it took to develop the solution. The foundation of the solution and 80% of the functionality was developed using SharePoint Designer, leaving only a 20% which required the use of Visual Studio.” He continues, “The graphical environment also allowed us to assign junior members of the team to do a much larger portion of the development than usual.”  

New Workflow Possible, Faster: According to Williams, “We were impressed with how easy it was to express business processes that are inherently people-driven and collaborative, such as ideation, within the workflow of SharePoint. And, the ability to reuse rather than reinvent workflows made the development process much faster.”

Microsoft Office System
The Microsoft Office system is the business world’s chosen environment for information work, providing the programs, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.

For more information about the Microsoft Office system, go to:
www.microsoft.com/office