EQMS Research Updates: EtQ Pushes Cloud and Platform, BIOVIA Goes to China, CEBOS Shows Depth [MondayMusings]

The #MondayMusings, Digital Transformation blog series provides executive level insight and analysis from the previous week’s briefings, events, and publications @LNSResearch.

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Quality Management was the first practice launched at LNS Research over five years ago and for good reason. Effective quality management impacts every facet of the value chain: engineering, manufacturing, maintenance, service, and most importantly the customer experience. However, despite the far-reaching consequences, most organizations under invest in the people, process, and technology capabilities needed to drive success.

Dan Jacob became our Quality Management Practice Lead 1 year ago this week – congrats on your one-year anniversary Dan!

Since he joined, he has been deeply engaged with our quality management clients across the globe. Unfortunately, I have not given him the real estate he deserves in our Monday Musings blog series as of late. Over the past month, he has been so busy I couldn’t ignore him any longer, traveling to Chicago for our Executive Roundtable on New Product Introductions, New York for the EtQ user conference, and China for a Dassault Systems life sciences event.

Here are some highlights from the recent "Where’s Dan J World Tour"

EtQ Pushes Cloud and Platform

Several weeks ago EtQ had its 20th user conference, and Dan Jacob was lucky enough to be invited to attend and present some of his newest executive business case research.

EtQ user conferences are typically grounded in reality and in my discussion with Dan that worked out well for the 20th installment. There weren’t futurist keynotes talking about the supply chain in 2030. Instead, there was practical “how to” advice presented by EtQ executives and users.

Some of the highlights from this year event included detailed discussions on:

• The progress made across the portfolio of Reliance, Verse, and Traqpath
• A continued shift to the Cloud across the portfolio with a hybrid approach
• New life sciences validation capabilities
• Increased focus on platform capabilities

From the event, it was evident EtQ remains among the top of the pack when it comes to technology and value delivery for clients. To read Dan’s full event write-up, please see his report: EtQ’s 20th User Conference: One Platform, Three Solutions

BIOVIA Goes to China

Life Sciences is an industry that is quickly transforming and globalizing and last week Dan Jacob was invited to attend and speak at Dassault Systemes’ Asia Forum for Quality and Manufacturing, with attendees from China, India, Japan, and Korea.

From talking with Dan, there were several surprising insights from the event.

Traditionally our research has shown that life sciences companies highly prioritize quality management but all too often focus on regulatory compliance, not business value. Among the attendees of this event, this was not an issue. Dan met one medical device company that was actively moving to a smart connected device model and using the information to improve clinical trials.

He also noted the trend that many of the attendees were CIOs. Although LNS Research often argues that business leaders need to take a more active role in driving technology decisions; we are encouraged to see CIOs taking an interest in the quality software space. At many companies, quality management isn’t even on the CIOs radar never mind agenda; so hopefully the signals more quality leaders and CIOs having productive relationships.

To read Dan’s full analysis of the event, please see his report: Dassault Systemes Asia Forum for Quality and Manufacturing

CEBOS Shows Depth

Although it didn’t involve traveling around the world, Dan had his first briefing with CEBOS in many months last week, and there were several insights worth noting.

First, as CEBOS continues to push deeper with expanded features and functions for MQ1 Elements, the company is maintaining a flexible approach to deployment and not moving to a monolithic architecture. This is characterized by a “better together” not “mandatory integration” mindset. An example of this would be that artifacts like Control Plans can be deployed with FMEA for traceability but can also be deployed independently to drive value for NPI.

CEBOS also confirmed the roadmap included moving to an HTML5 user interface and eMDR (electronic Medical Device Reporting) both of which will be welcomed by clients for continuing to improve the user experience.

Overall Dan gave positive reviews on the company’s approach to quality in NPI, and the full report can be read here at: CEBOS Dives Deeps into Closed Loop Quality