How DevOps oils the Value Chain

DevOps ? a clipped compound of development and operations – is a way of working whereby software developers are in a team with project beneficiaries. A client centred approach extends the project plan to include the life cycle of the product or service, for which the software is developed.

We can then no longer speak of a software project for say Joe?s Accounting App. The software has no intrinsic value of its own. It follows that the software engineers are building an accounting app product. This is a small, crucially important distinction, because they are no longer in a silo with different business interests.

To take the analogy further, the developers are no longer contractors possibly trying to stretch out the process. They are members of Joe?s accounting company, and they are just as keen to get to market fast as Joe is to start earning income. DevOps uses this synergy to achieve the overarching business goal.

A Brief Introduction to OpsDev

You can skip this section if you already read this article. If not then you need to know that DevOps is a culture, not a working method. The three ?members? are the software developers, the beneficiaries, and a quality control mechanism. The developers break their task into smaller chunks instead of releasing the code to quality control as a single batch. As a result, the review process happens contiguously along these simplified lines.

Code QC Test ? ? ?
? Code QC Test ? ?
? ? Code QC Test ?
? ? ? Code QC Test
Colour Key Developers Quality Control Beneficiary

This is a marked improvement over the previously cumbersome method below.

Write the Code ? Test the Code ? Use the Code
? Evaluate, Schedule for Next Review ?

Working quickly and releasing smaller amounts of code means the OpsDev team learns quickly from mistakes, and should come to product release ahead of any competitor using the older, more linear method. The shared method of working releases huge resources in terms of user experience and in-line QC practices. Instead of being in a silo working on its own, development finds it has a richer brief and more support from being ?on the same side of the organisation?.

The Key Role that Application Program Interfaces Play

Application Program Interfaces, or API?s for short, are building blocks for software applications. Using proprietary software-bridges speeds this process up. A good example would be the PayPal applications that we find on so many websites today. API?s are not just for commercial sites, and they can reduce costs and improve efficiency considerably.

The following diagram courtesy of TIBCO illustrates how second-party applications integrate with PayPal architecture via an API fa?ade.

Working quickly and releasing smaller amounts of code means the OpsDev team learns quickly from mistakes, and should come to product release ahead of any competitor using the older, more linear method. The shared method of working releases huge resources in terms of user experience and in-line QC practices. Instead of being in a silo working on its own, development finds it has a richer brief and more support from being ?on the same side of the organisation?.

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The DevOps Revolution Continues ?

We close with some important insights from an interview with Jim Stoneham. He was general manager of the Yahoo Communities business unit, at the time Flickr became a part. ?Flickr was a codebase,? Jim recalls, ?that evolved to operate at high scale over 7 years – and continuing to scale while adding and refining features was no small challenge. During this transition, it was a huge advantage that there was such an integrated dev and ops team?

The ?maturity model? as engineers refer to DevOps status currently, enables developers to learn faster, and deploy upgrades ahead of their competitors. This means the client reaches and exceeds break-even sooner. DevOps lubricates the value chain so companies add value to a product faster. One reason it worked so well with Flickr, was the immense trust between Dev and Ops, and that is a lesson we should learn.

?We transformed from a team of employees to a team of owners. When you move at that speed, and are looking at the numbers and the results daily, your investment level radically changes. This just can’t happen in teams that release quarterly, and it’s difficult even with monthly cycles.? (Jim Stoneham)

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What is Servitisation?

In the current generation, innovation has transformed industries, businesses, economies, and livelihoods. Those who’ve accepted to embrace the changes have prospered and remained afloat and relevant in their respective industries.?

However, failure to embrace change has seen companies like Blockbuster pushed out of business by more innovative and technology-oriented companies like Netflix.?

What does this tell you?

That the only way to stay in business, despite the many challenges your business could be facing, is to remain alert to the dynamic demands of customers, many of which are dictated by technological advancements.?

So, if you’re a manufacturer and you’re keen on diving deeper into technology to stay on top of the game and beat your competition, you must also be expectant of the fast-approaching servitisation-centred economy. Companies like Rolls Royce that have already embraced servitisation are making great gains in their areas of expertise.?

What is Servitisation?

Servitisation can be defined as the transformation of a manufacturing firm from the mere offering of products to the market to providing innovative and invaluable services alongside their products. By so doing, the sale becomes an ongoing engagement and not a one-off event. Cranfield University professors call it “the innovation of an organisation’s capabilities and processes to better create mutual value through a shift from selling a product to selling product-service systems.”?

As foreign as it may seem for some professionals, servitisation has been a need that, though not embraced, its demand remains evident. Nonetheless, firms have hesitated to implement it. Shifting from manufacturing products only to incorporating product-centric services alongside the products is not a walk in the park. It boils down to completely changing the company’s entire structure and processes.

All the same, change is never comfortable, and that’s why it’s always best to focus on the positive for motivation.

Servitisation Case Study

Some manufacturing firms have already embraced servitisation, and they’re reaping big from it. They’ve understood the benefits of offering more value to customers at less cost. What Rolls Royce is doing currently with its “power-by-the-hour” program is a good example of servitisation.

Instead of selling Aero Engines and letting customers take charge of maintenance and uptime, Rolls-Royce now offers a full package that includes a product and relevant services.?

Essentially, what the company is creating is an intimate and long-term relationship with its customers.

The total care package by Rolls Royce means it’s essentially renting out its engines to customers and monitoring data for potential maintenance needs. The plan guarantees that maintenance is only done when necessary and avoidable damage detected in good time. As a result, there is a clear reduction in the overall cost.

Initially, Rolls Royce would make money by basically selling and repairing engines. That meant that the worse the engines, the more repairs required and the more the money the company would make.?

However, things changed when the company realised there is no demand for a product that’s constantly in the repair shop. That prompted Rolls Royce to embrace servitisation.

Servitisation aligns the interests of the customer and those of the manufacturer to ensure everyone benefits. Rolls Royce has been offering this package to airlines since 2010, and the company has seen significant returns as a result.

Benefits

There are several benefits of incorporating servitisation into your manufacturing firm. Below are three of the strongest benefits

  • Financial Stability– Servitisation establishes a more secure revenue stream because of the long term connection between manufacturer and customer. This also translates to loyal customers, meaning more profit.
  • Strong Customer Retention Rate– Being more experienced about the equipment and the constant tracking and monitoring that comes with servitisation; manufacturers are realising that they can keep more customers.
  • Selling a Solution And a Product– Today customers are not just looking to buy a product, instead, they want both the product and the solution to their problem. Meaning you make more money for the product you manufacture and the service you offer to your customers.

Implementation of Servitisation in the Industry

To effectively implement servitisation, there must be an effective two-way flow of information and data in the supply chain. Meaning you may require software like FieldElite for scalable condition monitoring of performance. With FieldElite, for example, servitisation is made easier for you because it enables you to monitor the performance of your assets remotely.

Maintenance and monitoring of assets were traditionally very expensive and time-consuming until the arrival of intelligent software that makes work easier and cost-effective for manufacturers. FieldElite uses advanced learning algorithms to remotely automate the entire process, allowing you to detect, in real-time, the performance and need for maintenance on your asset.

Required Organisational Changes

A few important steps include;

Companies that invest in continuous training and development always have a more competitive edge than their counterparts. Meaning an important step towards servitisation is training the workforce. This is important, considering that the company structure, focus, and process will have to change.

Set up a team that is focused on the challenge, change, and creation. With this, you can easily adjust to industry changes. The team should always work on knowing what should be adjusted and when it should be.?

In the shift to servitisation, adopting a comprehensive service technology is an important step. Such service technology software includes FieldElite. This technology will ensure that you’re able to monitor your product in real-time, meaning you can maintain good performance for as long as possible.

Because servitisation essentially focuses on the customer, take time to study customer behaviour. Knowing what your customers need and want will help you remain relevant in the industry.

Conclusion

As the demand for more benefits and long-lasting relationships with dealers grow, so is the need for manufacturers to adjust. Hence more and more manufacturing companies are leaning towards embracing servitisation as a solution to the growing demand.?

In turn, manufacturers who’re attaching service contracts to their product sales are making more than those who remain stuck in the traditional approach to sales.?

Essentially, servitisation will ensure that, as a manufacturer, you remain relevant to your customers now and in years to come. This is a much better arrangement in terms of saving costs and making more returns. Remember to be successful, you have to be flexible enough to change with demand.

Becoming Nimble the Agile Project Management Way

In dictionary terms, ?agile? means ?able to move quickly and easily?. In project management terms, the definition is ?project management characterized by division of tasks into short work phases called ?sprints?, with frequent reassessments and adaptation of plans?. This technique is popular in software development but is also useful when rolling out other projects.

Managing the Seven Agile Development Phases

  • Stage 1: Vision. Define the software product in terms of how it will support the company vision and strategy, and what value it will provide the user. Customer satisfaction is of paramount value including accommodating user requirement changes.
  • Stage 2: Product Roadmap. Appoint a product owner responsible for liaising with the customer, business stakeholders and the development team. Task the owner with writing a high-level product description, creating a loose time frame and estimating effort for each phase.
  • Stage 3: Release Plan. Agile always looks ahead towards the benefits that will flow. Once agreed, the Product Road-map becomes the target deadline for delivery. With Vision, Road Map and Release Plan in place the next stage is to divide the project into manageable chunks, which may be parallel or serial.
  • Stage 4: Sprint Plans. Manage each of these phases as individual ?sprints?, with emphasis on speed and meeting targets. Before the development team starts working, make sure it agrees a common goal, identifies requirements and lists the tasks it will perform.
  • Stage 5: Daily Meetings. Meet with the development team each morning for a 15-minute review. Discuss what happened yesterday, identify and celebrate progress, and find a way to resolve or work around roadblocks. The goal is to get to alpha phase quickly. Nice-to-haves can be part of subsequent upgrades.
  • Stage 6: Sprint Review. When the phase of the project is complete, facilitate a sprint review with the team to confirm this. Invite the customer, business stakeholders and development team to a presentation where you demonstrate the project/ project phase that is implemented.
  • Stage 7: Sprint Retrospective. Call the team together again (the next day if possible) for a project review to discuss lessons learned. Focus on achievements and how to do even better next time. Document and implement process changes.

The Seven Agile Development Phases ? Conclusions and Thoughts

The Agile method is an excellent way of motivating project teams, achieving goals and building result-based communities. It is however, not a static system. The product owner must conduct regular, separate reviews with the customer too.

Telemetry and the Survival of the Human Species

Without moisture, plants die. Without fodder, the animal food chain collapses. This is why climate change is the greatest threat humankind faces. Crop management needs timely information regarding ambient conditions, and also in the soil itself. In dry areas, online knowledge of trends in rainfall, sunlight, wind speed, leaf moisture, air temperature, relative humidity and solar radiation are indicators of soil stress that can be deadly for plants, and everything that relies on them.

As climate change bites, the need to find solutions accelerates. Drones swoop across to monitor ambient conditions, while probes sunk into plants and the earth in which they grow transmit information to big data repositories for feedback to administrators. In Australia, a remarkable cattle farmer is applying the same approach to his herds.

Nuffield scholar Rob Cook has always been on the edgy side of things. He lost his mobility in a helicopter crash in 2008 patrolling farmland but that has not deterred him. If anything, it has freed his mind to explore the potential that telemetry offers farmers in Australia. He shared this potential with the young beef producers in Roma Australia recently, and here is a summary what he said.

Being wheelchair bound he had to shift from herding with cattle dogs to a more scientific approach. He bought a farm 230 miles / 370 kilometres inland from Brisbane in a warm, temperate climate with significant rainfall even in the driest months. He uses observant software that reports on critical issues like water levels indicating animal consumption, and supplementary water flows from a central irrigation channel.

He also monitors fodder sources for dryer months, and moisture levels in food stocks. Rob is committed to making every blade of grass count. ?We even have the ability to take a photo of the cattle when they are taking a drink of water,? he explains, and that provides valuable information regarding tick and fly infestation and overall condition.

None of this would be possible for Rob Cook without telemetry, which is the process of collecting data at remote points and transmitting it to receiving equipment for analysis. Independent farmers do not have equipment to fund these analytic resources on their own, and use big data resources in a cloud to obtain reports. ecoVaro is on top of current trends. Please speak to us when you need independent advice.

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