competitive advantage from the internet

etitive ge from

he Internet and World Wide Web, from their beginnings in research and academic institutions, are now be-

coming ubiquitous. Businesses are increasingly advertising their presence on the Internet.

The popular image of these technologies is one where the user casually ‘surfs’, without any clear direction. While this is perfectly possible-and often great fun-for the user who has plenty of time on his or her hands, in business terms, it is scarcely productive; and from this attitude has grown the common perception that the Web is a data-rich resource without the degree of organisation that would make it rich in useful information.

However, the academic community has made great strides in bringing some method into organising and malung accessible vast stores of data in various disciplines. Technological developments (faster networks, user-friendly software, emergence of standards) have also contributed sipficantly to information organisation. Thanks to these and other developments, it is possible to use the Internet as a helpful resource for your own competitive advantage.

Web use is evolving from static information publishing, through collaborative database enquiry and information sharing, to electronic commerce or use of the technology to change business processes.’ The last phase, supported by frequent advances in software and hardware, best demonstrates technology exemplars and best engages users in interaction.

Web technologies can be harnessed t o ofer

great advantages, both informationally and organisationally, to

manufacturing companies, according

t o j j i n a and D T Wright

Using the Web Fig. 1 represents the technology

both now and as projected in the future, based on current developments. Of growing significance is the object request broker (ORB), and more open and powerful technology, leading to greater opportunities for business exploitation.’

Such is the commercial interest in the Web that the latest versions ofintegrated office software, such as Wordperfect Office, have built-in Web-page generation and intranet tools. Leading systems vendors and consultancy firms, including Sun, Digital, IBM, Apple, HF’, Microsoft, Oracle and Netscape, can offer plenty of information to support business adoption of both Internet and intranet technologies.

As well as graphcal browsing of the Web, other methods of sending and receiving dormation across the

Internet include:2 ‘gophers’: menu-based structuring of Internet files to allow movement of iYes between computers-becoming obsolete as hypertext protocol takes Off

FTP (File Transfer Protocol), to move known-location fles between computers on the Internet

0 mading list and e-mail: to move information electronically using the PC’s own mail tool

0 Usenet: to set up electronic discussion groups, allowing collaboration and interactive ddogue between the participants

As such, the Internet allows ‘reference’ and ‘conversational’ i d ~ r m a t i o n . ~

Exploitation The Business Processes Resource

Centre PPRC), established in the Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick, was created as a result of the Engineering & Physical Sciences Resource Council’s contribution to the Joint Research Councils Innovative Manufacturing Initiative (IMI), allied with its existing strategic priority on inn~vation.~

The main purpose of the BPRC is to disseminate knowledge concerning business process analysis @PA) and, through interaction with both user and research communities, to identify area for further research. The centre thus has three main aims: 0 to provide access on a global basis to

academic literature and best practice documentation

I24 MANUFACTURING ENGINEER JUNE I997

to create self-sustaining networks of researchers and practitioners in business process analysis and management to provide a focal point in the UK for dissemination of current knowledge and practice in business process analysis and management.

The BPRC recognised that research into the changing shape of business, and the process of change, has yielded better understanding of the key elements of competitiveness- although much remains to be done to provide wider dissemination of this learning to UK businesses. This realisation

Web server Web

plug-ins and database server technology applets embedded - - - - - - - today

HTTP HTML docs , helper W y *------- Webserver - - - - - - - applications request HTML

data objects

Client HTTP

provided the spur that induced I Web technology now and in the future’ the BPRC to harness Net technology to its task.

Meanwhile, those leading UK companies that measure up to world- class performance are advancing their competitive lead through further development of business processes, and by adapting their organisation and corporate environment for rapid response to changing pressures and/or new opportunities. Both business and academic communities recognise that there is much to learn from adopting an international perspective of processes and performance.

The creation of the BPRCS Web site therefore concentrated on three angles:

developing and disseminating invited papers from leading academics, both from the UK and abroad, to reach an audience much faster than an academic journal recording and disseminating, through the BPRC pages, the salient points from the presentation of BPR experience of major UK companies and the ensuing aumence discussion at BPRC-organised forums rapidly developing a Web resource that not only captures the first two components but maintains a classified directory of HTML links to a wealth of other good-quality, related resources at various sites on the Web.

To allow focused searching of the Web,

the developers interpreted the term ‘BPR’ as ‘a holistic customer-focused systems view of changing the organisation’. BPR thus encompasses: understanding business processes and workflow along the supply chain; business, CIM- and IT-based analysis; organisation theory and human resource management; continuous improvement and redesign; and computer-supported co-operative working (CSCW). Using these terms and their equivalents as keywords on search engines broadened the BPR-relevant search to maximise the chances of successful hits.

At present the BPRC Website com- prises hundreds of HTML pages (about 500 pages in total when printed), more than 1000 links, a usage-statistics program, and an on-site search engine capturing BPRC-produced or commissioned reports, schedules of events, and external sources of information relating to training, research, and use of business-process appro ache^.^ Ease-of- use trials with external academics and

Table I: Outline of Website processes

industrialists have improved the inter- face and navigation of the site. Tens of thousands of business-process sites have been visited; of these about 90% were rejected on grounds of poor content or slow access. The rest have had f d descriptions added to the BPRC pages using the terminology, of the site to avoid Webmaster terminology bias.

BPRC support staff have been trained to update pages and links on the main server. Use of hidden meta- keywords, and occasional announcements to search engines and discussion groups, have promoted external access to the site. A business-process- management mailbase discussion group has been set up to promote more interactive discussion, use of the electronic medium, and publicity of the information-rich site (and announced in dozens of hscussion groups and thousands of people directly e-mailed).

A key performance measurement is the number of unique hosts (or people) visiting the site daily (typically 250 per

conversion of electronic versions of BPRC reports to HTML format as required scanning any other laser-printed reports not available electronically, optical-character-

amending HTML files on server to reflect changed dates or links adding HTML files to server weekly backing up of server files monthly checking of all Web links on site and to external sites gathering usage statistics on a weekly and a monthly basis update local search-engine index reflecting changes in pages on a weekly basis

recognised (OCR), spellchecked and converted to HTML as required

MANUFACTURING ENGINEER JUNE I997 I25

day), and the number who send e-mail messages contributing or suggesting a n improvement to the site (typically four per month). Both academics and industriahsts have endorsed the BPRC site as the most comprehensive and usable business process site in the world.

The site has grown to a size that now requires more than s i x days per month effort to check all links, publicise fdy , update pages, add new BPRC produced and commissioned reports, support BPRC staff site needs, and develop more interactive technology exemplars. Website management and update software is now mature enough to support such operations effectively; current processes involved with Website updating are outlined in Table 1.

In a broader context, room for the site to grow (say, 300% over a one-year period to 600.visitors per day) can be achieved through a narrower approach to publicity, and the development of more interactive resources on the site.

The best sites on the Web tend to be the great US business schools at Harvard, Stanford and MIT-enor- mous, well structured, content-rich, attractive and fast-access sites that attract tens of thousands of visitors ddy. The BPRC home-page has been categorised into easily mscernible entities to allow speedy access. Detds of recommended

sites are easily seen by visiting the home- pages4 and provided in Reference 5. The main features are:

Events and tvaining materials Links are provided to UK, European

and worldwide BPR and related conference and trade events; there are also links to training materials suitable for industrial or academic use.

BPR practitioners Practitioners constitute a rich vein of

information. These are regularly visited, and the l i nks fi-om the BPRC home page maintained to provide the latest information. In particular, practical case studies as reported by companies, computer-aided software engineering (CASE), workflow management and associated services and products make up an important component of BPR. Ths information is presented in an easily accessible structure as Web BPR resources.

Research Academic journals and book pub-

lishers indicate research drections and results.6 The BPRC has signposted a number of sites with BPR reference libraries across a wide range of publications. Links to the major BPR research programmes are also maintained.

Newsgroups and mailing lists M d n g lists allow groups of people

interested in a subject to communicate, &scuss and develop ideas. The BPRC home page identifies a number of BPR m d n g lists and newsgroups that can help practitioners and researchers. The BPRC also runs its own ma& based discussion group, business- process-management, which addresses emerging issues and debate, conference and trade show announcements, case- study summaries, product announcements and research programmes.

Impact Many surveys suggest that business

connectivity to the Web is still very low (typically less than 10%). Businesses tend to use the Web to advertise their own company publish product catalogues, or gather information on competitors or p r~duc t s .~ Internally, the company may use Internet and Web technologies in an intranet. The most frequent issues raised include: how to connect to the Web, security, and the potential for eniployees to waste their time through unstructured use of the

Business information exists at three main levels: strategic, tactical and operational. A key concern to managers is m y understanding the information needs and processes across the possibly global enterprises, including finance

Table 2: Sector business processes, IT and Web systems','*

sccior primary secondary tertiary --____ ~ ~ ~ ~ - _ _ example agriculture and fishing, mining manufacturing, construction business services, education

number of firms 21 9 789 1123 106 2 238 574 in U K f93)*

and quarrying, energy and water

estimated total I 484975 12 725 800 23 346 355 staff in firms (93)* characteristics extraction, basic processing and purchase, conversion/manufacture, supply of customer with

sale of natural raw material and sale of converted material services, information or goods (purchased from manufacturer)

typical business extract, process, logistics, sales design, manufacture, extended marketing, buying, knowledge processes and marketing, extraction rights logistics, sales and marketing, buying acquisition, sales, internal

existing dimension financial, customer database financial, MRP 2, CAD/CAM, project financial, project management, of IT svstems manaqement, customer database customer database

logistics

current role Web intranet Web intranet Web intranet

information publishing some rare some some common some

database enquiry rare rare some some some rare

interactive customer/ rare rare rare some rare rare supplier processes *calculated from (10) where micro firms were taken as 5, small as 55, medlum as 300, and large as 2000 for number of firms for named industries across sectors

I26 MANUFACTURING ENGINEER JUNE I997

Spinning the Web The Internet is a global network of research-based computers that began in the USA, mainly in universities and government research agencies. The most basic application of the Internet is e-mail. The Web is a part of the Internet, developed in the early 1990s at CERN in Switzerland to include an informative graphical browser allowing faster access and manipulation of text, images and other forms of information located elsewhere on the Internet?

Probably the most commonly used browser today is Netscape’s Navigator. The Wor ld Wide Web (W, o r Web) is the global network of computers holding information that can be viewed with such graphical browsers. Documents stored on the Web use the Hyper-Text Mark-up Language (HTML), which allows the incorporation of text with multimedia elements such as sound, graphics, and video clips, as well as forging ‘hypertext’ links between remotely placed documents.

Access to the Web requires a personal computer, modem, and a dial-in account (supplied by a provider such as CompuServe or VirginNet), o r a research-based networked computer, and a Web browser (a piece of software). The basic architecture for software and hardware supporting Internet and Web access is the cliendserver model. which offers a number of

advantages, such as the spreading of processing load, optimisation of client displays, and better security, control and backup of servers (see Table)!

It’s virtually impossible t o report an up-to-date figure for the number of Internet users o r Web pages-it changes too fast-but the former certainly exceeds the population of most countries, and the latter is doubling every few months.’

Internet technology deployed within an organisation may form an ‘intranet’.7A Web server may hold several Web ‘sites’ (i.e. a collection of related Web documents) belonging to different individuals, departments or organisations. The home-page of a site is the top-level ‘front door’ t o all other accessible documents at that site. Each document has a unique address (like e-mail) o r uniform resource locator (URL), which includes a communication protocol.

Types of information published on the Web include reference (abstracts or full documents), research, business information about services and products, hobbies, software t o download, and news. The publishers of this information may be individuals, universities, charities, governments and government- funded organisations, businesses, consultancies, journal and book publishers, news organisations.

Features of Web client/server communications architecture’J

ledgers, inventory management, purchase and sales order processing, bill of materials andjob costing, CAD/CAM, enterprise resource planning, project management, online quality manuals and document management systems, corporate qualitative knowledge systems.

Table 2 indicates organisational characteristics, dimensions of IT systems, and the role of intranets and Web across sectors based on an in- depth survey of 30 companies carried out by Loughborough University.

Intranet technology can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of existing information delivery, as well as change

the business processes. Speedy access to public information on competitors, technologies and markets can help a company develop its own distinctive capabilities quickly. As with any information system, it is important to ensure that’,2,7,8

information is accurate, appropriate and up to date appropriate people contribute and have access to pages the pages have a consistent look and feel and reflect the corporate culture the system is reliable and cost- effective the system is managed professionally and users trained appropriately

the system 1s integrated with existing

the corporate ‘openness’ ethos is

the risk of undesirable content and

systems

understood

connections are minimised.

Operations are the value-adding trans- formation processes in an organisation. Viewed as a value chain, they embrace both suppliers and customers; an intranet can be used to get closer to these partners in the value chain.

Table 3 shows typical contents of an intranet site. Table 4 shows the operational benefits fiom different levels of Internet-technology use. Not only is it

MANUFACTURING ENGINEER JUNE I997 I27

Table 3: Typical contents of intranet

e internal telephone list. with photograph

0 customer lists a company policy statements o general company information 0 sales and marketing data 0 product information 0 departmentiproject team pages

and career background a meeting minutes and agenda a details of ongoing research 0 ready-made sales and PR presentations 0 quality assurarce form, encouraging staff

feedback on company issues staff newspapers social noticeboard

0 links io approprlate Websites

possible to foster collaborative team- working, a shared sense of community and values, but also an increased level of communication and changed business practices, including teleworkmg and a total redefinition of customer- supplier relationships, and electronic c~mmerce .~

Globalisation and the rapid advances in development of IT systems have led to the emergence of network or virtual enterprises, characterised by multiple geographic work sites, the use of fadmodem, videoconferencing and computer networks for communication and control.’ The centres of individual organisations may no longer be called the ‘headquarters’ but rather ‘liaison facilitators’, or some such term. Organisational structures (functional, divisional, geographc, matrix, team- based, organic etc.) can use Internet technologies to evolve towards a more dynamic, team-based, lower-overhead, more innovative organisational form.’

Strategically, businesses aim to deliver a combination of tough goals: low costs, high performance (in terms of product features, customer service, etc.), quality of product, delivery and lifecycle support, flexibdity (customised products, fast delivery times etc.) and innovation (new products using the latest technologies). The Internet can affect all these dimensions.

In the case of a publishing enterprise, for example, there are opportunities for reduction in cost and delivery times fiom more effective decision-making,

improved customer service (better information delivery), and the potential for greater innovation arising &om better access to information on technologies and services. Collaborative use can amphfy these benefits and support re-engineering initiatives, leading to greater step-changes in service provision.

Internet technologies also affect the IT element of corporate strategy, giving rise to more open, cheaper systems. More than any other current advance in IT, the strategy for this technology involves a far-reachmg evaluation of information and business process needs for ten years in the future. A rushed implementation may be positively h a r d , and sow its own difKculty in implementing later-generation technologies at a later stage.

The Web presents great opportunities for businesses both to use vast, up-to- date external information sources and to create powerful internal information systems at minimal cost. Modern office- suite software can convert legacy files to HTML files, ready to be integrated within the Web. Browsers, search engines and other Web technology allow rapid f h g , searching and analysis, giving better quahty information for decision making. An in-depth strategic information and business process analysis, combined with Internet and/ or intranet implementation based on a modest server, could yield a wide range of benefits for competitive advantage by knowing more about the market.

Table 4: Some potential benefits from Internet technology

0 small and medium-scale improvements to team-based operations practices (both informal, through unstructured messages, and formal, through workflow systems)

e teleworking leads to less travel, fewer materials used; reduced pollution and better use of time

o CAD interaction cuts need and time to prototype/production e virtual factories: virtual products!designs/processes, enhanced envisioning/modelling to

a interactive scheduling-inie!ligent and efficient agents between producers and

0 electronic commerce-new productsiservices, new mechanisms for existing products/

reduce environmental impact

consumers

services, changing relationships between customers and suppliers

Acknowledgments We are grateful for EPSRC funding

of the BPRC at the Warwick Manu- facturing Group, and for EPSRC ROPA funding at the Department of Manufacturing Engineering, Lough- borough University in collaboration with Morris Mechanical Handling Ltd.

This article is based on a paper presented by the same authors at The First International Conference on Managing Enterprises- Stakeholders, Engineering, Logistics & Achievement (ME-SELA97) at Loughborough University, 22-24 July 1997.

References 1 Pal, A., Ring, K., and Domes, V.:

‘Intranets for business applications: user and supplier opportunities’ (Ovum Reports, Ovum Ltd, Mortimer Street, London, W1N 7FW, UK)

2 Tittel, E., and James, S.: ‘HTML for dummies’, (IDG Books Worldwide Inc., 1995)

3 Finch, PJ.: ‘The Internet: an introduction to P&IM related resources’ Product. G Inv. Matzag. J, 1995, 4th Quarter, 1995, pp. 59-62.

4 BPRC home page: http://bprc.warwick. ac.uk

5 Wright, D.T., and Burns, N.D.: ‘Guide to using the WWW to survey BPR research, practitioners and tools’, Eng. Manag.., 1996, 6 (5), pp.211-216

6 Twigg, D.: ‘Operations management on the Internet’ JOPM, 1997, 17 (l),

7 Sun Microsystems: ‘Intranet essentials: corporate communications come of age’ (Sun Microsystems, Bagshot, UK, 1996)

8 IBM: ‘The Internet: a business guide’ (IBM UK, Basingstoke, 1996)

9 Wright, D.T., andBurns, N.D.: ‘Impact of globalisation on organisational structure and performance’, Proc. Organizational Manag. Div., Int. Assoc. Manag. 14th Ann. Conf., Toronto: 2-6 August 1996, pp.5843

10 DTI: ‘Firm-size across sectors in UK, 1993’ (Institute of Management, Corby, UK, 1997)

pp.5-14

]/inn is with Triton p l , Nuneaton, UK. D T Wright is with the Department of Manufacturing Engineering, Loighbovough University.

0 IEE: 1997

I28 MANUFACTURING ENGINEER IUNE I997

http://bprc.warwick