Wipro sees BI as sustainability's glue

As I’ve written here before, there is no single packaged software application vendor that offers a complete answer for sustainability. In practice, managing sustainability for most larger enterprises spans a range of software applications and data sources, from building automation systems and machine-related energy consumption, to product life-cycle management (PLM) or enterprise-level carbon accounting solutions.

If you accept the premise that no single technology vendor has a pre-integrated solution set for all aspects of sustainability, then it’s a given that to address a broad range of sustainability issues, some assembly is required. In other words, sustainability is a systems integration challenge. Perhaps it’s no surprise then, that there are IT services firms stepping forward with sustainability offerings for the manufacturing industry. Recently, I had the chance to talk with Wipro Technologies about their view of the sustainability management challenge. The global IT services firm isn’t a software vendor, but sees the need for a business intelligence (BI) software platform to tap into all the needed sources of energy consumption and other sustainability-related data needed to achieve a company’s goals.

I spoke with Sanjeev Ramakrishnan, head of Wipro’s solution group for the Industrial Manufacturing and Aerospace, and Mallinath Sengupta, general manager & vertical head for Wipro’s Aerospace & Industrial Manufacturing organization, about Wipro’s sustainability offering. At the core of their approach, they said, is the notion that sustainability needs to tap into multiple data sources.

“We’re providing a platform which will take input from multiple different areas, like plant and facilities management systems, or data on green supply chain efforts, and we bring all of that into an analytics tool,” says Sengupta. “With this tool, senior management is aware of where they are with sustainability, what the gaps are from where they need to be, and what are the different permutations and combinations that will take them to where they need to be.”

This BI platform within Wipro’s green offerings is called the Sustainable Manufacturing Assessment, Analytics and Reporting Tool, or SMART.  According to Ramakrishnan, the BI component is built on a Microsoft .NET database platform, using SQL Server’s reporting and analytics capabilities. But Wipro, he says, could work with other BI software that an an enterprise might prefer. Much of the value, he explains, comes from Wipro’s sustainability expertise, and in knowing how to structure the analytics necessary to monitor trends and goals. “We strongly believe there should be one [BI] platform which will integrate with the different types of systems in an organization and provide one consistent view of trends for senior management,” he says.

The exact data sources each company would link with its sustainability BI platform would vary, says Sengupta, as would how tight (i.e., real-time and automated) the integration needs to be. For some energy-intensive manufacturers, he explains, a pretty tight link might be needed between energy consumption data on the plant floor and SMART. Some sources of data, such as green supply chain design options from a network design optimization tool, or certain PLM data, might only need to be uploaded into SMART occasionally.

A limiting factor with sustainability, Sengupta acknowledges, is the lack of smart metering on plant floors, and machines and controls that can’t easily detect and communicate energy consumption data. But the technology for this communication is progressing quickly, Sengupta believes, with vendors like Schneider Electric, which recently acquired Indian meter technology company Conzerv, making strides in areas like wireless smart meters that could lower barriers to real-time energy management.

Some companies might focus use of a sustainability BI platform on areas like product content rather than energy and carbon emissions trends, notes Sengupta. One client, for instance, is using SMART to support its green marketing efforts by tracking the green quotient of its product content. So not only does Wipro believe sustainability takes many data sources, ultimately, the BI platform for it will be used in different ways depending on the goals and industry characteristics of the end user company.

What do you think? Is sustainability management primarily a BI and data gathering challenge, rather than a matter of picking the right packaged application vendors? Can you prepackage the analytic content and connectors required for most sustainability BI scenarios? Post your thoughts here, or drop me an email at rgmichel@gmail.com.