Top 10 Questions to Ask Your Workflow Vendor

Nov. 5, 2012
From Jay Mellon, vice president at Savigent, Minnetonka, Minn., who blogged (blog.savigent.com) this Top 10 list, edited here for brevity:

1. Tell me about your product. Where has it been implemented? How it is being used?

2. Will your product fit my business? (In asking this question, you are seeking to understand the configurability and adaptability of the vendor’s product)

3. Does your product comply with Industry standards such as ISA95?

4. Will your product help me leverage my existing MOM (manufacturing operations management) investments?

5. Can you integrate with my other related systems?

6. Is your product scalable and ready to support my Enterprise?

7. Can I use your product or will I need to hire “a bunch of IT guys” to help use it?

8. How will your product help me drive actual improvement in my operations? How can I know that I am realizing results?

9. How long will it take to implement your product? Can the vendor’s product be implemented in a matter of weeks versus months? How will the product be implemented?

10. What questions haven’t I asked that I should be asking?

>> Click here to read Automation World's complete coverage on Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)

Sponsored Recommendations

Food Production: How SEW-EURODRIVE Drives Excellence

Optimize food production with SEW-EURODRIVE’s hygienic, energy-efficient automation and drive solutions for precision, reliability, and sustainability.

Rock Quarry Implements Ignition to Improve Visibility, Safety & Decision-Making

George Reed, with the help of Factory Technologies, was looking to further automate the processes at its quarries and make Ignition an organization-wide standard.

Water Infrastructure Company Replaces Point-To-Point VPN With MQTT

Goodnight Midstream chose Ignition because it could fulfill several requirements: data mining and business intelligence work on the system backend; powerful Linux-based edge deployments...

The Purdue Model And Ignition

In the automation world, the Purdue Model (also known as the Purdue reference model, Purdue network model, ISA 95, or the Automation Pyramid) is a well-known architectural framework...