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Authors Observe that ‘Organizations with Lean Integration Teams Typically Realize 50 Percent Labor Productivity Improvements and 90 Percent Project Lead-Time Reductions’
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., May 18, 2010 — Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA), the world’s number one independent provider of enterprise data integration software, today announced the release of the industry’s first book about applying lean principles to the challenges of enterprise data and process integration, entitled Lean Integration: An Integration Factory Approach to Business Agility. Authored by noted data integration experts and Informatica executives John G. Schmidt and David Lyle, Lean Integration describes why the integration factory will be the dominant new “wave” of middleware for the next decade. It provides detailed best practices for implementing a lean integration strategy to align functions, eliminate waste and drive continuous improvements across vital data integration activities.
Lean integration is a management system that takes principles and practices derived from lean manufacturing and applies them to optimizing data and process integration on a sustainable basis. According to authors Schmidt and Lyle, lean integration teams typically realize 50 percent labor productivity improvements and 90 percent project lead-time reduction through value stream mapping and continuous efforts to eliminate non-value added activities. Lean Integration describes how to leverage lean techniques across the entire integration lifecycle. It includes establishing Integration Factories that bring the values of repeatability, standardization, highly automated processes, continuous measurement and improvement to all facets of any enterprise data integration project.
At a time when approximately 40 percent of the typical IT budget goes to integration, often with less-than-optimal results, Lean Integration provides a casebook for top IT management, enterprise architects, project leaders, data analysts and developers on how to:
- Establish integration as a business strategy and implement management disciplines that systematically address integration’s people, process, policy and technology dimensions.
- Deliver what the business needs while eliminating the waste and delays that characterize so many IT projects.
- Maximize business agility and support rapid change without compromising stability, quality, control or efficiency.
- “Optimize the whole, not just the parts” through the use of value stream mapping and metrics.
- Build in data quality and integration quality up-front for any project.
- Drive IT innovation through fact-based problem solving and automating routine tasks.
Supporting Quotes
“Technology is a key enabler within any industry and a key success measure is the ‘alignment’ between Business and Information Technology,” said Zahid Afzal, Executive Vice President/Chief Information Officer, Huntington National Bank. “Schmidt and Lyle provide practical advice for a fundamental shift in thinking, from IT as an internal services function to IT as an integral part of a company's strategy, creating value for customers. IT internal and external service providers have to operate as one management team. Lean Integrationpresents compelling examples of how integration teams play a role in leadership, strategic planning, and IT Governance as some of the critical factors in achieving organizational alignment.”
“Fundamentally, we’re seeing organizations completely re-evaluating how they’re doing IT in terms of how it fits in the organization, how they measure, how they deliver, how they manage staff, and how they use technology,” according to the independent research report,“Lean: The New Business Technology Imperative,” Forrester Research, Inc., September, 2009. “(Lean) offers IT the opportunity not only to build software well, quickly, and cheaply but also to build the right software.”
“Lean Integration is an excellent resource for anyone struggling with the challenges of performing integration for a complex enterprise,” said Steve J. Dennis, Integration Competency Center Director, Nike. “The authors have combined their experience to provide a practical roadmap for applying lean principles to the integration problem. If you are looking for an approach to tackle the integration chaos that exists in your environment, this book should be at the top of your reading list.”
“Twenty years from now, all enterprises will be doing lean integration as a matter of practicality and business survival,” said John Schmidt, vice president, Global ICC Practice, Professional Services, Informatica. “When you consider the mounting cost pressures on IT, the increasing regulations to reduce risk, and the drive to align IT and business, traditional practices for integration simply do not cut it anymore. Lean integration is the power solution for successfully addressing all of these pressures.”
Tweet this: First-ever Lean Integration Book by @InformaticaCorp Now Available https://bit.ly/aC4xdh #lean #dataintegration
Published by Pearson Higher Education as part of its Addison-Wesley series, Lean Integration: An Integration Factory Approach to Business Agility is available at leading bookstores.
More information on lean integration can be found on the Integration Factory website.
About Informatica
Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA) is the world’s number one independent provider of data integration software. Organizations around the world gain a competitive advantage in today’s global information economy with timely, relevant and trustworthy data for their top business imperatives. More than 4,000 enterprises worldwide rely on Informatica to access, integrate and trust their information assets held in the traditional enterprise, off premise and in the Cloud. For more information, call +1 650-385-5000 (1-800-653-3871 in the U.S.), or visit www.informatica.com.
