Vigilant Information System (

Houghton et al. / Vigilant Information Systems

VIGILANT INFORMATION SYSTEMS

FOR MANAGING ENTERPRISES IN

DYNAMIC SUPPLY CHAINS: REALTIME DASHBOARDS AT WESTERN

DIGITAL1

Robert Houghton

Western Digital Corp

Omar A. El Sawy

University of

Southern

California

Paul Gray

Claremont Graduate

University

Executive Summary

This article describes how Western Digital (WD), a global hard-drive manufacturer that supplies over 100,000 hard drives a day, built a vigilant information system (VIS) that includes

both sensing and responding capabilities. The system includes an underlying layer of business intelligence applications that analyze data from numerous sources, and management

dashboards that automate the alerting process and provide the means for responding. Its

operational costs have been reduced almost 50% due both to the VIS and to revamping WD’s

business processes so that the right people are alerted and have the means to respond correctly and quickly.

Seven lessons were learned from this effort:

Craig Donegan

Western Digital Corp

Ashish Joshi

Western Digital Corp

1.

2.

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7.

Design the real-time management dashboards to be the nerve center for managing

the enterprise.

Plan and schedule the coordination among teams to use the dashboards to manage

enterprise-wide.

Build a learning loop around each OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop to foster group learning because the faster the loop, the more important the learning reviews

Match the time latency of each OODA loop to the organization’s needs and capabilities to become truly vigilant. Do not indiscriminately chase zero latency.

Provide the building blocks for the "sense-and-respond" real-time enterprise

through a vigilant information system and real-time management dashboards.

Justify vigilant information systems on a basis other than return on investment.

Make implementation of an enterprise-wide VIS a management initiative (not a

technology initiative)...