As summer arrives in the Northern Hemisphere, there's a familiar shift in pace—schools slow down, out-of-offices go up, and calendars open just enough to take a breath. For many, this season invites a moment to reset, reflect, and prepare for what’s next. And at OpenText Business Network, that’s exactly what our latest releases do for your digital supply chain: they deliver fresh innovations to reduce complexity, respond to evolving customer needs, and help businesses thrive in a world that's always on.

OpenText™ Business Network is a leading cloud platform for B2B integration and supply chain collaboration, enabling organizations to connect systems, partners, and data across complex ecosystems. With AI-driven insights, built-in compliance, and a highly secure infrastructure, the platform helps global businesses digitize operations, boost agility, and scale with confidence.

Since our last update in December, we’ve delivered two major releases—25.1 in January and 25.2 in April—packed with enhancements that simplify operations, strengthen resilience, and accelerate decision-making. Here’s what’s new:

Smarter Insights with Command Center and Trading Grid with Aviator

AI continues to take center stage in Business Network, making it easier for users to analyze integration health and act faster:

• Error message analysis: When B2B transaction errors occur, identifying the root cause can be time-consuming. This feature uses AI to surface patterns, diagnose recurring issues, and suggest resolutions in real time—reducing delays and improving recoverability.

Trading Grid Insights Error Analysis 

• Ask Aviator for Command Center—Integration Monitor: Business users can now get instant answers about document flows, partner activity, and platform performance—without needing technical expertise. This helps teams monitor operations proactively and resolve issues before they impact customers.

Ask Aviator in Integration Monitor 

• Payload Analysis: Business users no longer need to interpret raw EDI data on their own. With Aviator, anyone can simply ask a question in natural language—like “What is this invoice for?”—and instantly receive a plain-English explanation. It’s a game changer for making complex supply chain data understandable and usable across teams.

Trading Grid with Aviator Payload Viewer 

• Transaction Finder: Give your team the power to explore transaction data their way. Using intuitive, conversational search, users can uncover specific insights—such as delayed shipments or missing acknowledgments—without digging through multiple screens. It’s flexible, fast, and built for real-time answers.

Trading Grid with Aviator Transaction Finder 

• Enhanced Historical Analytics: REST APIs and deeper insights into partner and document metrics make it easier to track long-term integration trends and power custom reporting.

Elevating Trading Grid Insights

Formerly known as Trading Grid Lens, Trading Grid Insights is now tightly integrated with Aviator for real-time, AI-driven queries:

• Service Traffic Prioritization: New visibility tools allow IT to manage low- vs. high-priority traffic during peaks, ensuring consistent uptime and service levels.
• Partial Processing Status: Improved tracking for partially processed documents helps teams stay on top of exception handling and reduces bottlenecks.

Global Compliance at Your Fingertips

Keeping up with eInvoicing mandates worldwide is no easy task—but we’ve made it easier with expanded compliance capabilities:

• 25.1 introduced support for the latest Franco-German Factur-X and ZUGFeRD standards, including German X-Rechnung validation.
• 25.2 added support for Romania (via in-house development), Singapore, and E-Reporting on our TG E-Invoicing Navigator platform.

Integration Enhancements: Secure, Scalable, and Self-Service

• Advanced SFTP & Containerization: Enhanced security and streamlined deployment are delivered through advanced SFTP support and containerized services for Messaging and Data Integrator.
• ERP Adapter Expansion: New integrations include SAP S/4HANA P2P, Oracle Fusion SCM, MS Dynamics 365 (Finance & Operations, Business Central), and NetSuite—simplifying ERP-to-B2B integration across more environments.
• Self-Service Capabilities: From onboarding partners to deleting records and setting up translation maps, our TG Quick Connect workflows reduce onboarding time and empower business users to act independently.

Enhancing Supplier Collaboration

• Purchase Order Negotiation: Businesses can now collaborate on POs with trading partners before syncing into back-end systems, improving accuracy and reducing order rework.
• Package Codes and PO Notes: Shipment and order data are now more precise with added support for dimensional package data and embedded notes.

Expanding Platform Access and Security

• SCIM and SSO Enhancements: Streamlined provisioning of users and partners across systems improves identity governance and speeds up community onboarding.
• Vault & Key Management: Credential management now aligns with enterprise security standards, reducing risk and meeting compliance mandates.

Performance and Productivity Boosts

• Faster Processing: Onboarding and deduction tasks are now processed more efficiently, with split batch processing minimizing delays.
• Improved Portal Search and Custom URLs: Enhancements to Core Collaboration Access include more comprehensive search and support for customer-branded URLs in shared communities.

A Season of Growth with OpenText Business Network

Just like summer offers time to pause and plan, OpenText Business Network’s latest innovations help you step back, realign, and move forward with purpose. Whether it's gaining real-time insights, streamlining compliance, or giving your teams more control, our 25.1 and 25.2 releases are designed to help you build smarter, more connected supply chain ecosystems.

We’re excited about what’s ahead—and we’ll be back later this year with even more updates to keep you moving forward.

The post What’s New in OpenText Business Network Cloud appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

As supply chains become more digital, global, and complex, businesses are under growing pressure to modernize the way they connect, communicate, and operate.

Two of the most critical technologies enabling this transformation are Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). While both are used to exchange data between systems and partners, they work in fundamentally different ways—and understanding when and how to use each is key to building a future-ready supply chain. 

In this blog, we’ll break down EDI vs. API, explaining their differences, and why EDI remains vital despite the rise of modern APIs. And, explore how combining the two can give your business the flexibility, speed, and scalability needed to thrive in today’s dynamic environment. 

What is the difference between EDI and API? 

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are both methods of exchanging business data, but they serve different purposes and operate differently. 

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is a standardized method for exchanging structured business documents like invoices or purchase orders in batches—ideal for high-volume, stable transactions. 

APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) enable real-time, flexible data sharing between systems, suited for dynamic tasks like live shipment tracking or inventory checks. 

Understanding EDI vs. API is essential because each serves a distinct role. EDI excels at handling high-volume, standardized transactions, while APIs enable real-time, flexible data exchange.  

By understanding their strengths, businesses can strategically use both to create a connected, agile supply chain that balances stability with speed and adaptability. This hybrid approach ensures seamless integration across partners, systems, and workflows. 

EDI simplifies key transactions 

EDI enables fast, structured, and automated data exchange between trading partners, which simplifies key transactions, such as sending orders, giving notice of deliveries, confirming receipt of deliveries, booking transport, sending invoices, among others.  

EDI is understood globally and follows recognized formats, such as EDIFACT, ANSI X12 for seamless data exchange. It’s secure and efficient at handling large volumes of data transactions, but it can be complex and costly to set up the initial configuration and trading partner mappings, especially for smaller companies.  

Despite being trusted and used for decades, for years now, many believed that EDI would be phased out and replaced by Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). However, given its value in delivering structured, error-free data exchange in an increasingly complex global marketplace, EDI usage continues.  

Companies around the world, from suppliers and logistics providers to retailers and manufacturers, rely on an EDI strategy to exchange critical business documents securely, quickly, and in a standardized format. 

APIs enable instant data exchange 

APIs allow instant data exchange without waiting for batch processing and offer integration flexibility with a wide range of systems, such as CRMs, ERPs, analytics tools, and other cloud-based applications within your digital ecosystem. However, where EDI is all about standardization, API formats vary, requiring custom integrations with each partner, which can be costly and time-consuming in multi-partner environments.  

Many businesses use APIs to communicate between disparate systems within their system chain. Since APIs provide real-time data exchange, this can improve supply chain transparency and visibility.  

And, APIs connect to e-commerce platforms and support the integration of analytics tools, allowing businesses to gain insights into performance metrics and adapt to changing conditions.  

The importance of a strategy that connects EDI and API   

The supply chain workforce is changing. Some professionals are retiring, others joining don’t know much about EDI and want to go forward with API-first strategies.  

There are also business challenges, like rising costs, but fewer resources, supply chain disruptions, and technology innovation initiatives, and more. Given these factors, it's less about EDI vs. API, and more about taking a “best of both worlds” approach, which sets you up for success.  

Rather than replace EDI, integrate it with APIs, other cloud platforms, and AI/ML, so you can enhance automation and flexibility within your digital ecosystem. This connected approach will reduce costs in the long term, improve operations despite possible disruptions and workforce changes, and ensure compliance with global standards.  

With a connected strategy, you can bridge the gap between bulk transaction support and real-time data exchange, making it easier to handle high-volume processes and dynamic, immediate updates needed to keep the flow of business going.  

You can more easily integrate with ERP systems, such as Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle NetSuite, Oracle Fusion, and SAP S/4HANA, that are already in place instead of ripping and replacing to make new technology fit with legacy technology. 

How to get started with EDI and API integration 

Every day you try to keep operations running smoothly, find ways to innovate and drive efficiencies, reduce costs, and simplify your supply chain. But you are asked to do this with limited resources and budget, making it hard to keep up with the speed of technology.  

When managing all these connections and the information attached to them, it's important to think long-term, not just one year at a time. You need solutions that evolve with you and continuously add new capabilities to assist you as your business grows. 

You don’t have to go it alone. There are several solutions out there, but what you need is a partner and a solution that will take the time to understand your digital ecosystem, so everything is done right from the start.  

Here are questions to ask when selecting an EDI and B2B integration solution and partner:  

• Knowledge and Know-How: Can they ensure a successful implementation—on time and on budget? 

• Automated Workflows: Can they help you find ways to reduce manual tasks and errors and increase productivity? 

• Enhanced Visibility: Does the solution – as built out of the box - enable access up-to-date information for better decision-making, gaining insights into your supply chain operations? 

• Cost Reduction: Will the solution reduce long-term costs, including total cost of ownership (TCO), and avoid hidden implementation fees? 

• Compliance: Can they ensure adherence to industry standards and regulations? 

• Ongoing Support: Will you receive regular customer support, including help with data validation and mappings from onboarding through implementation and after go-live? 

EDI and APIs: How OpenText can help 

OpenText Business Network supports both EDI and API-based integration—allowing businesses to connect with all partners, regardless of their technology maturity. This hybrid approach ensures end-to-end visibility, flexibility, and scalability across your digital supply chain. 

OpenText's B2B Integration solutions create a unified environment connecting your ERP system (Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle NetSuite, Oracle Fusion, SAP S/4HANA, etc.) with EDI and APIs in one digital ecosystem. 

OpenText offers pre-built ERP EDI-to-API adapters on a modern, scalable B2B platform and VAN—enabling faster deployment without requiring deep EDI expertise. 

Our trusted, flexible solutions let businesses connect once to everything. With our expertise, you'll streamline supply chain operations and build a foundation for innovations like AI/ML that maximizes your business data value. 

Ready to get started? Learn more about OpenText’s Easy EDI integration. 

The post EDI vs. API: Why both still matter in a modern supply chain appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

In the energy, manufacturing, and construction industries, managing vast amounts of technical documentation, ensuring compliance, and optimizing workflows are critical to maintaining operational efficiency and safety. OpenText™ Documentum™ Content Management (CM) and OpenText™ Documentum™ Content Management (CM) for Engineering have long been a trusted enterprise content management (ECM) platform for these sectors, offering robust document management, security, and scalability. Now, OpenText Documentum CM for Engineering is revolutionizing how these industries handle complex processes with the integration of generative AI capabilities through OpenText™ Content Aviator and the new AI-driven workflow insights. Let’s explore how these AI features can supercharge your operations, with specific use cases tailored to energy, manufacturing, and asset operations.

OpenText Documentum CM for Engineering: A foundation for energy, manufacturing, and construction

OpenText Documentum CM for Engineering provides a cloud-native content management platform that excels in managing technical documentation, such as engineering drawings, condition reports (CRs), and technical evaluations (TEs), while ensuring compliance with industry regulations. Its granular security, encryption, and audit trails safeguard sensitive data and manages massive data volumes securely. Its scalability—handling billions of documents— and cloud flexibility (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, hybrid), make it ideal for global operations.

OpenText Content Aviator: AI-powered insights for faster decision-making

OpenText Content Aviator brings generative AI to OpenText Documentum CM and OpenText Documentum CM for Engineering, enabling conversational search, summarization, content generation, and multilingual translation. The seamless integration ensures all interactions adhere to strict security and privacy controls—data is encrypted, and responses are generated only from content users are authorized to access. This is particularly valuable in regulated industries like energy and manufacturing, where compliance is non-negotiable.

AI-driven workflow insights: Smarter processes at every step

The new AI-driven workflow insights powered by OpenText Content Aviator embeds AI into OpenText Documentum CM’s workflow engine, analyzing content at each step and presenting key data points to reviewers. This streamlines decision-making by reducing manual analysis, ensuring faster and more informed actions. OpenText Documentum CM’s workflow capabilities already offer a no-code/low-code environment with pre-built templates and features like task escalation and real-time monitoring which increased document processing by 3.5x. Now, AI enhances these workflows, making them even more efficient.

Specific use cases for energy, manufacturing, and construction

Impact review: Pinpointing affected documentation and equipment

OpenText Content Aviator can analyze updates or changes (e.g., new safety regulations or equipment upgrades) and pinpoint documentation and equipment that may be impacted. For example, in a manufacturing plant, if a new regulation affects a specific machine component, OpenText Content Aviator can identify all related drawings, procedures, and maintenance records in OpenText Documentum CM, presenting a summary to the reviewer. In an AI-driven workflow, this analysis happens at each step, ensuring that maintenance teams are immediately aware of impacted assets, reducing downtime and ensuring compliance.

Visualization and reporting: Streamlined data in table formats

OpenText Content Aviator’s visualization and reporting capabilities allow users to generate results in table formats, which can be copied or downloaded into Excel for quick list generation. At operational facilities, a maintenance manager can query OpenText Documentum CM for a list of all equipment due for inspection, and OpenText Content Aviator will present the results in a table, including asset IDs, locations, and last inspection dates. This table can be exported to Excel, enabling rapid report generation for audits or team briefings, saving hours of manual compilation.

AI agents: Multisystem task automation with Maximo integration

Energy and manufacturing industries are extremely interested in having OpenText Content Aviator talk with other agents to complete complex, multisystem tasks, such as opening Work Orders in Maximo. For instance, during a maintenance workflow in OpenText Documentum CM for Engineering, Content Aviator can identify a need for a Work Order based on a condition report, communicate with Maximo to open the order, and update the workflow with the Work Order ID—all without manual intervention. This seamless integration reduces delays, ensuring that maintenance tasks are initiated promptly and tracked efficiently.

Condition Reports (CR): Trending and summarization

OpenText Content Aviator can evaluate Condition Reports (CRs) by trending data, pointing out references, summarizing actions taken, and highlighting other key items. In an energy plant, a safety officer can ask, “What trends are emerging from recent CRs?” OpenText Content Aviator will analyze CRs stored in OpenText Documentum CM, identify patterns (e.g., recurring equipment failures), and summarize actions taken, such as repairs or procedural updates. In an AI-driven workflow, these insights are presented at each review step, helping safety teams make data-driven decisions to mitigate risks.

Engineering: Finding untagged drawings with CAD tools

OpenText Content Aviator assists engineering teams by finding drawings that have certain parts or references not tagged in modern CAD tools. For example, in a manufacturing facility, an engineer can query OpenText Documentum CM for drawings containing a specific pump model that lacks proper tagging. OpenText Content Aviator will search the repository, identify relevant drawings, and summarize their content, highlighting untagged references. In an AI-driven workflow, this analysis can trigger a review step, ensuring that engineering teams update drawings to meet current standards, improving asset traceability.

Procedures: Summarizing and guiding tasks

OpenText Content Aviator excels at getting procedure summaries and answering how-to questions based on procedures, such as dispositioning a CR or performing maintenance tasks. In an energy plant, a technician can ask, “How do I disposition a CR for a turbine failure?” OpenText Content Aviator will summarize the relevant procedure in OpenText Documentum CM, providing step-by-step guidance. In an AI-driven workflow, this summary is presented at the disposition step, ensuring the technician follows the correct process, reducing errors and ensuring compliance with safety protocols.

Technical Evaluations (TE): Querying status and results

OpenText Content Aviator can answer general queries around Technical Evaluations (TEs), such as “Is a TE closed?” or “What were the results of the TE?” In asset operations, a reliability engineer can ask, “What was the outcome of the TE on our compressor system?” OpenText Content Aviator will search OpenText Documentum CM, confirm the TE’s status (e.g., closed), and summarize its findings, such as recommended maintenance actions. In an AI-driven workflow, this information is provided at the review step, enabling engineers to make informed decisions about asset maintenance without manual searching.

Fault tree analysis: Explaining and discussing fault trees

OpenText Content Aviator can assist with Fault Tree Analysis by analyzing, explaining, and discussing fault trees stored in OpenText Documentum CM. For example, in an energy plant, a risk analyst can ask, “Explain the fault tree for our power grid failure.” OpenText Content Aviator will break down the fault tree, highlighting key failure points and their probabilities, and provide a conversational explanation. In an AI-driven workflow, this analysis can be presented during a risk assessment step, helping teams understand potential failure modes and prioritize mitigation strategies.

Conclusion: Empowering energy, manufacturing, and construction with AI

OpenText Documentum Content Management for Engineering, enhanced with OpenText Content Aviator and the new AI-driven workflow, offers transformative generative AI capabilities for the energy, manufacturing, and asset operations industries. From pinpointing impacted documentation during an impact review to automating Work Orders in Maximo, summarizing CRs, and explaining fault trees, these AI features streamline processes, enhance decision-making, and ensure compliance. OpenText Documentum Content Management’s robust security, scalability, and integrations—combined with AI-driven workflow insights—make it an ideal solution for managing complex technical content.

Ready to see AI content management in action? Take OpenText Content Aviator for a test drive today and see firsthand how AI-driven workflow insights can unlock your organization's potential.

The post Transform energy, manufacturing, and asset operations with AI content management appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

At SCHOTT, we have a heritage of more than 140 years in reinventing glass to make life better. Today, our 17,100 global employees leverage tech-material expertise and unique know-how in processing and technology to create products that support a wide range of industries: from CERAN home appliances to architecture, healthcare, automotive, and high-tech manufacturing. 

To support our operations, we’ve built up an extensive supplier base. Keeping our business running smoothly depends on our ability to process thousands of supplier invoices every month, accurately and on-time. Because of our fast rate of growth, the number of invoices we receive is also rising. In fact, we’ve seen our supplier invoice volumes more than treble in recent years.  

If it hadn’t been for our work with OpenText, this increase in workload would have been a big issue for us. Fortunately, we were more than ready for the challenge. That’s because several years earlier we started out on our journey to bring digitization and automation to accounts payable (AP) processes at SCHOTT. 

Starting the AP automation journey

Our journey began at our shared services center, which is responsible for processing supplier invoices on behalf of all our global business units. In the past, our AP teams relied primarily on manual, paper-based processes, which included manually re-keying invoice data into our SAP systems. It was very time-consuming, and there was little time available for our teams to spend on other work. 

As the number of inbound invoices started to trend sharply upwards, we knew we’d either need to either significantly increase our AP headcount or find a much more efficient approach to invoice processing. 

That’s when we made the decision to deploy OpenText Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions. The solution ticked off all the requirements that mattered most to us, including tight integration with our SAP business systems. We’d already been using OpenText solutions to archive our SAP data for several years, so we knew that we could count on OpenText for reliable solutions and strong technical support. 

Processing invoices 99% faster

At first, we only used Vendor Invoice Management to process invoices from our suppliers in just a few countries; however, after we saw how much time we were saving, we decided to extend the solution to cover our global businesses too—35 countries in total. 

Working side-by-side with OpenText Professional Services, we extended and enhanced the solution. As well as building automated invoice processing workloads for our international businesses, we deployed OpenText Capture for SAP Solutions to gain more control, save costs, and boost the recognition rate for data capture. 

The project was a big success. Thanks to Vendor Invoice Management and Capture, we can process bigger volumes of invoices at our service center faster than ever. Before OpenText, it used to take around five working days to post an invoice. Today, our AP team can do it an average of five minutes: over 99% faster. 

Keeping headcount flat

Fast, streamlined processes have only become more important for us over time. When we first started working with OpenText, we were processing one third of the invoices we now process each year. By empowering our AP professionals with digital workflows, we can handle that massive increase in workload while keeping headcount in our shared service center flat. 

The OpenText solutions are also helping us to foster an engaging working environment for our teams. Now that we’ve done away with repetitive manual data-entry, there’s more time for our AP teams to focus on value-added activities. We’ve achieved great results with OpenText, but there are so many opportunities to do more, like automating more invoices.  

At SCHOTT, we believe that everyone can make a difference. Through our partnership with OpenText, we’re putting our philosophy into practice. To learn more about how we are working with OpenText to enhance our accounts payable operations, read our case study.

The post SCHOTT creates a polished accounts payable process appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

For more than three decades, Metal Tech MFG has been precision-machining components for many of the world’s best-known agricultural machinery brands. We work with large enterprises with manufacturing facilities all over the world—and when we receive an order, we strive to deliver high-quality products on time, every time.

Because we work with tight timelines for manufacturing and delivery, communication is key. We need to be able to receive orders from our customers and let them know when to expect delivery of their products. With thousands of orders coming in every month, we depend on our electronic data interchange (EDI) capabilities to stay on top of the workload.

Although EDI has been a vital capability for our business for decades, our previous approach still involved a signficant amount of manual data processing. Creating and dispatching advance shipping notices (ASNs) to our customers was a full-time job—one of our employees worked 40 hours a week simply re-keying data on customer orders.

In a small company like ours, everyone needs to wear multiple hats to get things done. We wanted to free our people from repetitive data-entry tasks, so they could focus on value-added work.

Getting into the fast lane with EDI automation

To achieve our goal, we looked for a way to automate our EDI workflows, beginning with ASN documents. Initially, we thought we would need to rip and replace our legacy ERP system to get the B2B integration capabilities we wanted—a major project that would have involved a massive outlay of capital and time, and a signficant amount of risk. But then, OpenText came through with another option.

When OpenText showed us what we could do with OpenText Business Network Cloud Foundation, we quickly realized that we had a fast route to advanced EDI automation. Working with OpenText Professional Services, we deployed a solution to extract the necessary data from our ERP system and bring it into Business Network Cloud Foundation for onward processing.

Shifting to B2B managed services

Every month, we use Business Network Cloud Foundation to process up to 3,000 EDI transactions—including all our ASNs. The platform leverages the world’s largest value-added network (the OpenText Trading Grid™ Messaging Service), which gives us total peace of mind that all our EDI documents will be delivered to customers on time.

In the rare event that there’s an issue with one of our ASNs, OpenText Lens™ gives us the ability to monitor our business transaction flows in real time and rapidly drill down to discover and resolve the root cause.

Empowering employees to add value

Even though we’ve automated the processing of just one of our EDI documents, the project has already made a big difference to our business. One of our team-members who was previously working up to 40 hours a week manually re-keying order data for ASNs is now free to focus on more valuable and rewarding work: from training the next generation of machinists to refining our processes on the shop floor.

Working with OpenText has also helped us significantly reduce our costs. Thanks to the labor savings we made, the project paid for itself within a year. We plan to work with OpenText to automate all of our EDI processes, which has the potential to deliver cost-savings of around $200,000 a year.

 
Although cost-savings are welcome, what excites us most about EDI automation is the ability to save time and focus on our customers. By taking manual data entry out of the equation, we reduce the potential for human error in our B2B communications, which translates to even faster and higher-quality services for our customers.

To learn more about how we are working with OpenText to transform our approach to EDI, read the Metal Tech MFG customer case study.

The post Metal Tech MFG optimizes its B2B integration and EDI automation capabilities  appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

Industries today are constantly battling to maintain equipment reliability, reduce maintenance costs, improve safety and prevent costly equipment downtime. Traditional maintenance strategies often rely on reactive approaches, addressing issues only after machinery breaks down. But with AI and machine learning driving the future of maintenance, businesses are shifting toward predictive maintenance and prescriptive maintenance strategies to stay ahead of failures and keep operations running smoothly. 

The Power of Predictive and Prescriptive Maintenance 

Every business knows the pain of unexpected equipment downtime—operations grind to a halt, deadlines are missed, safety incidents occur, and costs skyrocket. For industries like manufacturing, healthcare, and energy, this downtime doesn't just mean a temporary hiccup; it leads to significant financial losses, decreased productivity, and even safety risks. 

Predictive maintenance offers a solution by using AI-powered analytics and real-time data to forecast when equipment is likely to fail. By analyzing data from IoT sensors, machine performance logs, and other systems, predictive analytics provides early warnings about potential equipment breakdowns, allowing businesses to schedule repairs before failure happens. This proactive approach minimizes downtime and helps prevent disruptions. 

But it gets better with prescriptive maintenance, which goes beyond forecasting failures. Prescriptive analytics recommends the best course of action to fix the issue—whether it’s adjusting machine settings, ordering a spare part, or scheduling a technician. This ensures that every intervention is timely and efficient, cutting down on costs and maximizing machine uptime. 

Why Equipment Downtime is a Business Killer 

Let’s take a deeper look at the impact of equipment downtime. Every minute of downtime leads to direct losses in revenue and productivity, but it also results in higher maintenance costs, damaged equipment, injury risk, and delayed orders. For industries dependent on machinery to operate—whether it’s factory equipment, healthcare devices, or power plants—downtime is a direct hit to profitability. 

Reactive maintenance is often too late—when a machine breaks down, the damage is done. But with predictive maintenance, businesses can prevent those failures altogether. By leveraging AI-powered maintenance strategies, organizations can move from reacting to breakdowns to predicting and preventing them. 

A 30-50% reduction in downtimeⁱ is just the beginning. Businesses that use machine learning in maintenance are also extending the lifespan of critical assets by 20-40%ⁱⁱ and reducing costs by up to 40%ⁱⁱⁱ. These savings add up fast, improving profitability while keeping operations running smoothly and yielding a 10x ROI^iv. 

The Technical Challenge of Implementing Predictive and Prescriptive Maintenance 

While the benefits of predictive maintenance are clear, implementing it comes with technical challenges. Businesses are generating massive amounts of data from IoT sensors, machine logs, and real-time monitoring systems. The key challenge is integrating this data and processing it fast enough to generate useful insights. 

This is where AI-powered maintenance truly shines. With the help of predictive analytics and machine learning, companies can analyze vast streams of data in real time. The challenge, however, is ensuring that these models remain accurate and adaptive as the equipment changes over time. Continuous data integration, real-time analysis, and accurate model training are essential to the success of predictive and prescriptive maintenance systems. 

Furthermore, businesses need scalability to handle the ever-growing data from their expanding operations. Whether you're dealing with thousands of IoT sensors across multiple factories or medical devices producing millions of data points, your system needs to scale without sacrificing speed or accuracy. Finally, concerns about data security and privacy must also be addressed, particularly when dealing with sensitive operational information. 

How OpenText Analytics Cloud Solves the Problem 

This is where OpenText Analytics Cloud steps in as the perfect solution. OpenText Analytics Cloud provides a unified platform for real-time data integration and AI-powered predictive analytics that’s built for scale. Whether your business deals with millions of data points per second or needs to analyze complex machine learning models in real time, OpenText offers a solution that works. 

The in-database machine learning capabilities of OpenText Analytics Cloud allow businesses to train and update predictive models directly within the platform, eliminating the need for data transfers between systems. This speeds up processing up to 50x and ensures continuous, accurate predictions, keeping you ahead of equipment failures. 

With flexible deployment options—on-prem, cloud, or hybrid—OpenText Analytics Cloud ensures businesses can tailor the solution to their infrastructure, minimizing costs and maximizing performance. Its real-time analytics capabilities make it the ideal partner for companies looking to adopt predictive and prescriptive maintenance at scale. And with enterprise-grade security, OpenText ensures your data is protected and fully compliant with industry regulations. 

Real-World Predictive Maintenance Success Stories 

Philips Healthcare 

Philips Healthcare faced a challenge with medical equipment reliability. By implementing OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica), Philips reduced equipment downtime by 30% and increased their first-time fix rate to 84%, while identifying 20% of issues before they even affected customers. This proactive approach ensures medical professionals can rely on critical devices without the risk of unplanned downtime. 

Knorr-Bremse 

A leader in braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles, Knorr-Bremse needed real-time insights into their fleet’s performance. Using OpenText Intelligence (Magellan BI & Reporting), they reduced maintenance costs by 20% and extended the lifespan of their equipment. This allowed them to achieve a significant ROI within 2-4 years by proactively addressing maintenance issues before they escalated. 

Nimble Storage (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) 

As their customer base grew by 600%, Nimble Storage needed a scalable solution to manage the influx of data from their storage systems. By implementing OpenText, they reduced query times by 50-83%, enabling real-time system insights. They also cut support cases by 86% and saw 19% fewer customer support calls annually, greatly improving customer satisfaction. 

Unowhy 

Supporting over 500,000 devices across classrooms, Unowhy faced the challenge of maintaining seamless operations while keeping maintenance costs under control. With OpenText Analytics Cloud, they improved device reliability, reduced support costs, and shifted to a proactive maintenance model that ensured educators could focus on teaching without technical interruptions.

Why Choose OpenText for Predictive and Prescriptive Maintenance? 

OpenText offers a comprehensive, scalable, and secure solution for businesses looking to adopt AI-powered maintenance strategies. With predictive analytics and machine learning integrated directly into the platform, OpenText delivers real-time insights and prescriptive recommendations to optimize maintenance operations, reduce costs, and prevent equipment failures. 

For businesses seeking to transform their maintenance strategies from reactive to proactive, OpenText Analytics Cloud is the perfect partner. With success stories across various industries, OpenText has proven its ability to drive operational excellence, ensuring businesses stay ahead of equipment failures and maintain optimal performance. 

The Future of Maintenance is Predictive and Prescriptive 

In an increasingly data-driven world, predictive and prescriptive maintenance are no longer just options—they are essential for any business looking to improve operational efficiency, prevent equipment downtime, and cut maintenance costs. With AI-powered maintenance and real-time analytics, businesses can prevent failures, extend asset lifespans, and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving landscape. 

Choosing OpenText as your partner in predictive maintenance ensures you have the technology, scalability, and security to transform your operations and achieve long-term success. Don’t wait for your next breakdown—start predicting and preventing it today. 

The post From breakdown to breakthrough: How predictive and prescriptive maintenance are revolutionizing operations appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

OpenText was an active presenter and participant in the recent IoT Tech Expo in Santa Clara, CA. We also introduced customers to our AI IoT orchestration solution, Aviator IoT. There’s just something about attending a live event and answering questions as they arise that is incredibly satisfying. I wanted to share some of my observations from attending this event. 

The biggest take away is that IoT continues to be a hot topic for organizations. And with both established and emerging companies vying for attention, there continues to be strong investment and innovation in the technology. As Forrester noted, “82% of organizations are adopting IoT solutions or applications.”

 Additional insights from the IoT Tech Expo

Here are some of the other insights I took note of:

• AI was mentioned everywhere but shown very little.  Although artificial intelligence (AI) was a major talking point, examples of real-world implementations were less common. Many companies are still exploring how to effectively integrate AI with IoT to create value. The bottom line:  AI IoT is ripe for future development.

• The lack of IoT standards is still an issue.  There were many discussions about wireless IoT protocols like LoRaWAN and HaLow and other protocols underscoring that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. The choice of protocol often depends on the specific data requirements and operational context of the IoT application. On a side note, stay tuned for an upcoming blog about how Aviator IoT will deliver tools for launching custom themed IoT applications.

• Long live the digital twin!  The concept of digital twins—virtual models of physical devices—remains a hot topic. These models can be used for real time fault detection, particularly in complex machinery and equipment.  Read more about the ever-evolving digital twin here.

• Supply chain traceability is more important than ever. Quality control, safety and compliance are just a few of the reasons. Traceability enables swift identification and recall of faulty products, ensures adherence to regulatory stands, builds consumer trust be demonstrating transparency and aids in pinpointing the source of issues in the supply chain. Ultimately, it helps organizations maintain high standards and responsiveness throughout the production and distribution processes. 

Please reach out to me if you would like to have a copy of my session presentation or to just chat about this exciting event.  And you can learn more about OpenText Aviator IoT here.

From IoT Expo to OpenText World

This reflection leads me to another highly anticipated tech event on the horizon, OpenText World North America, November 18 – 21 in Las Vegas. Learn about the latest innovations and technologies, including AI and IoT, at this marquee event. Hear keynote speeches and sessions led by industry thought leaders and visionaries and gain knowledge and practical insights into how technology can help your business adapt to a rapidly changing world.

The post 2024 IoT Tech Expo: Insights and observations appeared first on OpenText Blogs.

Our journey began at the turn of the century when Thomas Edison invented the carbon filament lamp. Today, GE Lighting, a Savant company, is taking the lead in developing smart home solutions—helping customers around the world design perfectly lit spaces and smart environments to live, work, and play. 

Every year, we deliver millions of products to our customers through our partnerships with online and big-box retailers. Getting our products from the shop floor to our customers’ doorsteps depends on a carefully choreographed fulfillment process. 

Forecasting demand to deliver on time at GE Lighting

One of the most important stages in this process is forecasting. To fulfill orders on time, we must anticipate demand across all our markets and align our manufacturing and logistics to ensure we have the optimal quantity and assortment on hand. 

We produce our products with dozens of contract and original equipment manufacturers. Information from our suppliers plays a vital role in the forecasting process. For example, we need to know about any manufacturing delays quickly, as this may impact fulfilment downstream. 

Firefighting order management issues at GE Lighting

In the past, getting timely information from our suppliers was a tough challenge—and our main pain point was our previous order management tool.  

Many of our suppliers are not EDI-enabled. We used the system to enable them to share key EDI documents: purchase orders (POs), invoices, and shipping updates, among others. However, the tool was extremely slow and cumbersome to use. Our suppliers regularly ran into technical problems when uploading their data.  

Every week, our sourcing team spent hours on the phone firefighting these technical issues with our suppliers. This diverted them from other important tasks. As a result, there was often a significant delay in suppliers updating information on the system. Ultimately this reduced the accuracy of our forecasts. 

Transforming our approach with OpenText 

We looked for a new order management solution to collaborate more effectively with our dozens of trading partners. Of the four industry-leading solutions we evaluated, OpenText Active Orders stood out as the best fit for our business. 

As well as covering our entire procure-to-pay process, the OpenText solution is easy to integrate with our SAP ERP business systems—a critical requirement for us. The OpenText solution is also very responsive and user-friendly. Gone are the days of painfully long loading times. Our suppliers can instantly open the Active Orders web portal and rapidly upload their information. 

Collaborating seamlessly with suppliers 

One of the biggest differences between our previous tool and the OpenText solution is how smoothly it runs. In the past, our sourcing team would typically field five troubleshooting calls from suppliers every week. Today, we hardly get any reports of technical issues at all. 

Every month, we send and receive more than 7,000 files via Active Orders, and our suppliers can now share information with us more quickly and easily than ever. This year alone, we’ve increased on-time PO confirmations by 2%. This translates into more timely data from our suppliers, which in turn helps us forecast more accurately and fulfill millions of orders on time. In fact, Active Orders helped increase on-time fulfillment by 10% over the last 12 months, which helps us to foster greater customer satisfaction. 

About the author 

Rick Stalker has spent his entire 20+ year career with GE Lighting, a Savant company, after graduating from The Ohio State University with a BS in Computer Science & Engineering. He has held roles supporting various business functions as an application support project leader. His current role is the IT Business Relationship Manager for Supply Chain. 

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In recent years, the manufacturing sector has experienced notable disruptions – including supply chain instability, product demand fluctuations, transportation issues, and workforce shortages. However, amidst these challenges, a crucial lesson emerged that highlighted how harnessing information effectively can yield a distinct competitive edge and enhance overall profitability.

As we anticipate the forthcoming year, here are my five industry predictions for the next 12-months:

AI enabled digital twins

Manufacturers have been building digital twins of their products and physical production environments for a few years now. In fact, digital twins have been used as part of the product design process for nearly 30 years, with the aim of removing the need for physical prototypes. The emergence of generative AI will transform how users interact with their digital twins. The manufacturing industry has a technological perfect storm ahead of it in 2024 as companies look to leverage the benefits of IoT, AI, Augmented Reality, and 3D engineering models. Generative AI will allow engineers and maintenance teams to literally have conversations with their products. The ability to monitor, control and adjust physical equipment through a 3D virtual representation will transform through life support models. AI will learn through the digital twin as to how the physical model should be operating in real life and based on historical data will be able to fine tune the physical equipment for optimum performance. We are just learning about the potential for generative AI, and 2024 could be a transformational year for the technology in the manufacturing industry

Sewing a digital thread through manufacturing information systems

The manufacturing industry is the most global of industries and yet it struggles to ensure that information is accessible anytime and anywhere around the world. Part of the problem is that manufacturers use multiple systems, from ERP, PLM, WMS, TMS and B2B integration solutions to digitize the supply chain. In 2024 we will see more extensive digital backbones being introduced across global manufacturing operations which in turn will allow digital threads to be established between manufacturing, engineering, and process-based information systems. Companies have struggled for years with siloed information but digital threads, through a combination of APIs and other application integration technologies will allow information to be exchanged seamlessly between different manufacturing systems. Digital threads will be critical to the successful deployment of an AI based solution as to obtain real time insights into manufacturing operations as all information needs to be aggregated into a central data lake for processing and analysis. Digital threads will provide manufacturers with the ability to extract valuable insights into their operations and allow processes to be optimized to meet customer and market demand.

Accelerated exploration of the industrial metaverse

Virtual Reality (VR) technologies have been around since the 1990s but has seen mixed adoption in the enterprise. This is mainly down to the technology used to project the 3D environments but also identifying valuable use cases for where the technology can be used. Augmented Reality (AR) has seen an accelerated interest during 2023 with the service support sector leveraging the technology for maintenance purposes. Meta quietly introduced the Metaverse nearly two years ago now and received a mixed reception. However industrial companies have been exploring interesting use cases for the technology. Taking industrial digital twins into the Metaverse will likely accelerate in 2024 as companies realise the benefits of using the Metaverse to test digital mock ups of products, to train service technicians in how to maintain complex equipment and for business leaders to test certain ‘what if’ scenarios to see how their business or supply chain operations will perform. There is a debate as to whether VR or AR will succeed but it really depends on the use case and which technology users feel most comfortable using. The Metaverse will likely define a new form of content management system as each 3D object will have data and other assets associated with it that will need to be managed in an efficient way.

Embracing ESG and SCOPE 3 emissions mandates

Consumers are forcing manufacturers to rethink how they design, build, and maintain their products. Manufacturers are starting to embrace the Circular Economy by designing new products so that they can be recycled more easily at end of life. Being able to monitor all processes and all external trading partners for ESG compliance will accelerate in 2024, especially as more countries follow Germany’s lead on ensuring that companies are accountable for how they source materials and goods to produce finished products. Developing more sustainable products and processes has been on the increase in recent years but consumer interest in knowing what goes into manufacturing today’s products is forcing manufacturers to comply with new ESG regulations. Manufacturers will become more accountable for emissions not only being produced by themselves but by their multi-tiered supply chains and the logistics carriers transporting raw materials to factories and finished products to their customers. Connecting all trading partners to a common business network will potentially help to track emissions across the supply chain but it may require new EDI document standards to be developed to allow emission values to be captured at each stage of the supply chain process. The technology is certainly available to help improve the monitoring and tracking of ESG and SCOPE 3 emissions and 2024 will see new supply chain technologies and processes emerge to achieve this.

Migration to industrial clouds

As manufacturers continue to globalize their operations, they need to connect to a central information management system to ensure they can access any digital asset as required. Manufacturers have been migrating to the cloud for many years but in 2024 we will see industry specific clouds accelerating across different sectors. So, whether you are operating in the automotive, high tech or process sectors, new industry-based clouds will appear that contain pre-built adapters to allow you to seamlessly integrate with any ERP, PLM or B2B environment. They will contain pre-defined process templates to ensure that information flows according to specific business rules used by a particular industry. Finally, they will embrace all the necessary standards to operate effectively in each industry, whether that is embracing ODETTE supply chain standards in automotive sector or IP protection regulations in the high-tech sector. Industrial clouds will transform how companies archive, integrate, and derive insights from industrial information flowing across their internal and external business ecosystems.

A prevailing theme knitting these predictions together unsurprisingly lies in the significance of technology within the manufacturing sector. As the industry continues to advance through its digital transformation, groundbreaking technologies – such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and the Metaverse - are poised to take centre stage. To maintain competitiveness, the manufacturing sector must expedite the adoption of these technologies and take a proactive approach in navigating the evolving landscape of modern manufacturing.

Learn more about how OpenText solutions for the manufacturing and automotive industries can help your organization overcome its challenges.

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Recent disruptions have exposed the fragility of the global supply chain, and manufacturers have suffered more than most. Manufacturing organizations are now looking towards digital technologies to help. Their intent? Construct the resilient and agile supply chains needed to head off any future disruptions successfully. B2B integration is one of those fundamental technologies. Recent research from IDC and OpenText examined the maturity and benefits of supply chain integration in manufacturing.

In its many forms, supply chain integration has been around for years. However, recent disruptions have accelerated its adoption within manufacturing. According to our survey, more than 50% of manufacturers already use automated integration when dealing with customers. More than a quarter of organizations (24%) have reached the highest level of fully automated, real-time integration.

This picture is changing rapidly. In less than three years, manual transactions will have dropped by almost a half. Fully 75% of all B2B transactions in the manufacturing sector will soon be through automated supply chain integration.

The benefits of cloud-based integration are clear and far-reaching

Organizations have always viewed cost as a key driver of B2B integration. However, manufacturers also need resilient supply chains based around much closer working relationships and collaboration with their trading partners. This demand changes the benefits that manufacturing companies seek in their B2B investments.

When asked about the benefits of digital supply chain integration, manufacturing respondents are increasingly looking beyond financial returns. While reducing costs – such as suppliers or logistics – still ranked highly, strategic business benefits were also crucial.

The benefits of digitizing supply chain documents

The benefits of effective supply chain integration became even more apparent when we studied the effects on business performance. This is especially true of digitally exchanging various business and supply chain documents. In every case, organizations that used supply chain integration for specific documents reported a significant uptick in business performance. In most cases, improvements were impressively above 70%.

As supply chains become more central to business success, these potential improvements are too significant to ignore. However, our research suggests that manufacturers must also accelerate progress toward digitizing these key supply chain documents. 

There is only one document – the purchase order – that over 40% of respondents expected to share digitally in the next three years. One explanation for this is that while manufacturers are accelerating the adoption of supply chain integration, integration itself is becoming more complex and challenging.

More partners, more tiers, more systems …more headaches

Undoubtedly, building new levels of agility and resilience into modern supply chains places the focus on increased digitization. It also improves integration and collaboration across increasingly global, extended, and complex supply networks. For manufacturers, modern supply chains are global, multi-tiered entities with multiple partners using multiple systems. 

The challenges are large and growing even as manufacturers are increasingly aware of the need for effective supply chain integration solutions. In fact, our respondents saw integration issues on all sides as they dealt with increasingly multi-layered supply chains.

Implementing a cloud-based unified supply chain integration platform

Manufacturers require a centralized cloud platform connecting the company to its trading partner community. To address supply chain integration challenges. This solution should help securely connect data to people, systems, and things. A cloud-based platform offers frictionless information exchange, end-to-end business visibility and extensive collaboration with a single digital backbone across business ecosystems.

6 key capabilities manufacturers should consider in an integration solution: 

1 - A single unified integration platform

Leverage a single integration backbone that underpins digital transformation initiatives and serves as a platform for future business growth. 

2 - Fully managed services

Take advantage of a flexible team of B2B and integration experts to manage your day-to-day B2B operations and integration requirements. 

3 - Seamless any-to-any integration

Manage growing integration complexity and demands for speed while embracing old and new forms of integration, including API.

4 - Secure, global connectivity

Easily assign digital identities to people, systems and things to enhance collaboration, prevent data breaches and improve trading partner ecosystem security.

5 - Real-time business insights

Aggregate information flows across a common integration environment and delivers real-time insights into business operations to whoever needs it.

6 - Self-service integration capabilities

Get access to a comprehensive self-service tool suite that lets you manage your connectivity and day-to-day collaboration with trading partners.

Manufacturers are embracing the benefits of supply chain integration. However, our research shows that there’s still work to be done. OpenText Business Network Cloud can help manufacturers meet the challenges of increasingly global and complex supply networks and trading partner communities.

Read the full IDC report: Next-Generation B2B Integration Enables a Digital-First, Resilient Supply Chain

Find out more about OpenText supply chain integration solutions.

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