Kenesto beta opportunity

Here is some of what Alex Neihaus (that moved from Vuuch to Kenesto) emailed me: “Kenesto is developing a new kind of process automation system – one that is elegant in its simplicity, native to the cloud and which can become as universal as email and spreadsheets. Kenesto’s objective is to make it easy for everyone in the company to participate in product-based processes.”

Raykurland’s Blog post mentions that Mike Payne is CEO and explains: “Aimed at the category called business process automation, this cloud-based application allows asynchronous spawning of processes. Different from similar systems that try to model processes, Kenesto builds processes on the fly. Users wanting to track a process they are initiating, for instance an ECO, initiate a process, attach documents to it, and add users to the next process by adding their email addresses. Different types of “next processes” can be defined, such as “review and approve.” At each step in the process the recipient can add additional processes that add steps to the overall process. Kenesto builds the process diagram as steps are added. Note that this differs significantly from the BPM (Business Process Modeling) approach that models processes using a cumbersome programmatic approach. Kenesto calls it Business Process Automation (BPA).”

Press release:

Kenesto Announces Beta Program
New System Attacks the Complexity, Costs of Legacy PLM

Waltham, MA, January 4, 2012 – Kenesto, developer of a process automation system designed to deliver unprecedented ease of use and immediate productivity, announced today the opening of its beta program for customers and value-added resellers (VARs) in the manufacturing industry.
Kenesto is a completely new, 100% cloud-based system that allows users in all departments of the manufacturing enterprise to create processes and manage work easily. With Kenesto, users create processes graphically by simply naming participants and attaching documents, drawings, bills-of-materials (BOMs) and any other required information. Kenesto then manages the flow of that process through the enterprise, keeping information secure and delivering enhanced visibility across the business.
Kenesto automates common manufacturing processes including engineering change proposals, requests for quotation and new product introductions. Processes like these share attributes with many common tasks in an enterprise, including the need to securely share intellectual property, the requirement to involve people outside the R&D group and the desire to include vendors and suppliers in the process. These processes also involve a company’s product and/or service, making them vital to the success of the business. Through its intuitive understanding of what users want to do, Kenesto brings new productivity to a company’s crucial work processes.
“Until Kenesto, users wishing to automate their work were caught in a bind between simple but inadequate tools or very complicated, inflexible and pre-programmed PLM processes,” said Michael Payne, CEO, Kenesto. “Our ‘big idea’ in Kenesto is to use cloud technologies to deliver a system that is as universal as email or spreadsheets without the difficulty, delays and costs of using legacy PLM systems. The customers and VARs who have seen Kenesto during our pre-beta demonstrations have all been excited by Kenesto’s potential. Now, we are ready to bring this new way of working to more customers by means of our beta program.”

How to participate in the Kenesto beta program
Manufacturing companies and industry VARs are invited to participate in the Kenesto beta program. Send a request to beta@kenesto.com with your contact information, type of business and, if possible, an idea of a process you might wish to try in Kenesto. The company will contact you to discuss your participation in the beta program.
Kenesto is seeking companies whose work processes can be completed successfully in the beta version of Kenesto. In this way, beta program participants will be able to measure the real productivity of using Kenesto. Resellers who have clients with processes that have been attempted in legacy PLM systems but which have not delivered the desired level of results or user participation are encouraged to apply for the beta program.
To learn more about Kenesto, download An Introduction to Kenesto at http://www.kenesto.com/intro.

About Kenesto
Kenesto (www.kenesto.com) is a new kind of process automation system. In contrast to legacy PLM systems, Kenesto is people-centric, product-based and enterprise scalable. Kenesto combines these three attributes into the first system that can be widely deployed across an enterprise to improve a company’s teamwork and efficiency. Kenesto revolutionizes process automation by making process automation more widely applicable, more affordable and easier to use than ever before. Kenesto is privately-held and based in Waltham, MA.

Let’s see how this will compete with Autodesk 360 for PLM.