Sartorius Stedim Biotech (acquired Umetrics) SIMCA 16
August 2019
“Who are JMP’s competitors? (maybe we have them in narrow areas) — but there is nothing else like it.
Who is as interactive?
Who else does as great a job at DOE?
Who does analysis faster and bigger on the desktop?
Who else does Graph Builder as well?
No one, because JMP is truly unique in the crowded marketplace.” -John Sall
Company
- In April 2017, Sartorius Stedim Biotech, a European-based international supplier of products and services to the biopharma industry, acquired Umetrics from MKS Instruments, which had just acquired Umetrics in January of 2016. Umetrics was a global product and service based (training and consulting) software company founded in Sweden in 1987.
- Most of Umetric’s leadership team has been hired within the last four years.
- Umetrics has a number of OEM and reseller partners and they provide training and consulting services.
- In addition to Simca, The Umetrics division offers SimcaQ, Simca Online, Modde Go, Modde Pro, Easy Analytics, and Active Dashboard.
- According to Salesforce, they have had an annual license of JMP since 2012.
- According to this Dec. 2015 Youtube video, they have > 700 customers with > 7,000 users.
Product
- SIMCA: multivariate data analysis with built-in batch analysis, Unicode support, scripting in Python, patented OPLS (orthogonal partial least squares). SIMCA 16 was released in May 2019. Highlights in version 16:
- MOCA (multivariate orthogonal component analysis) for analyzing multi-block data, an example of which might be sensory analysis comparing expert panel data to chemical analysis and consumer preference.
- Model interrogations with score space exploration and a multivariate solver.
- Improved usability, more Python integration allowing for more data import and preprocessing options.
- SIMCA-online provides real-time interactive and visual monitoring tools for batch and continuous operations.
- SIMCA-Q is the OEM version of Simca on Windows and Linux.
Target Audience
- Scientists, engineers, researchers, product developers and others with large amounts of data. Their mission is to “facilitate growth by enabling our customers to see what others don’t. We are very ambitious and aim to become the overall leader data analytics provider within the process analytical market.”
Feature Strength and JMP Response
- They tout ease of use, but JMP has a strong claim there as well.
- Multivariate data analysis—JMP does most everything that SIMCA does. Among the things JMP does not do that SIMCA does is OPLS, however, this approach doesn’t appear to provide much over PLS according to some sources. However, many find OPLS useful in that it facilitates model interpretability by separating orthogonal as well as predictive variations. With JMP Pro 12, we included PLS-DA, especially useful in dealing with a much larger number of predictors than observations and with multicollinearity. Another new multivariate method SIMCA has is MOCA, a “novel” tool to analyze more than two blocks of data. JMP has this and more with Multiple Factor Analysis. With JMP 15 we continue to make enhancements to multivariate methods and with JMP Pro 15, we now have Structural Equation Models.
- Many of the top-ranked pharmaceutical companies use SIMCA and JMP has a strong presence in pharma as well.
- They offer consulting services including analysis, but also project management, implementation of process supervision systems, long-term co-opting services and more. While JMP has no consulting services, we can leverage SAS education for mentoring as well as our growing partner network.
- They have many complementary offerings to aid their users, including Modde for DOE, Modde-Q for embedding DOE, and Active Dashboard for real-time production dashboards on production data. In some cases, this may make them more entrenched in organizations and it provides a foundation for them to continue building on. JMP may be well penetrated in many of the same organizations, but used for different things. JMP can augment Umetrics offerings with more visualization and analysis capability, and we have the potential to displace SIMCA with enhanced PLS capabilities, the profilers, and more. With JMP Live, we can also offer more ways for customers to share and collaborate.
- They have strong market penetration in the process analytical space. Their courses are offered globally including in India, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, and the US.
- SIMCA includes Spectroscopy Skin and Omics Skin for handling spectroscopy and omics data.
Feature Weakness and JMP Response
- They have a DOE module, but JMP has many more accomplishments and a stronger track record of innovation in DOE.
- Their graphics do not appear to be as interactive or as attractive as JMP’s.
- As a multivariate analytics package, they lack text analytics, SVM as well as typical data mining methods, SEM, Generalized Regression, and a variety of other methods JMP includes.
Opportunities for JMP
- Position JMP’s value. JMP provides multivariate analysis, DOE, predictive modeling, quality, reliability, consumer research, text analytics, interactive data visualization, and with JMP 15, even more all in one product.
- Focus on interactive capabilities. Demonstrate Profilers, Graph Builder, Mapping, interactive HTML output, Excel Import Wizard, Query Builder, other predictive modeling tools etc. SIMCA users may also be interested in the advanced analytics of JMP Pro – show generalized regression, neural, partition etc. Emphasize the flexibility of JMP Pro, and the ability to build models with their data using multiple techniques and then use the Formula Depot to organize and collect models, Model Comparison to choose the model, which combines the best combination of fit, parsimony and cross-validation, and then score code generation to help put those models into production environments.
- If JMP is already in use, there may be opportunities for JMP Live to facilitate sharing and collaboration.
Threats for JMP
- Umetrics has integration capabilities with other tools scientists use in their workflows, so they may have a more entrenched foundation they can keep building on.
Pricing
- Thanks to Brendan Leary and two customers validating SIMCA pricing, we know they charge $8,000 per seat.
- In the past, we had learned that a 6-month lease of SIMCA from Amazon was $1500; unsure if that is still an option.
