PEORIA MAGAZINE June 2023

shutdowns, computer chip shortages, runaway inflation, war in Ukraine, etc. Pile all that on top of companies with too much stuff already, or not enough, or stuff that isn’t where it needs to be, with little idea of what’s still coming in or when. “It’s like hitting (a fragile object) with a hammer,” said Guha. “It just goes everywhere.” Enter TADA, whose timing could hardly have been better. A digital replica of the company is created, a techno-landscape through which TADA can peer into the past, move more confidently into the future, empower employees and help the client “solve problems before they happen” in an ever-changing environment. While not every conceivable stressor can be antici pated, companies can learn the resilience necessary to survive the earthquakes. At the end of the day, that company is “giving the customer what they want, when they want it,” with that lawnmower on the shelf at a Lowe’s or Home Depot when they arrive. A PLANETARY PAYOFF So, internal inefficiency and isolation are obviously wasteful. And when you think about the carbon emitted on the front end for those ordered parts that a business ends up not using, or for goods that customers ultimately don’t want, with their final destination being a landfill, well, fixing that would seem like a slam dunk. Syamala Srinivasan, TADA’s chief analytics officer and director of its Center for Enterprise AI, certainly thinks so. While many companies are trying to address this or that aspect of the supply chain, “we're looking at the entire supply chain,” she said. “How do I take the fat out?” “If we can reduce the waste, we can reduce the carbon footprint,” added Guha. “We have to take care of 7 billion people at the end of the day ... We also have to take care of the planet.” Yet it’s not solely out of environmental altruism that companies should act, he said.

“I’d much rather it’s the right thing to do for the company. It’s the right thing to do for the customer. It’s also the right thing for the planet,” he said. Getting to that win-win-win, “that’s my passion.” GROWING, COMMITTED TO DOING IT IN PEORIA “We are past the point where we think we are inventing TADA,” said Guha. “We’re off the runway … going up to cruise altitude,” with “dramatic growth” projected over the next two to three years in sales and employment. Today, TADA employs about 100 people, about half of them in Peoria. Guha can envision quadrupling that number, but believes it’s just as important “to see us have an outsized impact” beyond the vital stats. Meanwhile, he's dedicated to the Peoria that has become his home. Guha left his native India for the U.S. to get his master's degree at Iowa State University, then moved to Peoria in 1988 to do contract engineering work at Caterpillar on behalf of Automated Analysis Corp. In 1995, he and two partners ventured out on their own with CGN, a business transformation consulting firm. Fast forward 21 years to the birth of TADA, which now brags a growing list of clients including Navistar, Toro, Oshkosh and Harley-Davidson. TADA’s efficiency-enhancing platform has helped employees “go home at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. rather than working … 14 hours a day,” said Sajid Kunnummal, vice president and chief procurement officer at Navistar. “After a lot of assessment with multiple players, we found the right partner with TADA.” Guha sees his intelligent data management platform having value not only in manufacturing but in health care and elsewhere. “Guha likes to push the envelope and explore the world of possibilities,” said Jim Mormann, CEO of Integrated Solutions at OSF HealthCare. “Guha and his team are using intelligent analytics through the digital twin platform to help … determine what makes a number of our business services … work better and more efficiently. In some areas,

such as facility management and health care technology management, this data can help OSF look at its spend rate years into the future, which ultimately will help us control costs. “Aside from his excellent business acumen, Guha is passionate about the Peoria community as a whole and doing things right to see it prosper.” As with any entrepreneurial effort, TADA needs to raise capital and recruit talent, and a partnership with Bradley University is helping with the latter. Peoria has been good to Guha – Caterpillar was his first customer – and he continues to be bullish on its promise. “We are the smallest, biggest me tropolis,” he said. “We have an unusual advantage. Everybody knows each other. There’s a lot of trust. … We are the perfect melting pot for creating new ideas.” What central Illinois sometimes lacks is self-confidence. Guha invokes a former MIT professor of his, the notable systems scientist and author Peter Senge, who visited Peoria several years ago and listened to the local conversation. He recalls Senge saying afterwards something to the effect that “you keep worrying about what the whole world is going to do to Peoria,” a kind of victim mentality. “ You have the ability to change the world.” Which is what Guha is trying to do, from Peoria. Companies come and companies go, but sometimes the locals need to ask themselves what attracted those companies here in the first place, what lured him . Guha does get asked, “Why not move to San Jose?” “I need to do something that can help the industrial Midwest,” he responds. “This is as good a place as any. “If TADA could be the Warren Buffett for Peoria” – the “Omaha for some of this industrial technology” with an innovation ecosystem craved by other creative companies — “I would love it.”

Mike Bailey is editor in chief of Peoria Magazine

JUNE 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE 31