Manufacturing Business Technology - July 1, 2006

What does today's executive need to intelligently run the business? Will the knowledge and tools of the past be sufficient to make intelligent decisions in the future? According to a recent survey from Boston-based AberdeenGroup, more than one-third of manufacturers have substantially increased customer satisfaction and reduced operating costs over the past two years.

• Business Performance
• Cognos
• One solution for how, why, and "what if?"
• SAS Institute
• Seeing the trees, and then the forest

• Columnists
• Back Talk
• It's time for vendors to find their niche in life
• Up Front
• Supply chain for a better, safer world

• Computing Infrastructure
• Enterprise software: a new beginning
• Cisco Systems
• A solutions-based approach to enterprise and plant-floor networking
• Hewlett-Packard Co.
• The adaptive enterprise drawn from multiple threads
• IBM
• Becoming a different kind of traditional enterprise
• Microsoft Corp.
• New version of BizTalk includes upgraded EDI and RFID support
• RFID Roundup
• RFID Roundup
• Symantec
• Network technology to counter the sophisticated criminal

• Enterprise/Supply Chain
• It's all about the architecture
• Ariba
• Soft landing leads to pliable spend-management program
• Epicor Software
• Proving bigger isn't always better
• Glovia International
• Singularly focused vendor responds to changed planning needs
• Infor/SSA GT
• Purchase of SSA GT changes ERP system landscape
• Microsoft Business Solutions
• Bill Gates speaks on enterprise systems and the desktop
• Oracle
• Fusion of ERP solutions, and a look at the plant floor ahead
• QAD
• Agile enough to follow manufacturing market demand
• SAP
• Services architecture, growing partnerships mark metamorphosis
• Sage Software
• ERP and more for SMBs that want freedom of choice
• Salesforce.com
• On-demand leader says it has the bases covered
• Supply Chain Roundup
• Supply chain roundup
• i2 Technologies
• Promises made, and delivered

• Plant-floor Operations
• Information, not just automation
• Brooks Software
• MES as the cure for complexity
• Citect
• Eventful year for plant applications vendor
• GE Fanuc
• Get more: Proficy suite moves toward unified view
• Honeywell Process Automation
• Award cites security gain, while keeping premium on information
• Invensys Process Systems
• Diverse capabilities united in an IT infrastructure for the plant floor
• OSIsoft
• A 25th anniversary finds founder "feeling great"
• Rockwell Software
• Making a way through a maze of plant-floor applications
• Siemens
• Production control is central to the enterprise

• Product Innovation
• Years in the making
• Adobe Systems
• Solutions for document-based communication
• Agile Software
• Understanding PLM requirements drives growth
• Autodesk
• Outsourcing flourishes when based on 3D collaboration
• PTC
• Companies want simplistic data sharing in product development
• UGS
• PLM functionality now available on a desktop near you

• Views From the Front
• Corporate
• Diversity finds priority in corporate giving
• Data Access
• Capturing elusive data in extended supply chains calls for cross-functional perspective
• Digital Manufacturing
• Exploiting the value of PLM calls for process maturity
• IT Outsourcing
• Low-level to moderate competency plagues offshore initiatives and strategies
• Information Technology
• IBM wants email users to march to the penguin
• Multicountry Strategy
• Reports conclude global trade "actually works"
• Operations
• Many ERP systems are underused
• Security Management
• Fraud, information access trump high-profile IT attacks in 2005—and today
• Service-Oriented Architecture
• IBM sets forth on the innovation landscape armed with SOA