Manufacturing Business Technology - March 1, 2008

Only several of more than 2,600 F-35 Lightning II aircraft that Lockheed Martin eventually will build have rolled off the end of its assembly line in Fort Worth, Texas, but Charles T. “Tom” Burbage already sees signs that the production strategy for this plane—also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)—is working.

• Columnists
• Back Talk
• Sidney Hill, Jr.: Forging a Lean supply chain
• In Perspective
• Julie Fraser: Addressing specific demand challenges
• Ed Miller: Leverage engineering simulation across the enterprise
• Up Front
• Kevin Parker: What does it mean to say it's model-based?

• Computing Infrastructure
• Microsoft's bid for Yahoo! has Google searching for cover
• Office goes server-side: Microsoft's blending of Office with SharePoint begets enterprise collaboration platform
• IT adopts a service mentality

• Enterprise/Supply Chain
• IQS quality solution remakes automotive supply chain in U.S., then China
• Visibility ERP tracks deep into orders
• SAP ties together transportation management with xApp from Neoris
• Simulation, better forecasting, and advanced planning smooth lean transition to the supply chain
• New APICS partnership lightens the transportation-certification load
• Capgemini concludes: satisfaction, expectations on the rise for third-party logistics providers

• Plant Operations
• Monitoring, reporting play key roles in tracking, reducing GHG emissions
• Corporate IT enters the plant
• A better view: Technology improvements make vision systems viable production tools
• Schneider Electric reaps huge savings by monitoring energy use

• Views From the Front
• IDC issues top 10 predictions for manufacturing 2008
• Risk think tank: Prediction market platform taps the wisdom of employees, partners, customers
• Petrochemical feedstock's unwelcome surprise
• New partnership speeds setup of electronic trading communities—and ERP ROI
• ARC forum discussions reflect changing operations/IT paradigm
• Purchasing's evolution to strategic sourcing is a multistage process
• No crisis here: IBM fulfills Wall Street firm's server needs