Manufacturing Business Technology

• PLM seems to be catching on in Asia
  
  By Staff, January 1, 2006
  The need for smoother collaboration among trans-global trading partners is fueling interest in product life-cycle management (PLM) applications in Asia, says Chuck Yuan, VP of Greater China Operations for PLM vendor UGS. "Facilitating cross-border collaboration among midsize companies for complex engineering tasks is mission-critical in the competitive China marketplace," he says.
  
• World-class IT organizations spend more than peers
  
  By Staff, January 1, 2006
  Atlanta-based The Hackett Group says world-class IT organizations are investing 17 percent more on technology-enabled solutions than typical companies, making IT the only area studied by Hackett wherein world-class performers outspend typical companies. Says Hackett Senior Advisor Eric Dorr, "Technology plays a role in how the best companies do everything from closing their books...
  
• "Structural" costs inhibit manufacturing growth, says NAM report
  
  By Staff, January 1, 2006
  U.S. manufacturers face a large structural cost disadvantage—31.7 percent to be exact—as they compete with companies from the country's nine largest trading partners, according to a report from Washington-based National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). What's worse, the gap is growing rapidly: Just three years ago, it was 22.
  
• More C-TPAT staff expected to shorten validation delays
  
  By Staff, January 1, 2006
  The Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) program is a popular initiative for reducing supply chain security risk, but according to some companies involved with the voluntary program, it's also fraught with delays in achieving its "validated" status. The good news is that particular issue is being eased by the addition of more specialists for C-TPAT validation work.
  
• "It's all about the platform" as two Microsoft units merge
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  In late September, Microsoft announced a major reorganization that collapses its seven business units into three. For manufacturers, the eye-opening part was the integration of Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS)—now rebranded Microsoft Dynamics—with the Office group. What exactly is behind the reshuffle in Redmond? In an e-mail to Microsoft employees, CEO Steve Ballmer wr...
  
• Sales & operations planning for midsize—now only $240,000
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  It's not that the supply chains of midsize manufacturers are any less complex than those of the largest enterprises, says Sujit Singh, a VP with Supply Chain Consultants (SCC). Rather, it's that manufacturers with revenues of less than $1 billion can't afford the lengthy implementations associated with the supply chain planning products of the largest enterprise vendors.
  
• QuickBooks moves up a notch with latest release of business management software
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  How does a small manufacturer know it has become a midsize manufacturer? It's not a matter of revenue, or how many employees there are, says Bill Lucchini, general manager, QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions, a unit of Intuit. "It's based on the complexity of the business," he states, asking, "Has it split into departments? Is decision-making now distributed? Is there a need for de...
  
• Automotive OEMs and suppliers must become "fast fish" to survive
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  Not only is the American automotive industry facing systemic problems—e.g., overcapacity, high legacy labor costs, and global competition, among others—but the industry landscape has evolved, and the ripples of the shift can be felt throughout supply chains. That was the message at supply chain management vendor i2 Technologies' Automotive Industry Day in October.
  
• Rockwell aspires to be paramount aggregator of plant-floor data
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  Rockwell Automation doesn't need to talk to its customers—although it no doubt does—to know that when it comes to information technology (IT), manufacturing plants remain "a highly fragmented space." The company is embarking on an ERP implementation, and in preparation, says Kevin Roach, VP of Rockwell Software, the vendor audited its own IT usage.
  
• In brief
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  Rockwell Automation intends to buy Datasweep, a vendor of production management software solutions targeted at the pharmaceutical, high-tech, automotive, and med-device industries. Rockwell will integrate and then rebrand Datasweep Advantage software products into FactoryTalk, Rockwell's production management and performance suite.
  
• Analytics solutions catch C-level attention
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  Time was, senior management left the details of software purchases to the head of the IT department. But times have changed. Executives now know the power of business intelligence (BI) and analytics software, and its ability to enhance operational performance. As a result, they want a hand in picking these tools.
  
• Océ brings metrics to document handling
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  According to an August 2005 report from Framingham, Mass.-based IT market intelligence provider IDC, applying quality-control principles to document-printing processes can yield cost savings ranging from 8 percent to 41 percent. Unfortunately, few companies have the kind of information required to measure the efficiency of printing processes.
  
• OEM says test-data system reduces stress of working with contract manufacturers
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  Terayon, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based modem manufacturer, recently discovered one pitfall of relying on contract manufacturers when customers started complaining that a particular unit wasn't consistently emitting ample power, even though it regularly passed all of the contract manufacturer's quality tests.
  
• Providers and users alike admit to thorny outsourcing results
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  The IT outsourcing market is maturing, but with its growth comes dissatisfaction on the part of many. Poor performance scores are reflected in the doubling of the number of companies that have prematurely terminated outsourcing relationships—now above 50 percent, according to a survey released by Chicago-based DiamondCluster International.
  
• MatrixOne integration technology earns patent; supports business change
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  A software tool aimed at streamlining deployment of its collaborative product life-cycle management (PLM) solution—regardless of user system architecture—earned MatrixOne a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office in September. The Interface Definition Language Compiler enables MatrixOne to support more platforms with greater ease—and at less co...
  
• Pull-based system leads album maker to shut off MRP functionality
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  Back in 1998, when Ole Dam was made operations manager of St. Cloud, Minn.-based Creative Memories—a direct-sales manufacturer of customized scrapbooks and photo albums—he knew exactly what to do. A lean practitioner for almost 25 years, Dam asked the company's chairman to attend a four-day course at JCIT International, which since 1985 has trained more than 90,000 ...
  
• Customer connectivity gains are evidenced in lean manufacturing deployments
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  Manufacturers in five nations ranked "defining customer needs" as the leading catalyst for innovation in their value chains, according to results of the third annual Productivity Survey conducted by Durham, N.C.-based TBM Consulting Group, released in September. Says Bill Schwartz, senior partner and managing director of TBM's LeanSigma Institute, "More companies are looking for...
  
• Demand for servers, storage, services grows at faster pace in process industries
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  Companies engaged in process manufacturing are buying servers, storage, and associated services at a much faster clip than their counterparts in discrete industries, according to Framingham, Mass.-based IDC. As a whole, the U.S. server market is estimated to grow at a 4.8-percent compounded annual growth rate through 2008, reaching nearly $24 billion.
  
• EPCglobal releases road map for easy RFID data exchange
  
  By Staff, December 1, 2005
  The oft-cited vision of a global infrastructure that would allow companies to conduct electronic commerce without worrying about integrating systems or translating documents may be closer to reality with the recent release of a report outlining a proposed EPCglobal Architecture Framework. The report defines a collection of standards for the hardware, software, information exchange ...
  
• Ariba expects subscription model to broaden its customer base
  
  By Malcolm Wheatley, senior contributing editor, December 1, 2005
  Studies of strategic sourcing generally produce the same conclusion: the practice yields substantial benefits—ranging from lower procurement costs to improved product quality—but developing a successful strategic sourcing program isn't easy. The difficulty stems largely from the numerous processes—from synchronizing data stored in multiple systems to monitoring sup...