Manufacturing Business Technology

• Study reveals extracting value is top IT governance imperative
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  With major transactional systems largely in place and well rationalized, CIOs for midsize and large manufacturers should be focusing over the next five years on how to extract as much value as possible from existing system investments, according to a May report by analyst firm Manufacturing Insights, an IDC company based in Framingham, Mass.
  
• What's the point of business performance management initiatives?
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  A recent survey and corresponding report from Boston-based Aberdeen Group indicates best-in-class enterprises, in launching business-performance management initiatives, focus on critical areas that are frequently given little attention by competitors with lower performance: For example, in the document titled Closed-loop Corporate Performance Management Benchmark Report, a multin...
  
• What you don't know about SOAs could hurt your business
  
  By Sidney Hill, Jr., executive editor, October 1, 2005
  A service-oriented architecture (SOA) can be a vehicle for turning information technology (IT) into a strategic business weapon. However, few manufacturers know how to exploit this architecture, and not enough IT vendors are offering sufficient practical advice to get companies started. That seemed to be the general feeling among industry experts in attendance at a recent forum on ...
  
• Hosted PIM smoothes trading-partner relationships at International Paper
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  While the practice of exchanging documents and other information with trading partners electronically is becoming more common, it isn't necessarily getting easier. In fact, many companies find it is getting more difficult as they look to trade information with multiple partners using various communications technologies.
  
• Sun acquiring SeeBeyond says integration isn't a stand-alone solution
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  Filling a gap in its Java Enterprise System, Sun Microsystems acquired enterprise application integration (EAI) vendor SeeBeyond for $387 million. Founded in 1989 as Software Technologies Corp., the company became SeeBeyond in 2000, and three years later unveiled its ICAN product line, among the most Java-compliant integration solutions in the market.
  
• Lower costs for machine-to-machine communication will lead to new industrial applications
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  The maturation of remote monitoring has the makings of the next "disruptive technology." So says Glen Allmendinger, president of San Francisco-based consultancy Harbor Research. "Continuous monitoring is game-changing. The minute I put a [product or machine] on a network, I can move to a service business," Allmendinger said at a one-day seminar on machine-to-machine (M2M); mobile...
  
• New printers still based on line-matrix technology
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  It's natural to assume that newer technology improves the way a job is performed, but that may not be true when it comes to documents and forms that support manufacturing operations. Printronix, which introduced the first line matrix printers for manufacturing environments more than 30 years ago, says that particular technology is still better than newer alternatives—such a...
  
• Alliance Lab logs RFID tag study results online
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  The RFID Alliance Lab, Lawrence, Kan., released this past summer the results of extensive RFID tag performance test results on 10 leading electronic product code (EPC) tags. The lab conducted more than 5,000 tests under varying environments—including ideal conditions, free air, performance in proximity to both liquid and metals, and simulated production environments.
  
• New ISO framework addresses IT system security risk, vulnerability
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  In June, The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Engineering Consortium (IEC) released ISO/IEC 17799:2005, the latest update to their code of practice for information systems. This version includes more guidance for information security and incident management than did its predecessor, and addresses risk assessment, provisions for business p...
  
• RFID community working to share patents—with one notable exception
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  Widespread adoption of RFID technology took a step forward on August 9, with the announcement of a "patent pool" consortium intended to streamline user access to RFID intellectual property. Nearly 20 companies holding RFID patents—including Alien Technology, Symbol Technologies, Avery Dennison, Thingmagic, and Zebra Technologies—are founding members, with more expected ...
  
• RFID will find first home in CPG and pharmaceuticals
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  "Supply chain event management is the largest application of RFID technology in industry today," says John Fontanella, senior VP of supply chain services at Boston-based AberdeenGroup. Supply chain event management solutions notify users when there's a problem in the supply chain, such as depleted inventories, delayed shipments, or shortages.
  
• Preplanning enables remote operation when public infrastructure fails
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  The grim pictures of Hurricane Katrina managed to put disaster recovery top-of-mind for many manufacturers. But when thinking about worst-case scenarios, executives should not overlook the more common situation where their facilities are intact, but their employees can't get to work, say researchers at Ontario-based IT consultancy Info-Tech.
  
• Industry vendor gets nod from the man himself
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  In a keynote address at its premier event for software developers, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates unveiled Microsoft's next-generation software platforms: Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 12. Data historian and real-time performance vendor OSIsoft, cited in the keynote, is a strategic partner for the next-generation Microsoft Office System.
  
• Big consulting expertise available to small companies
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  Small manufacturers are at a disadvantage when it comes to acquiring expertise to improve operations. Affordable help is available through the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), a network of centers in every state linked through the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards, and funded by federal, state, local, and private resources.
  
• Specifications seek to reroute e-mail
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  With its routers moving the majority of e-mail traffic, Cisco Systems is taking an active role in protecting Internet users from e-mail fraud. Cisco has joined a number of technology companies—including Yahoo—in developing an e-mail specification that would force all e-mail senders to identify themselves.
  
• IBM transforms its own supply chain success into revenue stream
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  Ranked by Boston-based AMR Research as having the top-performing supply chain in the world, IBM says it will leverage that capability to offer outsourced supply chain services. IBM views such transformational services as a high-growth market capable of 10-percent to 15-percent growth—significantly higher than its traditional hardware business, and potentially worth $23.
  
• IBM releases first results of Ascential acquisition
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  When IBM acquired Ascential last spring, the data integration provider was just months away from releasing its first next-generation products, code-named Hawk. With Hawk, Ascential would finally unify the data-transformation product family purchased prior to its own acquisition by IBM. The first Hawk deliverables cover Ascential's DataStage TX products (now branded WebSphere Data...
  
• Unified project grid puts regulatory projects in the IT safe zone
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  Regulatory compliance just got a bit easier, thanks to the Unified Compliance Project (UCP). Undertaken by the Seattle-based IT Compliance Institute (ITCI), UCP's goal is to map requirements and eliminate overlap in some 60 regulations and accompanying standards. The effort required to comply with this profusion of regulations often spawns piecemeal approaches that lead to redundant...
  
• Global executives seem more pessimistic; report cites political turmoil as factor
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  The fifth Global Survey of Business Executives, generated by New York-based McKinsey, shows a significant drop in confidence—falling steadily for 15 months—with a global 10-percent drop in the most recent quarter. Sharper declines were identified in Europe and emerging markets, according to the quarterly report, released in July.
  
• Warehousing solutions vendors consolidate for takeoff
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2005
  The warehouse management software (WMS) market showed healthy growth in 2004, despite heavy consolidation that typically acts as a drag on sales. According to a recent study by Dedham, Mass.-based ARC Advisory Group, after several slow years, the market grew more than 5 percent, with $1,067 million in revenues.