Manufacturing Business Technology

• Equipment monitors speed safety reporting
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, March 6, 2008
   ShockWatch solutions can be used to automatically maintain OSHA-specified reports.
  
• Custom SaaS: NetSuite opens platform for development of unique solutions
  
  Jim Finkle, Reuters, March 5, 2008
  NetSuite Inc. aims to turn its business management software service into a platform for developers to create customized programs for small and medium-size businesses. The company, which delivers its software as a service over the Internet, sees customers and developers adding features for niche markets. NetSuite also expects to share in the revenue generated from those products.
  
  
• PLM consulting: Siemens and Wipro to help customers install PLM technology 
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, March 5, 2008
  Siemens PLM Software, a provider of product life-cycle management (PLM) software and services, and IT services firm Wipro Technologies announced a global consulting and systems integrator alliance to provide optimized PLM software and services.
  
• Financial scorecards: SYSPRO introduces solution for gauging fiscal health
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, March 5, 2008
  ERP solutions supplier SYSPRO released a solution aimed at gauging financial health for small and medium-size businesses (SMB). Financial Ratio Analysis is an addition to SYSPRO’s general ledger module.
  
• ERP Appliance: SAP and Intel team on preconfigured solution for medium-size enterprises
  
  PRNewswire-FirstCall, March 5, 2008
  SAP is teaming with Intel to market a Linux-based server preloaded with SAP’s Business All-in-One ERP solution. The product—being touted as “an ERP appliance”—will be powered by Intel’s Xeon processor. It will run SAP’s MaxDB database and the SUSE Linux Enterprise operating system from Novell.
  
• Multiple personas: Knowing what each user needs from a service is critical to SOA governance
  
  Hope Neal, Contributing Editor, March 5, 2008
    Multiple personalities can be a good thing—at least when it comes to a service-oriented architecture (SOA) governance strategy. That’s the conclusion offered by analysts at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner, who argue that the best solutions for managing an SOA are offered by vendors that realize that people with a variety of roles—or personas—must be part of the SOA governance process.
  
• Axeda and Digi partner for wireless remote asset service
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, March 5, 2008
  A new partnership will offer an end-to-end solution and a new model for servicing mobile, isolated, unconnected assets.
  
  
• Smooth migration: Autodesk says users moving from 2D to 3D sparked Q4 revenue growth
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, March 3, 2008
  Product life-cycle management (PLM) software vendor Autodesk credits users migrating from 2D to 3D design solutions, along with sales growth in international markets, for a 20-percent boost in revenue for its most recent fiscal quarters.
  
• ERP on demand: SAP offers quick-start program for midsize companies
  
  Datamonitor Newswire, March 3, 2008
  SAP has announced a new fast-start program for its SAP Business-All-in-One solutions. The program offers midsize companies in the manufacturing, services, and trade industries pre-configured industry-specific processes to streamline and gain visibility into their core business operations.
  
• Web services: Microsoft putting communications applications online
  
  CBC News, March 3, 2008
  Microsoft announced Monday it plans to offer some of its collaborative business applications as online services, marking the software company's latest effort to move its business from the desktop to the Internet.
  
  
• Secret emails: Intel pressured Microsoft to certify chips "Vista capable"
  
  Scott Duke Harris, San Jose Mercury News,San Jose, Calif., March 3, 2008
  Internal Microsoft email revealed through a federal class-action lawsuit suggests that Intel pressured Microsoft into certifying certain chips as capable of running the Windows Vista operating system.  
  
• Confidence index: Plans for decreased hiring biggest decliner in across-the-board drop of all key indictors
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, March 3, 2008
  Decreases in all key indicators, led by expectations for lower hiring levels, dropped the Small Business Research Board U.S.Small Business Confidence Index to 33.67 during Q4 2007. 
  
  
• Lantronix unveils Application Services Platform
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, March 3, 2008
  VIP Access simplifies remote access to firewall-protected equipment, allowing OEMs and managed services providers to generate additional revenue streams through remote product services.
  
  
• Smart partnership: Enterprise specialists link forecasting with ERP
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, March 3, 2008
  A new agreement pairs Smart Software’s statistical forecasting and demand planning capabilities with 3i Infotech’s ERP application suite
  
• Tyco Electronics opts for Wi-Fi RFID-based asset tracking
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, March 3, 2008
  An OATSystems Wi-Fi based RFID asset tracking solution is in use now to locate tractor trailers transporting electronic components between a large Tyco Electronics distribution center and manufacturing facilities in North Carolina.
  
  
• Microsoft's bid for Yahoo! has Google searching for cover
  
  By Staff, March 1, 2008
  Microsoft's $44-billion offer for Yahoo! seems to be an admission that Microsoft can't build a strong enough search/online advertising engine on its own to compete with industry leader Google. The question remains whether the combined capabilities of Yahoo! and Microsoft—whose search engine is known as MSN—will be formidable enough to challenge Google, whose position in the search a...
  
• Capgemini concludes: satisfaction, expectations on the rise for third-party logistics providers
  
  By Karen Dilger, contributing editor (kadilger@comcast.net), March 1, 2008
  When starting a new business relationship, it is important to map out common goals and objectives using a two-way communication process. Then, when problems or challenges occur, both parties can work to solve them together. When it comes to outsourcing, new research shows that although many organizations want to work collaboratively with their third-party logistics (3PL) providers, they are uns...
  
• New APICS partnership lightens the transportation-certification load
  
  By Staff, March 1, 2008
  A new agreement between APICS The Association for Operations Management and the American Society of Transportation & Logistics (AST&L) grants Certified Supply Chain Professionals (CSCP) and professionals or fellows who are Certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM/CFPIM) waivers for two of the six modules needed to obtain AST&L's Certification in Transportation and Logi...
  
• SAP ties together transportation management with xApp from Neoris
  
  By Frank O Smith, senior contributing editor (fosmith@thewritinggroup.com), March 1, 2008
  Neoris, a Latin American business and IT consulting firm and an SAP partner, recently redeveloped its Active Suite logistics execution applications as a composite xApp powered by SAP NetWeaver. It also added ActiveTrac, a new module for monitoring and enforcing logistics execution by enabling real-time tracking of vehicles and cargo while in transit.
  
• Visibility ERP tracks deep into orders
  
  By Malcolm Wheatley, senior contributing editor (malcolm_wheatley@compuserve.com), March 1, 2008
  When Ontario-based Nanometrics Seismological Inc. decided in early 2007 to find a new ERP system, the company evaluated more than 20 solutions, explains Ian Talbot, Nanometrics' director of finance. And somewhat to his surprise, Talbot relates, the choice was Visibility Corp.'s Visibility.net offering—a solution aimed at complex manufacturing environments typically engaged in building eng...