Manufacturing Business Technology

• SC consortium spotlights industry leaders
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 6, 2007
  The Supply Chain Consortium recognized six “bold leader” companies at its annual executive seminar held in Orlando.
  
• Lean innovation: Invistics partnership sets up planning & scheduling for high-mix manufacturers
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 6, 2007
  A partnership between Invistics and Lean Advisors seeks to deliver lean solutions to drive innovation in nontraditional lean environments such as specialty chemical, consumer products, pharmaceuticals, and electronics.
  
• Economics of change: Vendors blend EAI, ERP, and RFID with open source ease
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 5, 2007
  Apatar recently set up an open source database integration partnership with MySQL AB; a RichWeb architecture is at the center of Compiere's new open source ERP; and a new RFID simulation tool from Pramari tests scenarios before buying. 
  
• Smart thinking: Industry-specific RFID hits packaging, chemicals markets
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 5, 2007
  A new line of "smart boxes" for packaging manufacturers and a value-model tool targeted at chemical processors that want to assess RFID adoption are the latest vertical RFID technology offerings to hit the marketplace.
  
• Offshore, nearshore, or outsourced? It's a performance matter now
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 5, 2007
  Boston-based AMR Research says many companies are reconsidering deployment strategies for offshoring services due to performance and management issues of extremely remote providers.
  
  
• Green back-up plan: Active Power UPS protects Alcan Packaging from costly downtime
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 5, 2007
  Electrical power disturbances costs U.S. manufacturing companies hundreds of millions of dollars annually in lost productivity. Alcan Packaging is using Active Power’s flywheel-based uninterruptible power supply (UPS)system to protect its production process against electrical disturbances.
  
• Sales-oriented support: SAP refreshes its CRM interface
  
  Kevin Parker, editorial director, December 5, 2007
  SAP this week introduced the latest version of SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) 2007. New capabilities include multichannel customer service, real-time offer management, and optimized marketing and promotions spend. More important, the new version is said to embody the ease of use required by sales-oriented applications.
  
• ABB plans major expansion in India
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 5, 2007
  Power and automation technologies specialist ABB says India is becoming a key location and market for its global growth strategy.
  
• Extra effort: Better transportation management starts with a business case
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 4, 2007
  Dedham, Mass.-based ARC Advisory Group has repeatedly adjusted upwards its forecast of the transportation management systems (TMS) market over the last two years, primarily due to rising fuel prices that are sparking interest in improved transportation management. Yet despite knowing what TMS industry best practices are, few companies are implementing them and achieving best-in-class stature, according to a new study from Boston-based Aberdeen Group.
  
• ERP integration: EAM plays leads role in enterprise vendor, user group agendas
  
  Frank O Smith, senior contributing editor, December 4, 2007
  Rod Masney, chairman of Americas’ SAP Users’ Group, says plant maintenance has been one of the best-kept secrets in the SAP portfolio. Other solutions vendors, among them IBM and several ERP providers—including Infor and Oracle—recently made acquisitions in the space to position themselves over best-of-breed providers.
  
  
• For manufacturers, "going green" can be good for business and the environment
  
  Marc Moschetto, editorial director, Control Engineering magazine, December 4, 2007
    A new report out of McKinsey & Company indicates that reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States will require far-reaching efforts spanning all sectors of the economy, but significant savings generated by “going green” can outweigh the costs over time.
  
• Brand protection: National Semiconductor test-drives a solution for guarding intellectual property
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 3, 2007
  New Momentum, a provider of supply chain risk management software for companies that make or use electronic components in their products, says National Semiconductor is evaluating New Momentum’s Brand/Intellectual Property protection software.
  
• A smooth blend: HP links acquired products with homegrown solutions to automate IT management
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 3, 2007
  Hewlett-Packard (HP) has unveiled an integrated set of applications for managing IT operations. This new software suite combines several of HP’s homegrown solutions with technology from companies HP recently acquired.
  
• Credit index: Manufacturing, service sectors showing signs of contraction
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 3, 2007
  In his monthly commentary regarding a national survey of credit managers in the manufacturing and service sectors, Euler Hermes ACI Chief Economist Daniel C. North says survey data showed a decline for the third straight month in the manufacturing and service sectors.
  
• Lawson Software sees big pickup for QuickStep ERP packages
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 3, 2007
  By pre-configuring approximately 70 percent to 90 percent of the key business processes required by specific industries, Lawson QuickStep enterprise software packages help customers reduce the time, cost, and risks typically associated with normal enterprise systems implementations.
  
  
• Global concerns: Privately held manufacturers fret over rising energy, materials costs
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 3, 2007
  Rising raw materials and energy prices have become major concerns for privately held manufacturing companies, according to a recent survey from Grant Thornton International. Globally, 61 percent of surveyed businesses reported being most concerned about raw materials costs, while 45 percent listed energy costs as their greatest concern.
  
• Irish manufacturer sees 35-node Europe-wide WAN performance boosted in server consolidation project
  
  Malcolm Wheatley, senior contributing editor, Banbridge, Northern Ireland, December 3, 2007
  Richard Gray, IT manager for Kingspan Environmental, a division of Irish building products manufacturer Kingspan, says new Wide Area File Services allow users to work on files held centrally on servers at the data centre, neatly removing the need to email them and add to network congestion.
  
• Green consumer survey: Slightly higher prices won’t hurt sales of environmentally friendly products
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 3, 2007
  Twelve percent of U.S. adults—roughly 25 million Americans—are willing to pay extra for consumer electronics that use less energy or come from a company that is environmentally friendly, according to a new report from Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research.
  
• Super Group dials up demand-driven inventory
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 3, 2007
  Super Group Limited—a multibillion-dollar industrial company focused on providing third-party logistics services, fleet solutions and retail supply chain and cross-border transport—is turning to ToolsGroup to offer value-added inventory optimization services to its customers.
  
• Detecting efficiency: Medical device maker says Apriso system performs better than expected
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, December 2, 2007
  Trixell, a leading manufacturer of digital detectors for medical radiology, expected productivity improvements when it expanded and added new equipment to its plant in Moirans, France. But company officials say the efficiency improvements are higher than anticipated, in part due to the implementation of a new production management system from Apriso.