Manufacturing Business Technology

• Quality grows “in Stature” for innovative electronics components leader Molex
  
  By Jim Fulcher, contributing editor (jimfulcher@comcast.net), October 1, 2007
  Manufacturers with design and manufacturing facilities around the globe must ensure enterprisewide uniformity of practices. Now there are several ways to do that. For Molex—a Lisle-Ill.-based global supplier of electronic components tasked with maintaining consistency within its product development process—it involves Dyadem's FMEA-Pro7 (failure mode and effects analysis) software ...
  
• Katrina disaster confirms need for real-time inventory and asset management
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2007
  For private citizens, government agencies, and the corporate world alike, Hurricane Katrina taught many harsh lessons in August 2005. One is the need to plan, as made painfully apparent to Wink Companies LLC, a multidiscipline professional engineering and design firm. Now headquartered in Baton Rouge, Wink's former New Orleans headquarters was flooded, and one wall was all that remained of a Bi...
  
• Low-cost Linux clusters drive supercomputing use in manufacturing
  
  By Roberto Michel, senior contributing editor (robertomichel@charter.net), October 1, 2007
  The days when only the largest manufacturers could afford supercomputers based on proprietary hardware are giving way to an era of lower-cost high performance computing (HPC) clusters built on x86 processors. Suffice to say, it isn't quite as simple as buying standard hardware and plugging it in. With clusters, a linked group of computers share processing horsepower.
  
• Manufacturers can hit product innovation targets with PLM/MES integration
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2007
  A European weapons maker is among the first manufacturers to forge a working link between a product life-cycle management (PLM) system and a manufacturing execution systems (MES). MBDA Missile Systems says this connection allows it to constantly improve everything from product design processes to the manner in which it allocates engineering and production resources.
  
• RosettaNet-E2open survey validates XML B2B integration
  
  By Karen Abramic-Dilger, contributing editor (kadilger@comcast.net), October 1, 2007
  Accessing timely information is a top concern when collaborating with trading partners. Having a professional to turn to—one with a long tradition of creating standards that eliminate manual processing and movement of business information among those partners—is a manufacturer's B2B “Ace in the Hole.
  
• Wonderware releases bring HMI into managed applications world
  
  By Kevin Parker, editorial director (kparker@reedbusiness.com), October 1, 2007
  To ensure harmony between its past and future—i.e., to support the installed base even as it moves firmly into the plant SOA era—Wonderware introduced in early September version 10.0 of its InTouch human-machine interface (HMI) software, which “brings it into the world of managed applications,” and version 3.
  
• Revised MESA model gives production execution systems strategic context
  
  By Kevin Parker, editorial director (kparker@reedbusiness.com), October 1, 2007
  MESA International has devised new guidelines for connecting plant-floor systems with higher-level business applications. The ultimate goal in releasing the new collaborative manufacturing execution system (MES) model is to help manufacturers deploy plant-to-enterprise solutions that support strategic business initiatives such as Lean, new product introduction processes, or Total Quality programs.
  
• Oracle ramps up midmarket self-service business programs
  
  By Tony Baer, senior contributing editor (tbaer@tbaer.com), October 1, 2007
  Oracle says it wants to make buying software easier for small to midsize businesses (SMB), and its sales & marketing programs are part of a larger effort for the enterprise vendor to play catch-up with players like Microsoft that currently dominate SMB sales. One such effort is a new “one-click ordering” program that offers an alternative to Oracle's paper-based sales contracts.
  
• Lawson antes up top benefits per dollar for midsize manufacturers
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2007
  For the money, Lawson Software comes out on top as a provider of business performance improvement. Compared to five other ERP vendors, and based on a survey of 645 midsize manufacturing companies, Boston-based Aberdeen Group ranks cites Lawson for more measurable business improvement given the same investment in software and associated professional services over QAD, Epicor, SAP, Oracle, and I...
  
• The key to worry-free compliance is a nonfinancial e-business audit
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2007
  Today, an e-business audit can have greater impact on a company than a financial audit. So says nuBridges, which researches changes in legislation that effect e-business. nuBridges also develops solutions that meet and exceed mandates across the retail, manufacturing, health-care, and financial services industries.
  
• Pulling the plug: Cisco and Emerson team on industrial wireless solutions for process manufacturers
  
  Sidney Hill, Jr., executive editor, September 29, 2007
  "When Emerson first approached me with their industrial wireless solution, they said 'We're plug-and-play,' recalls Tim Gerami, senior design engineer at PPG.”I have to admit I laughed; nothing I'd seen so far was that easy. But I'm a believer now."
  
• Pulling the plug: Cisco and Emerson team on industrial wireless solutions for process manufacturers
  
  Sidney Hill, Jr., executive editor, September 29, 2007
  "When Emerson first approached me with their industrial wireless solution, they said, 'We're plug-and-play,' recalls Tim Gerami, senior design engineer at PPG. "I have to admit I laughed; nothing I'd seen so far was that easy. But I'm a believer now."
  
• Advancing lean: SYSPRO factory scheduling lends variable sophistication, more user options
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, September 28, 2007
  SYSPRO Factory Scheduling software offers three specific products to help factory managers advance Lean manufacturing practices by choosing the level of scheduling sophistication required.
  
  
• Product development pros: SpaceClaim offers CAD-neutral modification; Ansys explores engineering knowledge manager
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, September 28, 2007
  Vendors demo new design and engineering capabilities to expand organizational and individual productivity as more people impact product development across the manufacturing enterprise.
  
• Motorola by the numbers: Mobile solutions save manufacturing managers 50+ minutes a day
  
  Kevin Parker, editorial director, September 27, 2007
  A survey surrounding enterprise mobility indicates manufacturing lags other industries in the adoption of mobile applications, yet drivers for future investment include lean planning and execution, and better asset utilization. 
  
  
• The power of search: “Google-like” capabilities impact enterprise system use
  
  Kevin Parker, editorial director, September 27, 2007
  Enterprise vendor IFS says its approach to increasing the productivity of its system’s users is unique, and builds on the popularity of “search” as the means to obtaining needed information.
  
  
• RFID calls for yet another reality check
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, September 27, 2007
  Real-world RFID experience counts more than knowledge certification, according to the RFID Workforce Report 2007, based on a survey by the industry association RFID Tribe.
  
• Cool design: Foster Refrigerator cuts prototyping costs by a third using SolidWorks solutions
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, September 26, 2007
  The U.K. leader in commercial catering equipment cut development time by as much as 50 percent by standardizing on SolidWorks 3D CAD software.
  
• High-tech logistics: Menlo Amsterdam facility serves up pan-European transportation management
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, September 26, 2007
  Global logistics supplier Menlo Worldwide has a new European headquarters in the Amsterdam area to serve companies in the high-tech industry and other markets.
  
• Merger mandate: Belgian CPG uses Kalido BI platform for consistent information management
  
  By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff, September 26, 2007
  British American Tobacco Belgium developed a business intelligence (BI) program to merge two outdated data warehousing platforms in a very short time frame.