Manufacturing Business Technology

• Open PLM solution ties manufacturing, quality, customer information back to product record, audit trail
  
  By Jim Fulcher, contributing editor, May 1, 2007
  As manufacturers demand more from their business systems, product life-cycle management (PLM) software vendors in particular must respond to changing market requirements with solutions that allow collaboration across the extended enterprise. Omnify Software, a PLM vendor focused on the electronics, medical device, mechanical, and defense industries, offers a case-in-point.
  
• S&OP and Lean are mutuallybeneficial partners in best-practices game
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  Many companies set out with high hopes when implementing a best-practices improvement program such as Lean manufacturing. But when the program fails to yield expected results, it can be difficult to pinpoint where the problems lie. A new school of thought, backed by two software and consulting organizations, may have some answers.
  
• New R&D arm specs out “one-stop infrastructure” for 30-day design & production cycle
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  The North American Advanced Manufacturing Research and Education Initiative's (NAAMREI) name is long, but its vision is longer. NAAMREI wants to transform the economy of the South Texas/Rio Grande Valley region into “a third coast” by building an infrastructure to support “Rapid Response Manufacturing.
  
• Columbia Sportswear maintains its message while on the move using Microsoft Exchange Server
  
  By Carolyn Heinze, contributing editor, May 1, 2007
  Anyone who likes sitting at a desk all day would not be happy working at Columbia Sportswear. More than 1,000 of its 2,700 employees spend 40 percent of their time on the road, with much of that travel taking them to remote locales where the company's outdoor clothing and recreational equipment typically can be found.
  
• Notification system software enables preplanned responses to events
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  Catastrophes like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina were the impetus for a new solutions category that goes by varying names, including emergency notification systems and business continuity software. Dialogics, Red Alert, Send Word Now, and NotiFind are vendors in this growing space. “Responses [formed] in the heat of the moment often don't turn out as they should,” says Roberta Witty, a ...
  
• Oracle seeks higher-level view with top-down approach to Enterprise Manager
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  Oracle is raising the profile of its systems management product as it prepares to compete head-on with BMC, CA, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard in the market. Oracle President Charles Phillips made that announcement in conjunction with delivery of Oracle Enterprise Manager release 3, which adds new adapters for Oracle E-Business suite and Siebel CRM, plus new plug-ins and connectors to Oracle Fusion m...
  
• TAGSYS guarantees RFID Six Sigma reads in pharma
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  Drug manufacturers that sign up for TAGSYS' new Six Sigma Performance Program for item-level tagging are guaranteed fewer than four failed tag reads in a million—the level of quality TAGSYS asserts is necessary to meet regulatory mandates and reliable pedigree and chain-of-custody requirements.
  
• Anticipating the hockey stick
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  RFID infrastructure supplier TAGSYS recently launched e-connectware, a new software suite for managing global RFID network deployments. “In the future we believe there will be RFID networks that you'll want to manage like voice and data networks today. You'll need software to manage the physical layer, and e-connectware allows you to do that,” says Fred Kohout, chief marketing of...
  
• SOA-enablement strategy differentiates Infor from pack leaders Oracle, SAP
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  The approach Infor is taking to service-oriented architecture (SOA) should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with manufacturing software markets because it aligns well with the third-largest enterprise vendor's acquisitive business strategy, and is meant to play well with its 70,000 customers worldwide.
  
• Autodesk partnership with GlobalSpec extends component search to design teams
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  A partnership between Autodesk and GlobalSpec permits extended design team members—including purchasing agents—to launch component part searches from Autodesk Design Review, a tool within the Autodesk Inventor 3D design application. The end user can subsequently take a snapshot of any detailed data that the search presents and save it as a DWF file within Inventor, where it can be s...
  
• Compensation value is underestimated
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  A majority of workers misunderstand the value of their total compensation packages, including salary and benefits—a fact that may lead to employee satisfaction problems and other issues. A new survey conducted by Harris Interactive and Rockville, Md.-based benefits communication consultancy Charlton Consulting Group indicates 51 percent of the U.
  
• Infor extends HCM with Workbrain buy
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  Infor announced plans in early April to add yet again to it expanding portfolio of best-in-class solutions that augment its core ERP and supply chain management solutions. This time it involves the purchase of Workbrain, a Web-based workforce management vendor, for approximately $227 million. “Infor already has a complement of robust HR solutions,” says Jim Schaper, chairman and CEO...
  
• Software AG edges closer to $1.3B vendor
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  Software AG, Europe's largest systems software provider, made a cash tender offer to acquire webMethods for approximately $546 million. The companies will serve a global base of 4,000-plus organizations and 100 partners with a service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) portfolio spanning governance & enablement, business activity monitoring, application integr...
  
• Enterprise manufacturing intelligence data used to uncover performance of top food companies
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  Manufacturing intelligence vendor Informance International recently released a benchmarking report of 141 production lines in the food & beverage industry over a five-month period. Best-in-class enterprises outpaced laggards in three key areas: Asset Utilization, by 246 percent; Overall Equipment Effectiveness, by 150 percent; and Operational Availability, by 125 percent.
  
• IBM launches automotive Jam consulting service to drive new forms of collaboration
  
  By Jim Fulcher, contributing editor, May 1, 2007
  To some people, the word “jam” brings to mind images of the Allman Brothers live at the Fillmore East. But for 2,000 people from 150 organizations in the automotive industry, it recaps a 72-hour online brainstorming session that took place in March. The Jam Consulting Service arm of IBM Global Business Services collaborated with the Original Equipment Suppliers Association (OESA) to...
  
• Fake goods hamper manufacturing market health; call for criminalization imminent
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  Counterfeit goods trafficking is a global problem that goes far beyond designer handbags and watches. Note the following: “The growth of counterfeiting in all industries and all markets is alarming,” says Mark Mutterperl, partner the New York law firm Fulbright & Jaworski, which specializes in intellectual property protection.
  
• Industrial-strength video and audio supports troubleshooting by faraway experts
  
  By Staff, May 1, 2007
  Shutting down an equipment line because the nearest person who can resolve the problem is a day's travel or further away is a costly decision. Tandberg, a visual communications technology supplier, offers a nifty system that creates something of an electronic wormhole to reduce such space-time limitations.
  
• Making those expected synergies work rests squarely on supply chain managers
  
  By Jim Fulcher, contributing editor, May 1, 2007
  Pick up the business section of any newspaper and there's sure to be coverage of yet another merger and acquisition (M&A). Unfortunately, it seems there are just as many reports of deals that haven't achieved their full potential, says Jay Welsh, partner in the supply chain practice of New York-based consultancy Accenture.
  
• IBM buy-up of MRO Software prompts cross-fertilization of IT and EAM solutions
  
  By Staff, April 1, 2007
  Assets come in many flavors depending on where you're sitting in the organization. The same can be said for asset-management solutions: Some focus on information technology (IT), while others hone in on the plant floor—and everything in between. “Vendors tend to focus their particular solutions on equipment, IT, or fleet management,” says Leroy Houghton, research director at D...
  
• Exiting Chapter 11 just one process expedited by inventory optimization software
  
  By Staff, April 1, 2007
  To Arturo Albanesi, inventory optimization software holds out a simple promise: better customer service levels, lower inventories—or both. A Denver-based supply chain solutions engineer with electronics measurement equipment maker Agilent, Albanesi implemented Oracle's Inventory Optimization application nine months ago.