Manufacturing Business Technology

• Some large manufacturers disinterested in policing Chinese currency manipulation
  
  By Staff, November 1, 2006
  The board of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) voted against the recommendation of its own International Economic Policy Committee (IEPC) in choosing not to support the proposed bipartisan-sponsored Chinese Currency Act of 2005 now before Congress. The membership committee vote in June was near two to one in favor of supporting the bill; the NAM board vote roughly the...
  
• Plant composite application succeeds in wake of acquisition; sparks industry revitalization
  
  By Staff, November 1, 2006
  SAP says there are today more than 300 installations of its key technology for plant-floor integration just more than a year after acquiring Lighthammer, original developer of what is now the Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (SAP xMII) composite application. By connecting plant equipment directly to the enterprise system, SAP xMII is said to uncover and make visible manuf...
  
• Managed services spark supply chain outsourcing
  
  By Staff, November 1, 2006
  Ensuring the right product gets to the right place at the right time is a huge challenge. Throw in product configuration, forecasting errors, or transportation hassles, and the task is magnified exponentially. That's why more manufacturers are turning to outsourced supply chain solutions offered by vendors, consultants, and managed services providers.
  
• Digital archiving gains favor in compliance initiatives
  
  By Staff, November 1, 2006
  Whether addressing regulatory, security, liability, or some other issue tied to risk or prohibitive costs, demand is growing for digital archiving systems used to capture electronic signatures, says Arthur Riel, CTO of Lighthouse Global Technologies. "Legal and regulatory authorities have zero tolerance when it comes to a lack of document production capabilities," Riel says.
  
• For success to follow, PLM requires a focus on business processes
  
  By Staff, November 1, 2006
  Product life-cycle management (PLM) solutions are nothing new—after all, they've been around for years. The difference today is that manufacturers now better realize the scope involved. "As manufacturers look creatively and strategically at ways to drive top-line growth, they know that success doesn't simply come from having the right product at the right time and in the right...
  
• Oracle E-Business suite helps innovative biotech cope with FDA compliance
  
  By Jim Fulcher, contributing editor, October 1, 2006
  The process of developing a new drug, running the clinical trials, and getting U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approval is a lengthy oneoften more than 10 years in the making. Use of an enterprise solution from a supplier that understands FDA requirements is vital. Dendreon Corp., a Seattle-based biotechnology company that develops therapeutics to fight cancer, had no auto...
  
• Real-time performance management requires an intelligent backup
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2006
  There's no getting around the fact that companies need access to real-time plant-floor data. And as they shift toward real-time performance management (RPM), says Craig Resnick, research director at Dedham, Mass.-based ARC Advisory Group, they need real-time data collection and connectivity to establish operational context and expose manufacturing information to the rest of the e...
  
• Real-world workshops reveal disconnect between lean programs, aspirations
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2006
  At Lean manufacturing workshops held this summer, delegates from some of Europe's leading manufacturers endorsed findings from Boston-based AMR Research, pointing to a disconnect not only between manufacturers' lean programs and their IT strategies, but also between lean aspirations and manufacturing strategies.
  
• Comergent's enterprise system extensions reach out to partners, customers
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2006
  Privately held World Wide Technology is a St. Louis-based, $2-billion supplier of supply chain solutions, encompassing 1,300,000 square feet of warehousing and distribution space in 13 centers across the U.S. But when customers called to order from the company's 600,000-item catalogue, a third-generation, homegrown order-management system delivered an experience that managers wis...
  
• Trends, tips, and tools from experts in planning and execution
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2006
  
  
• Brooks Software sees “unified” user interface as key to SOA usage
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2006
  Highly configurable, portal-based user interfaces (UI) will comprise an integral component for how companies exploit service-oriented architecture (SOA) and composite applications, according to Brooks Software, a provider of manufacturing execution system (MES); factory scheduling; and other applications.
  
• Workforce optimization apps extend lean endeavors
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2006
  Workbrain says its labor-management applications can complement a manufacturer's lean initiatives. Minneapolis-based food giant General Mills and Atlanta-based sports apparel maker Russell Corp. have deployed Workbrain solutions. Both companies can optimize work schedules and track employee time & attendance in ways that dovetail nicely with their lean manufacturing aspiratio...
  
• What KPI metrics do best-in-class companies monitor?
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2006
  In an AberdeenGroup benchmark survey report, Global Manufacturing: MES and Beyond, it is demonstrated that best-in-class companies are more likely to have strategies in place to unify processes and systems across locations, primarily by means of business process standardization, as well as enterprise-level initiatives to standardize key performance indicators (KPI) across locations.
  
• Prepackaged integration solution becomes change agent for chemical manufacturer
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2006
  When Salt Lake City-based petrochemical manufacturer Huntsman asked a consulting firm to analyze maintenance operations at its Rozenburg facility in The Netherlands, the challenges were evident. The inability to coordinate planning and scheduling across the facility's six plants was driving costs up, and productivity down.
  
• Services as business process start point
  
  By Cole Ollinger, contributing editor, October 1, 2006
  A properly built service-oriented architecture (SOA) could serve as a platform for developing and managing business processes. So it's no surprise that business process management (BPM) software vendors are embracing the SOA concept. A prime example is IDS Scheer, scheduled to release a tool by year's end that promises to make it easier for companies to design and execute servic...
  
• webMethods extends SOA portfolio with Cerebra metadata technology, Infravio governance solutions
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2006
  WebMethods recently acquired substantially all the assets of Cerebra, a semantic metadata-management technology provider. Cerebra's solutions will be embedded as a differentiating feature within future editions of the webMethods Fabric suite, which brings together business integration and business process management (BPM) technologies in a service-oriented architecture (SOA).
  
• IBM “pushes the edge” of RFID in pharma supply chain
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2006
  IBM now has an RFID solution for pharmaceuticals track & trace that also guards against counterfeiting. Based on the IBM WebSphere software platform and an architecture that enables companies to leverage existing assets, the solution encompasses existing technology—but adds new capabilities as well.
  
• RFID market report charts progress in item-level tagging
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2006
  A report offered by IDTechEx, Ann Arbor, Mich., claims item-level tagging is happening faster than most realize. The research firm forecasts 200 million tags will be used in 2006 for item-level tagging alone. By 2007 it will be the world's largest RFID market by value, rising to $11 billion for tags and all systems of a $26-billion RFID market in 2016.
  
• Standards facilitate product development and usage, data sharing
  
  By Staff, October 1, 2006
  
  
• Novell OS enables employee access to applications with single ID, password
  
  By Elizabeth SanFilippo, October 1, 2006
  Employees normally juggle multiple user IDs and pass-words to access applications, which results in security risks, as well as wasted time and money. As a company that continues to grow through acquisition, South Portland, Maine-based Fairchild Semiconductor knew this problem all too well.