The Strategic Importance of Asset Management Part One: Changing Attitudes

As a aftereffect of a scattering of events, 2003 has been a criterion year in the conduct of asset management, the implications of which are beating about the world. All of these contest were, in some manner, due to a abortion of concrete assets.

* The Colombia Space Shuttle disaster

* The New York blackout, the London blackout, and the blackout in Italy

* Six people, amenable for the administration and aliment of the abuse lines, were answerable with assassination apropos the Hatfield alternation adversity in the United Kingdom

The all-around acknowledgment to these contest has been the acme of a connected alternation of changes in this breadth back the aboriginal 1970s. These changes accept amid attitudes aural society, acute levels of compassionate as able-bodied as the aggressive bazaar armament acting on the action of concrete asset management.

Society has become added antipathetic of automatic incidents, decidedly in the areas of assurance and ecology integrity. It is no best advised able to could cause abuse to either the ambiance or to humans and the communities that they reside in.

In the accomplished ten years this has been reflected in assorted changes in legislation and adjustment in countries about the world. Some of the contempo developments in these areas include:

* Changes to the regulations administering electricity providers in the United Kingdomnow accouterment a top amount of focus on accident administration and mitigation.

* Wide alignment artifice legislation by the federal government of Canada in acknowledgment to the Westray disaster

* Legislation in acknowledgment to the Longford adversity in Australia

It is acceptable accessible that in the approaching those amenable for the administration of concrete assets will be added acceptable to be alleged to annual if there is a failure, and as can be apparent by contempo history, it is acceptable that it will not be companies but individuals.

In acute cases incidents can aswell beggarly irreversible accident to a company's accessible image. Think of such disasters as the Exxon-Valdez ecology incident, the Union Carbide adversity in Bhopal in India or added afresh the bond of Powergen to the New York blackout. All of these incidents accept remained chained to these companies in the accessible mind.

Heightened Akin of Understanding

The advertisement of the address Reliability-centred Maintenance, able by Stan Nowlan and Howard Heap, has enabled a breakthrough bound in the way in which we accept how aliment should be managed.

Many of the allegation of this address fly in the face of long-held, "common-sense" blazon behavior and accept apparent the accurate circuitous attributes of asset management. They aswell force companies to attending at their concrete asset abject in an absolutely altered manner. At a top akin these can be abbreviated in the afterward points:

* Changes to our compassionate of how aliment contributes to a company's cardinal advantage

* Changes to the way in which we accept accessories failures

* The aliment administration abandoned is not able of developing a acceptable and able aliment action regime

* Aliment is not about preventing failures, it is about preventing the after-effects of failure

* An compassionate of the adeptness of operational aliment to drive basic expenditure

* Added aegis is not necessarily better

* An compassionate of new means of advancement items, decidedly those that don't abort according to long-held views

* Extensive abstracts is not appropriate to yield decisions on aliment policies

Many of these new means of cerebration accept challenged continued captivated industry views. So abundant so that they are about difficult for industry professionals to calmly assimilate. They are even beneath acceptable to be accepted by those alfresco of the acreage of asset management.

As we move into the 21st aeon abounding are alpha to attending appear asset administration as a antecedent of cardinal advantages. To accomplish this the alignment will charge to accept a abysmal compassionate of these issues, and others like them, chip into their cerebration and accumulated cultures.

One of the key elements of the added accessible all-around aggressive ambiance is burden on costs. There are pressures to access accumulation margins, or in affliction case scenarios absorb accumulation margins beneath blurred retail prices.

As one of the better elements of both operational and basic spending, asset administration is about an accessible ambition for reductions in this area.

Maintenance costs are high, in some cases artificially high. Not abandoned are they top but there is accretion burden on aliment costs to rise. Areas such as added regulation, circuitous and automatic machinery, as able-bodied as the ascent costs of concrete assets themselves are blame aliment operators to the wire. Pressures to do added are accretion while the burden to absorb beneath is greater than it has anytime been.

One of the above factors abaft this trend is that we are added abased on accouterment than at any time in the past. Area ahead we would use humans to do work, today we use machinery.

This adverse bearings of pressures to access the plan done accumulated with pressures to abate the costs of accomplishing that work, has been one of the arch drivers abaft abounding of the all-inclusive ambit of artefact and account "solutions" that accept appeared over the accomplished three decades. These accept about been focused on ambrosial to this administration affair over ascent absolute costs.

This bearings has abominably led to

misunderstandings in asset administration than any added influencing factor. The after-effects of decisions based on these apropos alone, while about bringing some concise gains, are rarely acceptable and can even be alarming in the average to continued term.

Ad-hoc or abandoned amount acid about leads to the abolishment of abilities or activities that abetment in accomplishing assembly goals. In affliction case scenarios they affect on the safe operating environments of assets.

This does not beggarly that absolute amount reductions are not accessible in asset management.

Much of the aliment that we do today either achieves actual little, or is actively adverse productive. As such there is consistently ambit for abbreviation areas of redundancy. Added to that are added areas of disability such as planning and scheduling, food management, and added key areas.

The abstraction of absolute amount abridgement needs to be replaced with the focus on abbreviation aliment assemblage costs. This requires a redirection of costs from the present activities appear activities that we absolutely have to do to accomplish able achievement levels. Any access in attention, no amount area it comes from, is of advance welcome. However it needs to be able with ability of the accurate attributes of asset management, as able-bodied as the cardinal accent to abounding facets of accumulated activity.

This may cover authoritative and aldermanic compliance, assurance and ecology candor as able-bodied as the accepted bread-and-butter requirements of quality, assembly and efficiency.

Supplier Logistics Management (SLM) Part 2

SUPPLIER LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT The Next Cardinal Layer of Aggressive Advantage Accumulation alternation admiral are in the hot bench accustomed the collapsed abridgement and a arrest in acquirement growth. They are challenged by chief admiral to acquisition new and avant-garde means to abate cost, while still affair chump needs. However, in today's customer-centric environment, affair customer's expectations is not a aggressive advantage, but a axiological call of existence. Delivering articles on time, at a college akin of service, is now a accepted expectation, abrogation bound allowance to advantage achievement as a acceptable aggressive advantage.

To abate costs and accretion a aggressive advantage, accumulation alternation admiral charge to focus on supplier administration inefficiencies in their accumulation chain. Ignoring upstream accumulation alternation activities can be costly. For instance, it has been estimated that the aliment and cooler industry loses $7 to $12 Billion per year through incorrect abstracts flows amid suppliers and retailers (1). Additionally, if European customer appurtenances and aliment retailers absent added than $17 billion in account endure year, they could alone explain about 41% of these losses (2). Results like this point to the cardinal advantage accumulation alternation admiral can access by absorption on convalescent their burst and circuitous supplier acumen networks. Through bigger supplier acumen management, accumulation alternation admiral can accommodate chief administration the argent ammo they are searching for to abbreviate operational inefficiencies, abate costs and accretion a acceptable aggressive advantage.

With the Internet as the alley and Net-Native applications the vehicle, accumulation alternation admiral accept the befalling to drive cogent ability improvements and amount reductions through Supplier Acumen Administration (SLM). SLM enables companies and their suppliers to auspiciously accord information; thereby, acceptance companies to extend accumulation alternation enhancement and action flows to their supplier base. With SLM in place, companies can ambition seven axiological accumulation alternation issues adverse the administration of acknowledged supplier fulfillment:

1. Order Visibility and Event Management

2. Inbound Planning and Optimization

3. Information Synchronization

4. Supplier Administration and Compliance

5. Available-to-Promise

6. Forecasting and Capacity Management

7. Resource Scheduling

Today, acquirement adjustment afterimage is primarily a barter accession at a company's administration centermost and anecdotic adjustment discrepancies at the berth door. SLM seeks to annihilate this affluence cogent afterimage by acceptance companies to proactively analyze risks upstream, giving time to acknowledge above-mentioned to accession arrival. This would acquiesce companies to cut aeon times by as abundant as 33% and abate annual by as abundant as 30%, both while convalescent in-stock chump annual (3). "Inaccurate advice that arrives late, or not at all, has commonly been the Achilles' heel of accumulation alternation administration consistent in balance inventory, inefficient processes, college costs, and black customers. Therefore, accepting bigger visibility, forth with barring administration and workflow capabilities, allows companies to acknowledge bound and finer to changes, and, in ablaze of today's highly-dynamic business environment, this adeptness ultimately translates into a aggressive advantage", states Adrian Gonzales, a Senior Analyst with the ARC Advisory Group.

Using SLM, companies affair suppliers acquirement orders with adapted adjustment quantities and accumulation dates. The suppliers are able to see and act aloft the advice accompanying to the acquirement order. Any changes or adjustments the supplier makes to the acquirement adjustment triggers a proactive accident notification to the company's buyers. The action carries advanced to suppliers creating shipments from the acquirement orders, abandonment shipments and alteration shipments. Forth the absolute accumulation alternation aisle the aggregation has complete acquirement adjustment afterimage and is notified of any discrepancies from what was transmitted to the supplier. Acceptance buyers to be proactive instead of acknowledging and to troubleshoot acquirement adjustment issues with the supplier above-mentioned to delivery, eliminates surprises if orders arrive.

Prior to SLM, real-time analytical entering planning and enhancement was not a reality. Companies were affected to plan entering shipments based on dried and anachronous advice from suppliers. Many company's models were not scalable, acute their suppliers to alarm shipments into celerity centers for carrier acquisition information. This inefficient access excludes opportunities for alliance and connected moves, consistent in a abecedarian appearance of the accumulation alternation instead of a holistic one.

SLM provides companies a axial appearance of all shipments from its suppliers. "Prior to SLM, companies did not accept the accoutrement to finer yield into annual the advanced ambit of interactions amid its suppliers", states Karl B. Manrodt, abettor assistant Georgia Southern University, "SLM expands afterimage and creates an advice hub to alike entering acumen processes, acceptance acknowledged busline optimization. This change is one that allowances both shippers and carriers."

Centralized advice provides companies with a complete account of their entering shipments, acceptance them to optimize abate LTL shipments into cost-effective truckloads. Companies like Dollar General, who accept already implemented alliance programs, acquaintance amount accumulation of 20% on their entering bales costs (4).

Two accompanying factors, lower truckload ante and the abuse of carriers and trailers accession at a facility, abate the activity requirements of accessories and accord to amount savings. In addition, as companies absorb entering and outbound activities assimilate a centralized platform, connected move opportunities arise, acceptance companies to accomplish a lower busline amount by bond entering and outbound shipments and carriers to access asset utilization.

The abridgement of advice synchronization currently plagues the accord amid suppliers and their customers. Studies accept apparent 30% of the abstracts aggregate amid suppliers and companies is incorrect (5). In fact, a 2000 Food Acumen analysis accent the a lot of common account consistent from the acceptance of e-technology was пїЅincreased abstracts accuracy' (6) (see amount 1). Existing absurdity decumbent advice vehicles, including phone, fax and keystrokes, aftereffect in abstracts that is generally mis-entered and altered in the assorted supplier and aggregation systems. SLM bridges this gap by accouterment a individual advice platform, acceptance suppliers and companies to see synchronized advice beyond their networks. A two-way appearance into the acquirement adjustment and accession notifies all parties of changes and discrepancies, eliminating the asynchronous breeze of acquirement adjustment advice from aggregation to supplier and accession advice from supplier to company

Supplier Logistics Management Part 1

SUPPLIER LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT пїЅ The Next Cardinal Layer of Aggressive Advantage Accumulation alternation admiral are in the hot bench accustomed the collapsed abridgement and a arrest in acquirement growth. They are challenged by chief admiral to acquisition new and avant-garde agency to abate cost, while still affair chump needs. However, in today's customer-centric environment, affair customer's expectations is not a aggressive advantage, but a axiological call of existence. Delivering articles on time, at a college akin of service, is now a accepted expectation, abrogation bound allowance to advantage achievement as a acceptable aggressive advantage.

To abate costs and accretion a aggressive advantage, accumulation alternation admiral charge to focus on supplier administration inefficiencies in their accumulation chain. Ignoring upstream accumulation alternation activities can be costly. For instance, it has been estimated that the aliment and cooler industry loses $7 to $12 Billion per year through incorrect abstracts flows amid suppliers and retailers (1). Additionally, if European chump appurtenances and aliment retailers absent added than $17 billion in account endure year, they could alone explain about 41% of these losses (2). Results like this point to the cardinal advantage accumulation alternation admiral can admission by absorption on convalescent their burst and circuitous supplier acumen networks. Through bigger supplier acumen management, accumulation alternation admiral can board chief administration the argent ammo they are searching for to abbreviate operational inefficiencies, abate costs and accretion a acceptable aggressive advantage.

This is Allotment One of three-part note. This allotment covers how Technology Enables Supplier Acumen Management:

* The Internet

* Net-Native Applications

Parts Two and Three will awning the Seven Axiological Issues Targeted by Supplier Acumen Management.

Through bigger supplier acumen management, accumulation alternation admiral can board chief administration with the argent ammo they are seeking. Until the availability of the Internet, accumulation alternation admiral did not accept the befalling to auspiciously apparatus supplier acumen solutions. Electronic Abstracts Interchange (EDI) provided the primary agency for companies to board with ample suppliers. This advantage angry out to be amount prohibitive and aside its accelerated acceptance beyond baby to average admeasurement suppliers.

To complicate matters, EDI did not board real-time advice alteration and, because the action was heavily abased on accumulation apprenticed algorithms, mission analytical advice would generally admission too backward for companies to accomplish time-sensitive decisions.

The Internet provides companies and their suppliers with an affordable belvedere to allotment and admission abstracts in a real-time environment. Using languages like XML, the Internet lets companies extend their advice brand beyond their absolute supplier abject in a adjustable and bargain manner. Common advice platforms like EDI and Fax, do not acquiesce companies to acquaint real-time with their suppliers. Companies can now be alerted anon if accumulation alternation disruptions action and yield the all-important antidotal action to adjust the botheration after adverse the movement of goods.

Net-Native applications are congenital and advised for the Internet and this architectonics is axiological for companies to administer supplier relationships.

When anecdotic supplier acumen solutions, companies have to attending for platforms that are Net-Native. Unlike Web-enabled client-server applications, Net-Native applications are congenital and advised for the Internet. This blazon of architectonics is axiological for companies to administer their supplier relationships. Net-Native applications board cogent benefits:

1. Centralized advice belvedere for assorted parties to admission -- Accumulation alternation advice exists, about it is generally decentralized. In today's ambiance companies are appropriate to seek carrier websites to clue shipments and appeal pickups. Net-Native applications board a individual abstracts antecedent from which companies can administer their accumulation chain. The centralized advice belvedere aswell extends itself to be a hub area companies can administer and adviser their accomplice activity.

2. Congenital with the ambition to calibration to assorted companies -- Net-Native applications are congenital with a multi-tenant abstracts model. Multi-tenancy allows absolute communities to accomplish aural a individual instance. Absolute web-based, client-server applications were developed with the abstraction of one chump per appliance install. These applications have to be re-designed to acquiesce for multi-tenant abstracts archetypal in adjustment to board the abounding entities in a company's accumulation chain.

3. Bargain and simple to arrange -- Net-native applications are beneath confusing and crave basal captivation from centralized IT cadre for deployment. Because Net-Native companies board these resources, as able-bodied as the accouterments and software all-important to run the application, they abolish a company's annex on deficient and cher UNIX and database administrators. According to Forrester Research, the amount to apparatus acceptable applications is about $1,090,000, while the archetypal Net-Native appliance accomplishing amount is just $240,000.

Since Net-Native applications were advised for the Internet, a cogent accent has been placed on the user experience. User-Interfaces are aboveboard and a lot of training can be conducted on-line after the abetment of cher accomplishing consulting.

These factors aftereffect in accelerated appliance deployment, acknowledgment of accident and quick acknowledgment on investment for companies.

4. Long-term planning not bare for upgrades -- All companies on Net-Native Applications admission the aforementioned cipher base. Custom coding is bound and upgrades to absolute applications action brief and after aggregation resources.

Companies accept artefact enhancements immediately, abrogation time for Net-Native appliance vendors to focus on architecture new appearance rather than focus on acknowledging assorted installations of the cipher base. According to Stacie McCullough-Kilgore of Forrester Research, "Sixty percent of client/server development assets on rapidly abacus new appearance rather than acknowledging above-mentioned releases and added platforms пїЅ so audience get admission to new appearance in one-third of the time it commonly takes to advancement the client/server counterpart."

This concludes Allotment One of a three-part article.

Supplier Logistics Management (SLM)

Supply alternation admiral are in the hot bench accustomed the collapsed abridgement and a arrest in acquirement growth. They are challenged by chief admiral to acquisition new and avant-garde means to abate cost, while still affair chump needs. However, in today's customer-centric environment, affair customer's expectations is not a aggressive advantage, but a axiological call of existence. Delivering articles on time, at a college akin of service, is now a accepted expectation, abrogation bound allowance to advantage achievement as a acceptable aggressive advantage.

To abate costs and accretion a aggressive advantage, accumulation alternation admiral charge to focus on supplier administration inefficiencies in their accumulation chain. Ignoring upstream accumulation alternation activities can be costly. For instance, it has been estimated that the aliment and cooler industry loses $7 to $12 Billion per year through incorrect abstracts flows amid suppliers and retailers. Additionally, if European chump appurtenances and aliment retailers absent added than $17 billion in account endure year, they could alone explain about 41% of these losses. After-effects like this point to the cardinal advantage accumulation alternation admiral can access by absorption on convalescent their burst and circuitous supplier acumen networks. Through bigger supplier acumen management, accumulation alternation admiral can accommodate chief administration the argent ammo they are searching for to abbreviate operational inefficiencies, abate costs and accretion a acceptable aggressive advantage.

With the Internet as the alley and Net-Native applications the vehicle, accumulation alternation admiral accept the befalling to drive cogent adeptness improvements and amount reductions through Supplier Acumen Administration (SLM). SLM enables companies and their suppliers to auspiciously accord information; thereby, acceptance companies to extend accumulation alternation enhancement and action flows to their supplier base. With SLM in place, companies can ambition seven axiological accumulation alternation issues adverse the administration of acknowledged supplier fulfillment:

1. Adjustment Afterimage and Event Management

(see Part Two of this article)

2. Entering Planning and Optimization

(see Part Two of this article)

3. Advice Synchronization

(see Part Two of this article)

4. Supplier Administration and Compliance

5. Available-to-Promise

6. Forecasting and Accommodation Management

7. Resource Scheduling

Historically, supplier administration and acquiescence accept been an authoritative and labor-intensive cephalalgia for both companies and their suppliers. Companies about allot teams of individuals to ensure suppliers accede with accumulated acquisition guides, acclimation instructions and arrangement scheduling. Suppliers, on the added hand, are abounding with frequently adapted cardboard based acquisition guides from assorted customers. (For example, one ample banker sends its' suppliers acquisition adviser updates as frequently as every two weeks.) In addition, continued hours are spent on the buzz cat-and-mouse to agenda appointments. SLM brings efficiencies to both suppliers and their barter by abbreviation aerial for both entities. By leveraging a customized on-line, entering acquisition guide, cardboard accord is rendered anachronistic and entering carrier alternative and accession abandonment is absolutely automated.

Through arrangement scheduling automation, suppliers and carriers, can agenda auto and accumulation accessories after animal intervention. On average, shippers and consignees absorb upwards of 40% of their time on the buzz scheduling and managing appointments(3). (As an example, one ample grocery alternation frequently keeps suppliers on authority for upwards of an hour to agenda an appointment, while one ample banker does not acknowledgment arrangement requests of suppliers until the next day).

By adopting technologies such as chip articulation acknowledgment and PDAs, carriers accept the befalling to reschedule accessories if they ahead auto or accumulation problems due to weather, cartage or added operational problems. Mutual allowances abide as companies become added adjustable to chargeless berth space. In addition, for carriers, boundless delay time due to backward pickups or deliveries is eliminated. Companies adore bigger activity administration at accessories as able-bodied as able relationships with carriers.

Automating acquisition and arrangement scheduling processes acquiesce companies to auspiciously admeasurement and adviser supplier and carrier acquisition adviser and arrangement compliance. By proactively anecdotic and acclamation abeyant anemic points, these types of metrics accredit companies to accumulate a beating on their accumulation chain. Taking abounding advantage of the acquiescence allowances that SLM offers enables companies to alter advisers from adapted operations, such as arrangement scheduling and bell-ringer compliance, to added cardinal operations such as action improvements and chump care.

The ambition of ATP is to ensure that companies accomplish real-time account commitments to barter through a quick appraisal of accumulation alternation constraints.

Too generally companies accomplish to adjustment accumulation dates after because all supplier constraints. Busline account restrictions are about not advised if committing to accumulation dates. This discount after-effects in a trickle-down aftereffect that communicates unrealistic accumulation dates and creates a disruption in the breeze of goods; sending ripple furnishings down the accumulation chain.

SLM circumvents this affair by factoring supplier sourcing locations and busline alteration and account restrictions to actuate authentic accumulation dates. By accouterment authentic alteration and account requirements, companies can aftermath an accessible plan with adjustable supplier dates and accessible chump commitments.

Without an advice hub capturing absolute adjustment and accession history, companies attempt to actuate melancholia accessories requirements and absolute accession volumes if negotiating carrier contracts.

Through a activating academic mode, companies abduction all advice accompanying to entering adjustment and accession flows and accommodate the accoutrement to accredit the acknowledged conception of daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual accessories forecasts. The achievement of this archetypal allows companies to plan for melancholia accommodation requirements and ensure managers are able with able advice to accommodate favorable accommodation commitments and arrangement terms.

Upon the conception of these awful able forecasts, managers can advantage Supplier Acumen Administration solutions to administer carrier commitments; ensuring absolute beheading and aspersing abeyant account disruptions.

When bound to no afterimage of entering activities, companies generally attempt to actuate the activity requirements for their accessories as able-bodied as the assets (such as containers, trailers and railcars) accessible in their accumulation alternation network.

By leveraging arrangement scheduling, entering consolidations and adjustment afterimage aspects of SLM, companies can added accurately anticipation their assets and bigger analyze accessible assets in their network.

Automated arrangement scheduling offers acumen managers a bright account of the assets adapted for a day's work. This enables adapted staffing; thereby, eliminating cher overtime and barren time. Entering consolidations advice to abbreviate the amount of adeptness units and trailers accession at a facility. This reduces the amount of activity assets adapted for a facility.

Finally, with bigger adjustment visibility, companies now accept the adeptness to see, in real-time, if assets are in fact traveling to arrive. This afterimage assists a company's outbound planners in the able movement of assets through the company's accumulation chain, acceptance them to yield advantage of connected move opportunities and clandestine agile utilization.

Yantra Leader in Distributed Order Management, But Wait There's More

We afresh visited with Yantra (www.yantra.com) and begin that their acceptability as the baton in Broadcast Adjustment Administration is deserved. But we aswell begin that they accept added accoutrement that shine.

Distributed Adjustment Management

When a complex, broadcast administration arrangement is in place, managing the complication can be alarming and that is the ambiance breadth Yantra has congenital its reputation. Yantra is accepted for its amount product, a Broadcast Adjustment Administration appliance that coordinates the lifecycle of an adjustment beyond an continued accumulation chain. It works with companies' absolute systems to accumulated and administer orders beyond assorted channels, divisions, administration centers and accomplishment partners. It enables companies to absorb new sales channels with their absolute systems, accouterment them an chip appearance of chump purchases beyond capacity and channels.

The arrangement uses configurable business rules and workflow to automate the chiral activities generally associated with managing orders in a complex, broadcast environment. Anniversary adjustment band can chase a altered set of processes apprenticed by any adjustment accompanying information. The arrangement aswell automatically creates and advance orders that aftereffect from, or depend on, the aboriginal chump order. Key attributes of the Broadcast Adjustment Administration arrangement are:

* Sourcing of orders beyond capacity & partners

* Granular administration of circuitous adjustment processes

* Aggregation of orders beyond assorted channels

Companies like Target, Best Buy, Eastman Chemicals, DHL/Allogis, APL Acumen and UK based Argos are all barter appliance Yantra's Broadcast Adjustment Management. For example, Target had a altered adjustment administration arrangement to abutment anniversary of its six direct-to-customer sales channels. Now Yantra's artefact manages orders beyond all six channels. The orders ambit from accepted pick-pack-ship accomplishment to complex, multi-step accomplishment and accumulation processes.

In accession to Broadcast Adjustment Management, Yantra provides added applications accurately advised to administer business processes beyond an continued accumulation chain.

Each is based on the apriorism that companies have to added flexibly administer accumulation alternation action and crave real-time afterimage and ascendancy of operations both central and alfresco of their enterprise.

Yantra's complete artefact apartment includes:

Logistics Administration Logistics Administration is an Internet based appliance that manages multi-modal entering and outbound shipments. It integrates accordant addition advice from suppliers, carriers and address nodes into a individual busline beheading system, accouterment real-time afterimage and ascendancy of the absolute process. Configurable business rules and busline workflow accredit companies to controlling circuitous busline plans.

Reverse Acumen Yantra provides about-face acumen adequacy that manages allotment from the moment the Return Material (or Merchandize) Authorization (RMA) is created or a backup adjustment is submitted, throughout the about-face acumen and adjustment aeon until the account is alternate to banal or discarded. A key differentiator for this artefact is its adeptness to automate the processing of altered types of returns, giving companies the adaptability to adapt the about-face acumen aeon to accommodated specific needs.

Warehouse Administration WMS was Yantra's aboriginal artefact alms and they abide to add audience in this area. WMS is chip with its amount belvedere (see below) so barter can added finer administer barn operations based on activities that yield abode beyond the accumulation chain.

Supply Accord Yantra offers accumulation accord adequacy forecasts and schedules, negotiating orders and ecology account levels. Companies can again assassinate and administer acquirement orders. Companies can finer plan with ample vendors appliance EDI connections, as able-bodied as baby and average admeasurement suppliers by accommodating over the web.

Supply Alternation Event Administration Yantra provides an basement for managing analytical contest beyond the continued accumulation chain. Appliance this adequacy companies can accept avant-garde notification and proactively boldness problems with orders, account and shipments. Alerts can be beatific via wireless device, email, fax or through a web-based active administration console.

Inventory Synchronization Yantra manages and coordinates account stored at assorted centralized and alien locations, accumulation account abstracts from assorted systems and accouterment all-around account visibility. It includes the adeptness to administer articles stored by suppliers and outsourced acumen providers and offers all-around ATP capability.

A key basic of Yantra's applications is the technology belvedere aloft which they are deployed. A analytical basic of the belvedere is a business process-modeling apparatus that enables companies to flexibly ascertain accumulation alternation processes aural their alignment and beyond the continued accumulation chain. This is how Yantra manages and monitors alien affairs and identifies abeyant problems. It aswell includes a actor archetypal that provides the adaptability to ascertain the roles and responsibilities of accumulation alternation participants. Yantra's Belvedere is a standards' based, J2EE adjustable artefact that leverages open, web casework technologies such as XML and SOAP.

SSA Global Forms a Strategic Unit with an Extended-ERP Savvy Part Three: Challenges and User Recommendations

On June 14, SSA Global, a Chicago, IL-based extended enterprise solutions and services provider for process manufacturing, discrete manufacturing, consumer, services, and public companies worldwide announced the completion of its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Arzoon Inc. (www.arzoon.com), a San Mateo, CA-based privately-held provider of integrated logistics and global trade management (GTM) technology. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Arzoon's unified supply chain execution (SCE) infrastructure, which is used to increase global supply chain velocity and performance, is envisioned to augment SSA Global's existing supply chain management (SCM) solution and strategy, which was, coincidentally or not, announced at the beginning of June as a result of SSA Global's ongoing commitment to address the extended enterprise resource planning (ERP) needs of its customers worldwide. To that end, SSA Global's SCM strategy is "to deliver robust solutions that address the key requirements of customers and prospects at a competitive price, while extending the value of their existing technology investments".

The recent SSA Global's moves may convince many doubters who still tend to dismiss the vendor's recently invented modus operandi of growth by acquisition and of subsequent secured installed base service and maintenance revenue as opportunistic (or even scavenging). Namely, through its recently formed Strategic Solutions team, SSA Global might be showing that it is not just an ERP collector that is living off milking its install base, but rather an extended enterprise applications provider that can appeal both to its current and new users.

However, SSA Global will still have work cut out for itself to create a truly integrated seamless supply chain suite, beyond mere unified SCM re-branding on paper (albeit one is to commend it for doing away with an overwhelming number of individual product brands such as BPCS, Ironside, iBaan, Infinium, CAS, KBM, MANMAN, Masterpiece/Net, MasterPiece/Net HRMS, MAXCIM, MK Logistics, MK Manufacturing, PRMS, SSA GT MAX+, EXceed, Arzoon, and Warehouse BOSS). With this variety of system architectures to be integrated, it will take some doing to even loosely interface these disparate systems—each with their own different data model and technology platform—via some plausible middleware technology strategy.

SSA Global's apparent strategy is to use its internal integration infrastructure, leveraging profusely the IBM WebSphere technology stack, to link these disparate systems together as a pre-connected suite, but also to allow them to run independently as best-of-breed. This integration architecture runs on a Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) application server and provides common integration for portal applications to legacy applications, while also enabling integration to SSA Global extended ERP products, other software solutions, and to future SSA Global's product acquisitions. This infrastructure includes the development of an integration broker, which provides an object model, transaction services, and connectors to multiple systems.

Still, recent SCM enhancements to many SSA ERP products might not take off in earnest in the short term until many cross-platform integration challenges are completely solved. Therefore, SSA has pursued a different path from most of its direct ERP competitors, choosing to buy best-of-breed products instead of building them from scratch in-house, with consequent tradeoffs in terms of more universal integration and architecture framework.

Given the fact that it takes excruciatingly painstaking efforts, industry domain knowledge, and resources (often estimated in hundreds of man-years) to devise and build an enterprise system from scratch, it is quite logical for SSA Global to surround its old ERP core products in a wrapper of newer technology, whose goal is to effectively obfuscate the old technology, giving it the latest graphical look, or providing an easier means to access the core business logic and data from other, more-modern systems, devices, or from the Internet. Still, although SSA Global has leveraged the economies of scale when extending several disparate ERP products at the same time (i.e., many steps in the software lifecycle other than actual programming in the source code language, such as design, testing, beta release, documenting, etc., can be shared across the board), adding new Java code around an old technology core inevitably comes with the downside of translation between the old and new layers, data typing, formatting, interface, and performance issues, version compatibility dilemmas, and other subtle problems. For a comprehensive discussion on the effort it takes to devise and build an enterprise system from scratch see "Rewrite or Wrap-Around Old Software?").

On one hand, the continued SSA Global's acquisition spree might result in many manufacturing and distribution global enterprises, currently using a plethora of diverse products, ending up or eventually dealing with virtually only one vendor. Still, the dichotomy is that SSA Global will still have a slew of disparate products in its fold, which are yet to start seamlessly "talking" to each other.

Consequently, SSA Global will sooner or later have to address technology and some possible vertical focus disparities before its users of multiple ERP systems can take advantage of the above SCM add-ons. While this strategy might enable its existing customers, irrespective of which SSA Global or other third-party ERP solution they already use, to utilize its newly added SCM capabilities, SSA must quickly further clarify a strategy for how it intends to rationalize its solution portfolio and how it plans to integrate process flows across its broad SCM applications set.

In any case, SCE installations are expensive investments that customers are loath to ditch or switch particularly during a tight economy. The market is seemingly not yet ready to just abandon well-crafted SCE components for one-size-fits-all suites, for a number of reasons. One would be the mere complexity of warehousing and transportation operations, which has demanded serious customizations of earlier generations of WMS, making upgrades almost impossible. Further, despite the efforts of companies to integrate their supply chains, most still have functional silos between planning and execution, manufacturing, accounting and logistics. Also, while packaged suites may come in handy for highly repeatable, conforming processes in the back-office, that is not necessarily the case for more fluid, customer-specific, distributed processes, like distributed order management across geographic boundaries, which comes into SSA Global's favor.

Still, while the Strategic Unit team formation should help SSA Global to figure out how to fully integrate organizational structure where employees are best integrated, service offerings best coordinated and cross-selling opportunities best tracked and pursued, the vendor must continue to clarify the position and integration of competing and complementary products in its fold, which gets complicated with every new addition to the family.

SSA Global Forms a Strategic Unit with an Extended-ERP Savvy Part Two: Market Impact

On June 14, SSA Global, a Chicago, IL-based extended enterprise solutions and services provider for process manufacturing, discrete manufacturing, consumer, services, and public companies worldwide announced the completion of its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Arzoon Inc. (www.arzoon.com), a San Mateo, CA-based privately-held provider of integrated logistics and global trade management (GTM) technology. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Arzoon's unified supply chain execution (SCE) infrastructure, which is used to increase global supply chain velocity and performance, is envisioned to augment SSA Global's existing supply chain management (SCM) solution and strategy, which was, coincidentally or not, announced at the beginning of June as a result of SSA Global's ongoing commitment to address the extended enterprise resource planning (ERP) needs of its customers worldwide. To that end, SSA Global's SCM strategy is "to deliver robust solutions that address the key requirements of customers and prospects at a competitive price, while extending the value of their existing technology investments".

The recent SSA Global's moves may convince many doubters who still tend to dismiss the vendor's recently invented modus operandi of growth by acquisition and of subsequent secured installed base service and maintenance revenue as opportunistic (or even scavenging). Namely, through its recently formed Strategic Solutions team, SSA Global might be showing that it is not just an ERP collector that is living off milking its install base, but rather an extended enterprise applications provider that can appeal to both its current and new users.

As for the existing SSA Global customers, the above-mentioned extended ERP solutions will be sold through existing geographic and regional sales executives but will be implemented by the Strategic Solutions Professional Services personnel, while other SSA services personnel can be brought in on an as-needed basis. The solutions will be supported by SSA Global OnePoint Support. On the other hand, for new SSA Global customers, the solutions will be sold by the Strategic Solutions Sales Executives, but, as in the case of existing customers, the solutions will be implemented by the Strategic Solutions Professional Services personnel, whereby other SSA services personnel can be brought in on an as-needed basis and the solutions will be supported by SSA Global OnePoint Support.

This has lately been proven as an effective business model, since in a market with a limited few new deals but with still low interest rates for borrowing money and financing, the companies with strong financial backing like SSA Global (which will likely go public soon, following on its recent initial public offering [IPO] intention announcement, and after being for the last few years a privately-held portfolio of New York's Cerberus Partners LP and General Atlantic Partners [GAP] of Greenwich, CT) are not to be blamed for opting to introduce many new products through bargain acquisitions rather than through grueling in-house developments and repeated software testing from scratch.

These "strategic" extension products represent a significant—approximately 20 percent—and rapidly growing portion of the SSA's revenues and with a much larger software license fee component, and hence the vendor's focus, dedication, and commitment of resources. On one hand, these solutions might represent a significant value for the existing customers by eventually delivering extended ERP functionality in a seamless, integrated, and cost-effective manner within a single delivery and support environment. On the other hand, these solutions might also represent a significant value for brand new customers by delivering best-of-breed point functionality in a cost-effective, stable, and financially viable environment.

To give the devil its due, while SSA Global remains relentless in its pursue of profitability, and while possibly in some instances putting architectural or cultural compatibility of acquired companies in the back seat, its solid financial viability and performance have continued unabated even while an industry average research and development spend was maintained (i.e., at 15 percent of total revenues), allowing the vendor to continue to reinvest in its own product offerings. Indeed, the vendor has also been committed to ongoing product enhancements in-house, which should allow the customers to extend the life of their existing technology investments. Furthermore, the recent array of acquisitions such as Arzoon, Baan, Ironside, and EXE Technologies would not exactly indicate acquisition of outdated technologies—although the vendors in case might have experienced financial difficulties, their ability to deliver innovative products has not been much impaired, if at all.

Quite the contrary, SSA Global has seemingly made best-of-breed solutions more attractive and cost effective through economies of scale, eventual standard integration to ERP systems, assured long-termm support, and significantly improved financial viability. Thus, given the continued attractiveness of the SCE market, SSA Global has relatively quickly and cheaply added a strong SCE functionality including warehouse management, fulfillment, collaboration, inventory management, and supply network execution through the last year's EXE acquisition. With earlier acquisitions of Baan, Ironside, and Elevon, also in 2003, the vendor has rounded out its SCM portfolio that now spans from demand planning (albeit this comes from the partnership with Logility), inventory management, order management, production planning, logistics management, to supply planning and replenishment.

Through Arzoon, as its latest acquisition, SSA Global might further bolster its set of best-of-breed SCE technologies combined with specialized industry expertise to support the ever-changing requirements in warehousing, transportation, logistics, and global trade management, since the Arzoon LIFE family of web-based solutions offers functionality in transportation sourcing, optimization and execution, import and export compliance, inventory visibility, event management, reporting and analysis, and freight settlement, and are used by leading Fortune 2000 companies around the world in the above-mentioned industries. Some notable customers include Solectron, Thompson Multimedia, McLane Company (a division of Wal-Mart), Canadian Pacific Railway, and Union Pacific Railroad. We believe that Arzoon has a potential of enhancing the existing supply chain management and execution functionality within the above SSA Global's portfolio of solutions, given immaculate execution of the merger, which is not guaranteed of course.

With this medley of best-of-breed SCE components, such as EXE Technologies, CAPS Logistics (formerly a part of Baan), and now Arzoon, SSA Global may be better positioned to handle complex multimodal transportation and SCE requirements than its still much bigger three rivals in the ERP arena—SAP, PeopleSoft, and Oracle. Furthermore, the vendor might now be able to compete head-to-head even with the best-of-breed SCE powers like Manhattan Associates, RedPrairie, HighJump, Optum, MARC Global, Provia, Yantra, HK Systems, etc. The fact is that most of the above competitors have long lacked strong international trade logistics (ITL) and GTM capabilities, often having to partner with a niche specialist as a stop gap measure, till recently RedPrairie went a bit farther and acquired some of these capabilities through LIS (see RedPrairie to Spread Across Europe through LIS Acquisition). The Arzoon acquisition should therefore strongly position SSA Global with a broad global supply network overview, upon which it can integrate its evolving SCM suite and accommodate the growing trend of outsourcing overseas.

To be exact, and as well-known and publicized, owing to communications and transportation networks that have improved dramatically over the last few decades, even faraway regions and nations around the globe are now within the reach of a mere Internet connection. As a result, companies have jumped into international markets, outsourced their manufacturing and procurement operations to cheaper overseas manufacturers and suppliers, while some have established subsidiaries around the world. The Internet-based e-business promises to further shrink the world into a global village as people research, source, and procure products globally via the ubiquitous Web, buy and sell these via various e-commerce sites, storefronts, and marketplaces, and manage international supply chains with collaborative software and trading exchanges.

However, this kind of e-business has yet to surmount the challenge of global trade compliance and the diverse needs of international customers and trading partners. Namely, while technology may be rendering a world that appears a lot smaller, the very same real-life world has become a lot more complicated in the process, as many barriers exist to conducting international business over the Internet and most businesses are not yet prepared for that. The Internet has enabled a networked world and it has enabled a communication infrastructure and emerging enterprise applications, which have opened the door for international trade in earnest. But not many applications really offer multi-enterprise services and software to automate the transportation and Internet-based logistics management needs of a global trading network. In other words, web-based buy- and sell-side applications fall well short of providing automated GTM and a traditional ITL. For a detailed discussion of the complexity of global trading and compliance, see "International Trade Logistics Challenge Automated Global E-Trading".

The US federal government has since completed its legislative agenda with congressional approval of a series of laws, including the Maritime Transportation Security Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security that has realigned twenty-two former federal agencies and 170,000 federal employees. Resulting from this legislation has been a need for shippers, carriers, and ports to introduce technology to better coordinate global trade processes. New transportation and trade security legislation has instituted far stricter compliance and asset tracking requirements, whereby technology has become vital to meeting the demands of these regulations.

For example, the new 24-Hour Rule from December 2002 requires ocean carriers to provide the new Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with a cargo manifest twenty-four hours before a ship sails from its original port to a US port. Given that manual keying of manifest information can take a few days, which in the past would mean the US Customs receiving cargo data only after the ship has sailed, the rule has ramifications on shippers' contract management and streamlined collaboration with customers and delivery scheduling. Namely, while even before 9/11 for shippers it was all about getting as much work done as possible prior to reaching the border, the importance thereof nowadays goes without saying, given that most work now needs to get done before the ship even sails off.

Also, the Department of Transportation and US Customs have launched Operation Safe Commerce, which is intended to enhance security for international container cargo, and which will make global logistics systems even more dependent on timely, accurate data collection regarding shipment contents and movement. Since manual data entry is time-consuming and prone to errors, global logistics systems operate much better when supported by data collection based on automatic identification technologies such as bar code labels and radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, which can be scanned at strategic locations between point of origin and destination.

Thus, SSA Global too recognizes that RFID is one of the emerging technologies that will drive increased supply chain visibility, control, and compliance. Additionally, the RFID mandate to suppliers from Albertsons, Target, Wal-Mart, and the US Department of Defense proves that RFID will have a significant impact on future supply chain operations (see RFID—A New Technology Set to Explode?). To that end, in response to customer demands, SSA Global pledges to soon, albeit not more precisely specified, deliver RFID solutions for manufacturing and distribution companies, so that its customers will have a viable solution to address these standards.

SSA Global Forms a Strategic Unit with an Extended-ERP Savvy Part One: Event Summary

Just when many might have begun to think that SSA Global, a Chicago, IL-based extended enterprise solutions and services provider for process manufacturing, discrete manufacturing, consumer, services, and public companies worldwide, which had turned into a ravenous enterprise applications market consolidator over the last few years, had finally satisfied its voracious urge, the vendor struck again. To be fair, prior to its most recent acquisition, SSA Global had also done a notable work in making sense out of its slew of earlier acquisitions, which analysis will be the topic of another forthcoming article.

To refresh our memory, the vendor, which was once an object case of poorly managed enterprise resource planning (ERP) company during the late 1990s (see Another One Bites the Dust—SSA Gored to Death), has since late 2001 experienced a dozen or so of consecutive quarters of growth and profitability that are possibly unique in the industry today, but it has also done it while concurrently orchestrating several successful acquisitions, including former EXE Technologies, Inc. (see SSA GT to EXE-cute (Yet) Another Acquisition), Baan, Elevon, and Ironside Technologies (see Baan And SSA GT Merge To Form A Mid-Market Empire With An ''Iron Side''), Infinium Software (see Is SSA GT Betting Infini(um)tely On Acquisitions?), interBiz, the former e-Business division of Computer Associates (see CA Unloads interBiz Collection Into SSA GT's Sanctuary) and MAX International (see SSA Acquires MAX Hoping To Leap From Its MIN). As a result, the vendor now has 121 locations worldwide and its product offerings are used by more than 13,000 customers, some of which represent market-leading companies, in over ninety countries.

While the market has been aware of the vendor still tirelessly eyeing many more acquisitions of ailing competitors with notable products or technologies and install bases, former supply chain management (SCM) leaders i2 Technologies and Manugistics being speculatively mentioned, another acquisition happened on June 14, when SSA Global announced the completion of its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Arzoon Inc. (www.arzoon.com), a San Mateo, CA-based privately-held provider of integrated logistics and global trade management (GTM) technology. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Arzoon's unified supply chain execution (SCE) infrastructure, which is used to increase global supply chain velocity and performance, is envisioned to augment SSA Global's existing SCM solution and strategy, whicch was, coincidentally or not, announced at the beginning of June as a result of SSA Global's ongoing commitment to address the extended ERP needs of its customers worldwide. To that end, SSA Global's SCM strategy is "to deliver robust solutions that address the key requirements of customers and prospects at a competitive price, while extending the value of their existing technology investments".

The SSA SCM solution suite combines best-of-breed functionality with specialized industry expertise added through strategic acquisitions, such as Baan and EXE Technologies. The suite leverages erstwhile proven best-of-breed products and technologies that fuse the demand chain with the supply chain to forecast demand, take an order, give an accurate promise date, manufacture the right goods, position inventory properly, pick, pack and ship efficiently while maintaining optimal inventory levels. Accordingly, the SSA SCM solution offering includes

* SSA Demand Planning
* SSA Inventory Planning
* SSA Order Planning
* SSA Production Planning
* SSA Supply Planning and Replenishment
* SSA Logistics and Transportation Planning
* SSA Warehouse Management
* SSA Transportation Management

During the last several quarters, many companies in various industries have reportedly purchased and implemented SSA SCM solutions, particularly the customers that have chosen to implement supply chain solutions to extend the value of their original investment in ERP. Select customers of SSA Global's SCM suite include Publix, TNT Logistics, Americold, Flextronics, Georgia Pacific, Solectron, Menlo Logistics, NFI Industries, and Vector SCM.

Arzoon brings its n-tier global logistics execution solution, which includes global transportation management, international trade compliance, inventory visibility, exception management, and trading partner management to the SSA SCM portfolio. SSA Global thus believes its customers will gain greater visibility into core SCE processes while reducing transportation and logistics costs, integrating security and trade compliance, and improving procurement, fulfillment, and customer service. The vendor will initially focus on integrating Arzoon into SSA Transportation Management, and by combining Arzoon's functionality with SSA Transportation Management, as well as with SSA Warehouse Management down the track, SSA Global aims at delivering a comprehensive and strategic SCM solution that can help companies move products globally with the lowest possible total landed cost, while also providing visibility into their supply chain movements.

Further, somewhat related to the SSA SCM brand unification, to bring greater focus to its customers' requirements addressed by extended ERP solutions, at the end of May, SSA Global introduced a dedicated Strategic Solutions team, comprised of industry experts solely focused on providing, servicing, and implementing strategic extended ERP solutions (i.e., SCM as well as customer relationship management [CRM], supplier relationship management [SRM], corporate performance management [CPM] and product lifecycle management [PLM] solutions) for current and prospective SSA Global customers. Companies seeking to address current business challenges, gain competitive advantage and extend the value of their existing enterprise systems (e.g., to improve operational efficiencies, reduce time-to-market, optimize costs and increase overall productivity, etc.) can now look to SSA Global's Strategic Solutions team.

SSA Global doubled its market share in 2003 and at the same time selectively integrated best-of-breed solutions into its world-class portfolio. The newly-formed Strategic Solutions team should bring necessary focus to the extended ERP solutions, and will work in concert with SSA Global's account management to reinforce customer engagements that include the extension solutions that the team will focus on:

* SSA CPM, including Enterprise Planning, Enterprise Scorecarding, and Enterprise Business Intelligence (BI), which originate from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partnership with Cognos

* SSA SCM, including Supply Chain Planning (SCP), Supply Chain Collaboration and SCE, which originate from former interBiz, Baan and EXE acquisitions, and from the partnership with Logilityfor demand planning

* SSA CRM, including Sales Management, Marketing Management, Enterprise Service Management and Collaborative Order Management, which originate from Baan, Ironside (the order management area), and partly from the recent organic product development

* SSA PLM, which originates from Baan

* SSA SRM, which originates from Ironside, Baan (in the procurement area), and partly from the recent organic product development.

With the formation of a dedicated Strategic Solutions team, SSA Global has put in place experts across all major functional areas including sales, marketing, support and product development to consistently anticipate and deliver against its customers' extended enterprise needs. Jim Handy has been appointed president of SSA Global Strategic Solutions, reporting to Graeme Cooksley, executive vice president of SSA Global, responsible for worldwide field operations, marketing, support, and product management.

Handy joined SSA Global last year and was instrumental in the company's integration of Baan in North America. Then he greatly contributed to SSA Global's successful merger with EXE Technologies. Prior to joining SSA Global, Handy served as senior vice president for Geac Enterprise Solutions where he had global profit and loss (P&L) responsibilities for the SmartStream and SmartEnterprise ERP product lines. Some of current marquee SSA Global's key Strategic Solutions customers include Averitt Express, Britain's Ministry of Defense, The Big Food Group, Frans Maas, Somerfield Stores, UBS Warburg, and QVC.

APICS 2009 Preview Series, Session 1—Time Management and Master Scheduling: Built from the Same Cloth

I listened to a webinar organized by The Association for Operations Management (APICS) for their upcoming International Conference and Expo,which will be hosted in Toronto, Ontario (Canada) from October 4th to 6th 2009. This is the first webcast in the series, and its title really got my attention: “Time Management and Master Scheduling: Built from the Same Cloth.” The speaker for this webcast was Donald H. Sheldon, the president of DH Sheldon & Associates. He described in this particular webcast the importance of time management within master scheduling.

He brought up few great time management concepts, linking them directly to how current master schedulers can use them for the benefit of the organization. When making decisions and determining what needs to be prioritized in the production line’s master schedule, master schedulers are influenced by many factors. For example, the customer might ask for a faster delivery of the product or a supplier might miss a critical delivery date.

Mr. Sheldon brought up the point that a master schedule of a production needs to have a firm time fence that is not longer than 48 hours. This way, production can be stabilized and the equipment, resources, and material can be used to their full capacity. As we know, when a master production schedule (MPS) is created with an objective in mind, more deliverables are accomplished, less time is wasted, and better communication happens amongst all parties involved. In the presentation, Mr. Sheldon provided an MPS test, which gave an idea of how critical or detrimental the situation could be for organizations not using master scheduling techniques as they should be used. If all or some of the processes listed below exist within your organization, it is suggested that you investigate how effective your planning and scheduling processes are.

* Your production is running 24/7
* Your scheduling process directly reports to production management
* Production line changeover time is above 40 minutes
* No or minimum preventative maintenance is scheduled for equipment (a lot of production downtime due to equipment malfunctioning)
* Your sales department has authority to change production scheduling
* Your master scheduler has no authority or decision power in his/her hands
* Your organization does not use firm time fences in the business process model or they are greater than 48 hrs

Usually, the major hurdle with the MPS is coping with unknown requests. When multiple authorized parties within an organization are determining the schedule, it becomes very difficult to prioritize needs and to know what the actual requirements are. The best way to control the issue of prioritization is by using the time management technique of categorizing each issue’s importance and then determining the sequence in which it needs to progress.

For example, if an individual has multiple tasks or activities to perform in a time horizon of 24 hours, he/she needs to categorize which items are important, most important, non critical, and critical (show stoppers); this will help the individual create a sequence in which all activities need to happen. This same concept applies to master production scheduling. In MPS, an organization can have a firm orders, replenishment orders, and urgent orders, each order type with its own requirements to fill. For example, the firm order needs to be delivered to the customer on the date committed by the sales team. For this type of order, an organization can either replenish that order through its actual lead time or through its on-hand replenishment inventory, which can be defined by the sales team and the master scheduler. All factors of prioritization need to be considered before a product gets prioritized in the MPS schedule.

Mr. Sheldon defined the process of MRP and pull in the webinar but he did not go into too many details of sales and operations planning (S&OP) and its link with MPS. He mentioned that the S&OP topic will be covered in detail at the APICS convention. For me, the most interesting part of the webinar was how he explained that there has to be accountability for master scheduling within all departments of the organization. He even outlined that performance review of master scheduling needs to happen on a weekly basis to identify actions by process owners and use standardized reporting methods to capture trends and changes in master scheduling. In my past experience, many organizations who failed to understand the trends of their sales cycle and supplier cycle lost profitability and brought inefficiencies into their processes.

This webinar gave me a glimpse of what to expect in the educational sessions of Basics of Operation Management at the APICS conference. My ultimate goal is to provide our readers with some insight into what’s going to happen at the APICS conference, as well use the information presented in these webinars towards an understanding of what can be expected from each educational session. Watch for further blog posts in this series.

McHugh Software's DigitaLogistix Built On Strong Foundation

Privately held McHugh Software International recently unveiled its answer to the heavy competition in the supply chain execution (SCE) software market: DigitaLogistix�. Many applications in the suite have been available for years while a few are relative newcomers to market. McHugh has targeted the new offering at customers in its core verticals, CPG/food & beverage, high tech electronics, third-party logistics, in addition to its secondary markets in parts distribution, packaged chemicals, and dot-com industries.

The seven new applications that, together with core warehouse, transportation and labor management systems, constitute DigitaLogistix include:

* LENS�, which provides real-time, end-to-end supply chain visibility.

* Commander�, a set of command and control applications that enable companies to take centralized action in response to logistics requirements and events.

* DigitalApps�, a suite of role-based web applications for collaboration among multiple supply chain participants.

* Digital TMS�, a set of web-based transportation execution applications aimed at automating shippers' core transportation processes and helping them build private carrier portals.

* Logistix Scorecard�, a comprehensive logistics analytic and decision support tool used to measure actual performance at the facility, enterprise and supply chain levels.

* Logistix Execution Optimizer�, which provides dynamic, streaming optimization of enterprise transportation and sourcing plans.

* Dynamic Merge-in-Transit�, which enables companies to consolidate shipments from multiple sourcing points through merge centers, increasing velocity, reducing logistics costs and enabling realization of the dynamic virtual warehouse.

The software market for warehouse management systems has become more and more competitive as the technology has evolved to address the lion's share of customer requirements. DigitaLogistix competes favorably with other suites while offering users a collection of modules that work well together.

Like any software technology that has reached a plateau in the maturation curve, warehouse management systems have evolved to a point where there is little differentiation among them. This environment has prompted forward-thinking companies to take action, extending their solutions to include applications complementary to WMS. Of these, transportation management is the most prevalent simply because users instinctively regard logistics operations as the "spokes" through which goods are conveyed to and from the warehouse and distribution center "hubs". While nearly all of the SCE market leaders have either acquired or internally developed TMS and other applications to enhance total solutions, there is a marked lack of cohesion between products in their suites.

A product acquired from Software Architects for high-tech discrete mid-market customers provides the fundamental component architecture for DigitaLogistix. This platform imparts uniformity among the various modules that, though drawn in some cases from different sources, speak the same data language. Hence, McHugh can offer diversity of scope with uniformity in presentation, structure, and business objectives. This is an important differentiator in a market characterized by a host of competitive offerings that are sometimes slapped together with little thought to ensuring connections make sense. ERP vendors have gone farther toward a uniform data architecture than SCE vendors if only because they have been working at it longer.

One of the strengths of DigitaLogistix made possible by the component architecture is its incorporation of proven applications for WMS and TMS alongside next generation tools for labor management and supply chain visibility. Labor Management Systems (LMS) are just beginning to appear on radar screens and McHugh admits to having to adopt an evangelical role in order to sell the market on its LMS application. While LMS is not yet a hotbed within the enterprise application buyer's market, many users are examining the labor-intensive portions of their operations and concluding that considerable cost savings could be obtained through software automation. Although union leaders may bristle at any initiative for tracking and improving labor efficiency, LMS can nevertheless make lives easier for warehouse personnel and CFOs alike. We expect LMS to enhance sales of DigitaLogistix, which will make a substantial contribution to McHugh's license revenues over the next 12-18 months.

Enterprise Asset Management Systems: Your Manufacturing Organization’s Underrated Superstar

For all you baseball fans living in the US and Canada, you can probably appreciate that we are quickly approaching what is referred to as “the dog days of August.” This is when the pennant races are close, and almost every game has added significance for a team’s chances of making it to the playoffs.

As I was enjoying one of those rare idyllic days lying in the backyard hammock and reading the sports page, it occurred to me how the good teams are not just about one or two great players. Rather, they are comprised largely of players whose natural athletic ability may not necessarily match that of the few superstars on the team, and who may not be found basking in the limelight, but who consistently work hard and practice on a daily basis. These are the players that, when given the opportunity, can deliver the key play or get the big hit when the game is on the line.

This made me think about how in a manufacturing environment, the most unlikely areas can contribute in a critical situation. In many organizations, it is the maintenance department that, much like the unsung heroes of the baseball team, manages to keep aging equipment running flawlessly. When a machine unexpectedly breaks down, it is this department that knows what is required to repair it. And just like the baseball season, summertime is a busy time for maintenance departments, as companies choose to use the summer holiday period to shut down in order to install, repair, or replace equipment in their production facility.

In this blog post, I thought it would be a good idea to take an inside look at the challenging world of enterprise asset management (EAM), and find out how this unheralded software can give your company the winning edge.

Factors Leading to Critical Failure of Assets

* poor maintenance practices
* undocumented maintenance logs
* poor budget planning
* inability to track known rates of failure for equipment

What Is EAM

Because competition within industries is fierce, any downtime in a facility can make the difference between profit and loss for the organization’s bottom line. In many organizations that are capital equipment-intensive (i.e., mining, oil and gas, utilities, aerospace manufacturing, etc.), the ability to plan maintenance or replacement of such physical assets as machinery is controlled through an EAM system.

An EAM system generates analytical data to optimize machine-operating efficiency, and calculates costs to support and maintain single pieces or a series of physical assets. EAM also works closely with the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS). CMMS provides predictive maintenance schedules and, by analyzing available inventory, assigns physical resources (inventory and labor) to a scheduled work order for equipment pieces. This generates replenishment purchasing requisitions for maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) spare parts.

In the diagram below, you can see how EAM works as part of a three-pronged approach with EAM, CMMS, and production to gather data for analysis. This analysis helps managers to decide whether to repair equipment, schedule resources, or plan for new capital equipment purchase and installation.

* Ensures compliance with government-legislated health and safety programs by demonstrating tool and machinery reliability through the tracking of all historical maintenance.
* Develops life cycle management systems to identify known or predictive mean time between failure (MTBF) and root cause analysis.
* Allows the ability to implement continuous process improvements in the areas of tools and identification, to properly calibrate tools and equipment as part of a predictive maintenance program. This is done with the help of radio frequency identification (RFID).
* Allows the ability to schedule maintenance and installation of new equipment and to manage repair budgets and schedules, through integration of EAM with CMMS.
* Enables streamlined procurement management policies for MRO spare parts.
* Enables trend analysis to determine when maintenance is cost-prohibitive and to plan for replacement of capital equipment.

EAM Products to Consider

At TEC’s web site, you can review different vendors’ products as well as obtain white papers and vendor comparison reports. In this section, I offer a brief overview of some EAM products worth consideration.

IFS EAM

IFS’s product offerings include over 30 modules of enterprise solutions, many of which that can be purchased as either an overall integrated solution or as a bolted-on best-of-class solution. IFS has a unique add-on available that includes both IFS EAM and IFS ERP called IFS OEE (with “OEE” standing for overall equipment effectiveness). This solution performs analytics while equipment assets are running (which avoids downtime), and it makes the necessary adjustments to maintain an optimum level of production. IFS EAM allows organizations to proactively manage assets and maintenance activites. It combines unique features to permit data modeling on equipment in order to determine whether equipment is near the end of its production life cycle. For further details, visit IFS’s vendor showcase.

Infor EAM Enterprise Edition

Infor EAM delivers a unified solution for monitoring and managing the performance, maintenance, and deployment of company assets. With Infor EAM, the maintenance and plant engineering practitioner is able to perform maintenance optimization, staff productivity analysis, budget forecasting, and strategic planning. There are five separate modules which, combined together, form a complete EAM solution.

* maintenance
* inventory/warranty
* uptime
* reliability risk management
* strategic planning

For further details, visit Infor’s vendor showcase.

A Final Thought

Today’s manufacturers are fighting for any edge that will lower their costs and that will allow them to meet the challenges of global manufacturing and ever-stringent regulatory and compliance legislation. One paradigm shift has been to conduct maintenance based on an actual condition, and not on aggregate rates of failure. This departure from the traditional approach is a result of systems now being able to track real-time performance of equipment. Through EAM, condition-based maintenance (CBM ) is now a reality, and it will permit your maintenance department to perform like champions.

Provia Software Rises To The Challenge

Provia Software began life as Haushahn Systems & Engineers, a subsidiary of German elevator system manufacturer Haushahn GmbH. Haushahn's elevator technology led it to develop material handling and automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS). The need for and growing interest in software to manage automation in North America led to the formation of Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Haushahn Systems & Engineers in 1988. Under the leadership of CEO Ken Lewis, HS&E established its business in software and material handling and AS/RS for large warehouse distribution and logistics operations.

Though AS/RS remained an important offering, HS&E began to evolve into a full-fledged supply chain execution vendor, complementing its WMS with acquisitions like Pinnacle Distribution's transportation management software in May 1999. In an effort to disencumber its diverging businesses, Haushahn GmbH divided the AS/RS and supply chain execution software sides of HS&E into separate entities, Viastore Systems and Provia Software, respectively. Today, Provia offers capabilities for AS/RS the result of the company's continued evolution as a global provider of supply chain execution software.

Warehouse management system vendors typically derive a larger portion of revenue from implementation services than other software companies due to the complexity of the applications and integration involved in uniting the WMS with hardware like conveyors, bucket elevators, and other material handling equipment. Though Provia claims to have offered one of the first packaged WMS applications, its revenue mix has reflected an emphasis on services until the last few years. License revenues continue to increase as a percentage of total revenue and are currently at about 27%, a little over one quarter of total. Service and support revenues make up around 43% and hardware resale revenues constitute the remainder. Provia plans to phase out hardware sales over the next two years as it fully transforms into a software company. Overall, Provia's revenues grew by over 100% during the two years prior to Y2K but flattened out in recent quarters in response to delayed purchasing among its core customers.

The VIAWARE suite of applications for fulfillment is Provia's response to a clear trend among many warehouse management software vendors to round out their product offerings by including adjacent functionality. Key components of VIAWARE are Provia's flagship warehouse management system (WMS) and yard management system (YMS), an order management system (OMS) acquired in 1999 from Logistics Concepts, a transportation management system (TMS) acquired earlier this year from Pinnacle Distribution Concepts, and its new visibility tool ViaView, developed in-house, among other applications (see table under "Product Info").

Like many other SCE vendors, Provia is retooling its strategy to attack the lucrative business-to-business fulfillment software market. On a vertical front, third party logistics and wholesale distribution continue to be hot areas for Provia, though its solutions are finding increasing favor among makers of consumer goods and to a lesser extent process manufacturers and retailers. As a WMS vendor, Provia risked the same fate as other small, best-of-breed vendors, that is, becoming dependent upon larger ERP and SCM companies for survival.

The suite that Provia has built through acquisition and internal development over the past several months allows it to pursue larger, longer-term contracts, an ability that will ensure its success as an independent company provided it continues to execute well and leverage its highly referenceable client base. Provia stands apart from its peers in the enterprise software industry by claiming that behind every one of its installations is a satisfied client. In August 2000, Provia celebrated the 500th implementation of VIAWARE. Aiding Provia on the implementation front are several integration partners, including general consulting houses like PricewaterhouseCoopers, Andersen Consulting, and Internet services firms like E-Sync, Q4 Logistics, and marchFIRST (formerly Whittman-Hart).

Provia is distinguished from other vendors by its unique approach to implementation services. Its Knowledge Exchange Methodology allows clients to learn the nuts and bolts of VIAWARE in a two-week course before the start of the implementation. Use of internal resources can bring clients great cost savings in addition to building expertise for ongoing maintenance. Client ownership is facilitated by Provia's emphasis on the packaged aspects of the VIAWARE suite and its stance against customizations that can quickly ensnare project timelines. While a packaged approach is not for all clients, those who have chosen the methodology have good things to say.

Another important strength for Provia is its enviable foothold in the third party logistics market, achieved during its twelve years as HS&E. VIAWARE can be found in the IT infrastructures of blue-chip providers like: Fedex Logistics, Menlo Logistics, Total Logistic Control, Emery Worldwide, and Ryder. New products ViaView and 3pl2deliver.com show that Provia is adept at leveraging this position to generate new forms of revenue.