Manufacturing Business Technology articles from August 2005

Manufacturing Business Technology archives from August 2005

Some amazing, exotic, fantastic, and remarkable truths.(Up front)
August 1, 2005... Someone once said: Nothing is more amazing than the simple truth, nothing is more exotic than our own surroundings, nothing is more fantastic effect than objective description, and nothing is more remarkable than the time in which we live. ...

Coherent message, sufficient mass contribute to PLM vendor UGS' market grip.(DESIGNED TO PROSPER)
August 1, 2005... Product life-cycle management (PLM) software today is all about packaging product information for immediate use in many business activities, especially those outside engineering and design departments. UGS is the largest CAD/PLM vendor, and...

MES delivered as subscription gives smaller guys options.(Views from the front)
August 1, 2005... Cimnet says it may be the only manufacturing execution system (MES) vendor that offers its solution on a subscription basis. Says CEO John Richardson, "It has given us a leg up when it comes to working with smaller companies because it offers...

Two-tier approach to enterprise connectivity debuts.(CORPORATE)
August 1, 2005... Ron Monday, CEO of Online Development, says a three-tier approach to plant/enterprise connectivity--via PC-based supervisory control software, for example--can be costly and complex, even as it introduces information latencies and security...

ARC kicks support for interoperability standards up a notch.(OPERATIONS)
August 1, 2005... At Dedham, Mass.-based ARC Advisory Group's Performance-Driven Manufacturing Forum, President Andy Chatha reaffirmed support for the Plant-to-Business (P2B) interoperability Initiative and encouraged more manufacturers to participate. The goal...

The promise of a better Internet.(INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)
August 1, 2005... VeriSign has a plan for improving your Web browsing experience. Over the next year, the Internet domain company intends to triple its capacity for handling traffic flowing to servers that translate text-based Web addresses to the computer code...

Outsourced services provider says "Oracle economy" improving.(APPLICATION MANAGEMENT)
August 1, 2005... While Oracle's acquisition of suite vendor PeopleSoft--and more recently, retail solutions provider Retek--spawned a level of uncertainty among employees and customers alike, the deals have energized what enterprise application services...

EPCGlobal members, U.S. educators calculating the ROI of RFID.(ASSESSMENTS IN AUTO-ID)
August 1, 2005... EPCGlobal, MIT, and Stanford University's Global Supply Chain Forum recently launched EPC Value Model, a calculator for midsize and large manufacturers that determines potential ROI from implementing RFID technology. The tool was developed...

Supply chain management and material transport study goes interplanetary.(LUNAR LOGISTICS)
August 1, 2005... NASA has awarded $3.8 million to two MIT engineering professors to pursue an interdisciplinary study for adapting supply chain logistics to support interplanetary material transport and transfer. Professors David Simchi-Levi and Olivier de...

Content vendors make contact in Deep Impact project.(Views from the front)
August 1, 2005... Akamai Technologies and eTouch Systems delivered content from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Web portal just in time for the space agency's Deep Impact spacecraft to collide with the Tempel 1 comet on July 4. ...

Get what you pay for: service-level agreements work.(OUTSOURCING)
August 1, 2005... While reliance on metrics is the traditional way to drive continuous improvement, the value of aligning Selling, General, and Administration (SG&A) activities with the strategic priorities of the business is gaining favor as a way to reduce...

MESA and WBF to release collaborative services.(INTEROPERABILITY AND STANDARDS)
August 1, 2005... Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association (MESA) International and World Batch Forum (WBF) are working together to deliver enhanced services to their members. The two associations share common commitments to advancing industry standards...

Yankee Group cites PMPO a best-kept secret in the enterprise.(PRICING INITIATIVES)
August 1, 2005... Boston-based Yankee Group says the market for price management and profit optimization (PMPO) solutions is expected to reach $1 billion by 2007. The majority of Fortune 1000 enterprises using these solutions report ROI from profit solutions and...

Dell invests in Red Hat.(LEVERAGING LINUX)
August 1, 2005... Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Computer, has invested $99.5 million of his personal wealth in open-source market leader Red Hat through MSD Capital LP. The investment was made last year, but was only brought to light in April when Triangle...

Industry groups say lean practitioner program will be most rigorous effort of its kind.(LEAN MANUFACTURING)
August 1, 2005... Positive feedback from a lean manufacturing survey of U.S. companies is prompting three important industry groups to develop a Lean practitioner certification program that will be launched at the Association of Manufacturing Excellence's (AME)...

Lean goes literary.(Views from the front)
August 1, 2005... Hoping to borrow a page from Eli Goldratt, authors Freddy and Michael Balle (a father-and-son team) cowrote the book The Goldmine in hopes of doing for lean production what Dr. Eli Goldratt's The Goal did for the Theory of Constraints. ...

webMethods.
August 1, 2005... webMethods for Compliance, from business integration software vendor webMethods, verifies the completeness, accuracy, and validity of transactions and business processes in accordance with Sarbanes-Oxley to continuously monitor compliance...

SaaS is a risky business.(In perspective)
August 1, 2005... A popular way to sell enterprise software is via a licensing model called software as a service (SaaS), which turns the traditional licensing model--as well as the risk--of enterprise software on its head. Traditional models for buying...

The network is the application.(In perspective)
August 1, 2005... As a graduate student in 1970, Ethernet inventor Robert Metcalfe devised his now-famous law that the power of a network grows exponentially as new computers are added. Given the global scope and power of the Internet, few would argue with...

Work as one: can manufacturing and IT get along? For National Instruments and others, the answer lies in joint decisions; plant-savvy IT people.(Cover Story)
August 1, 2005... When it comes down to which information technology (IT) projects get a green light, and which ones get delayed, Rob Porterfield is used to dealing with some tradeoffs. Porterfield--VP of manufacturing with National Instruments--adds that some...

An implementation and upgrade checklist: twelve ways to keep a project from going south.(Applications & Services)
August 1, 2005... Two words apt to cause many IT or business managers to cringe are "implementation" and "upgrade." But for every rumored project failure, surely there's a corresponding success, brought in on time and on budget, meeting its goals, and delivering...

Moline Bearing opts for open-source ERP--on a Mac.(CASE-IN-POINT)
August 1, 2005... Moline Bearing is a tiny St. Charles, Ill.-based manufacturer of roller and spherical bearings. With six employees, but a global customer base, company President David Fauntleroy has to do a lot with just a few people. By last year, an old...

Low-cost innovation management tool is suited for the masses.(PRODUCT & PROCESS IDEATION)
August 1, 2005... Coming up with good ideas for new products or process improvements isn't the problem, say most manufacturers--it's getting them from idea to reality efficiently and profitably. New research indicates throwing money at the problem doesn't...

New shipping realities sharpen focus on transportation management.(COLLABORATIVE SUPPLY CHAINS)
August 1, 2005... It's a seller's market in transportation services, and as a result, manufacturers must rethink their shipping strategies. This is the message Beth Enslow, a VP with Boston-based AberdeenGroup, delivered at an executive session on transportation...

MES market blows through $1-billion barrier.(PLANT-FLOOR SYSTEMS)
August 1, 2005... The market for manufacturing execution systems (MES) has finally come into its own, reaching $1.6 billion in sales in 2004, according to Boston-based AMR Research. Revenue from sales to North American companies increased from 43 percent in...

A strong statement about plant-enterprise connectivity.(In perspective)
August 1, 2005... In June, SAP acquired Lighthammer, a pioneer in plant-level performance management and visibility software. This acquisition matches market trends: increasing interest in plant-floor and manufacturing execution systems (MES); the move to...

Regulatory compliance is a good business practice; market leaders use government, customer mandates to fine-tune business processes.(Business Performance)
August 1, 2005... Cambrex Corp., East Rutherford, N.J., has a very interesting business model. While its mainstay is developing technology that helps pharmaceutical companies discover and test new drugs, sometimes it takes over the process of manufacturing the...

Vendors combine to help manufacturers identify products customers actually need.(PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT)
August 1, 2005... While product life-cycle management (PLM) technology is said to be a reliable tool for getting products to market faster and cheaper, many manufacturers still have trouble deciding exactly what products they should bring to market. "Too...

Ask AberdeenGroup: where do companies apply S&OP?
August 1, 2005... Dynamic sales & operations planning (S&OP) is that set of business processes and technologies that enables an enterprise to effectively respond to demand and supply variability with timely determinations of the right market and supply chain...

Industry models for enterprise, supply chain quicken start-ups, if no wheels are reinvented.(BEST PRACTICES)
August 1, 2005... Two offerings from IDS Scheer point to a trend in business process modeling software: the shift away from a toolset approach to reliance on pre-built models. IDS Scheer's latest SmartPath solution sets are for chemicals and durable consumer...

Smarter product development process depends on demand insight, sound infrastructure.(CASE-IN-POINT)
August 1, 2005... The ability to develop new products is a competitive advantage. But few manufacturers can know for certain whether a new product will be a big hit--or a colossal bust--until after it's on the market. H.J. Heinz, the Pittsburgh-based food...

Yours, mine, and ours: integrating demand into the supply chain requires technology that supports a clear view of--and for--every customer and every tier.(Integration & Infrastructure)
August 1, 2005... Dell Computer ships laptops, desktops, and servers throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa from its manufacturing facility in Limerick, Ireland. Dell's is a "build-to-order" business model--in other words, it's as demand-driven as...

Cisco unveils application-aware smart network.(INTELLIGENT DEVICES)
August 1, 2005... Capping years of talk about smart networks, Cisco Systems recently announced new technology that would use intelligent routers and switches to manage the applications that run on them. Called application-oriented networking, or AON, it includes...

Corporate culture issues cited as No. 1 impediment to effective project, portfolio management.(IT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT)
August 1, 2005... PlanView's CIO Advisory Council summit, held in Dallas in May, brought representatives from 17 companies to discuss issues and challenges facing IT managers--specifically, how they can effectively leverage IT within the corporation in tight...

Automatic failover, back-up sites, outsourcing among the strategies for ensuring data availability.(DATA CENTERS)
August 1, 2005... After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Arch Chemicals upgraded its security--especially IT security. "We have an initiative that includes how to secure our perimeters, how to secure ourselves from internal attacks, and how to recover if...

Rockwell strengthens links with IBM WebSphere.(PLANT IT INFRASTRUCTURES)
August 1, 2005... Leveraging several years of working with IBM in serving the automotive and life sciences industries, Rockwell Automation--a global provider of industrial automation, power, control, and information solutions--recently announced a new...

The networking of two: wireless technologies show promise, but safety and security issues persist.(Security/Wireless)
August 1, 2005... Manufacturers have been slow to install wireless local area networks (WLAN), primarily due to concerns about their suitability in industrial environments. However, many companies have seen ROI for wireless spending for shipping & receiving, and...

A truly paperless paper company.(Security/Wireless)
August 1, 2005... "Even though we're a paper products manufacturer, we run a completely paperless operation," says Dave Pung, director of information systems at Chicago-based Corrugated Supplies. This producer of corrugated paperboard uses a Wi-Fi network to...

Metalworker finds "easy" way to data collection benefits.(CASE-IN-POINT)
August 1, 2005... Co-Line Welding, a family-owned metalworking shop in Sully, Iowa, learned the hard way there's more to accurate data collection than a bar-code system. In an attempt to improve materials management, the company ordered from a catalog a data...

WCO adopts framework to secure and speed global trade.(CUSTOMS CLEARANCE)
August 1, 2005... On June 24, at its annual council sessions in Brussels, the World Customs Organization (WCO) unanimously adopted its new Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade. The framework aims to protect world trade from threats posed...

Financial compliance measures cause some companies to look again at lax systems access.(SARBANES-OXLEY)
August 1, 2005... Enterprise Strategy Group, a Milford, Mass.-based storage and information management analyst firm, reports 46 percent of IT managers have found active accounts belonging to ex-employees on their networks, even though 55 percent believe "access...

Auto-ID system reads hundreds of bar codes simultaneously.(RFID ALTERNATIVES)
August 1, 2005... Between the tried-and-true technology of the bar code and the still-developing promise of RFID lies an alternative: the Visidot system from ImageID Ltd. Visidot, based on imaging technology, is capable of identifying and decoding hundreds...

Zebra Technologies.
August 1, 2005... Zebra Technologies now supports multilingual bar-code label output for mySAP Business Suite on a Unicode-enabled thermal printer. Unicode is a code page that converts numeric codes into characters for printing or display. Most traditional...

Dell versus Lenovo could be the fight of the century.(Back talk)
August 1, 2005... Regular readers of this magazine know we have written a lot of about globalization, with a fair number of stones focusing on Chinas emergence as a global manufacturing center. That trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future,...

Tools for excellence: Microsoft and partners give manufacturers what they need to achieve peak performance.(Advertisement)
August 1, 2005... Manufacturing is on the rebound, and the proof is showing up in plenty of places, including a recent survey of more than 220 presidents, CEOs, and COOs of manufacturing enterprises conducted by New York-based Deloitte Consulting for the...

The path to peak performance: Microsoft and partner solutions fuel the drive for excellence in manufacturing's four functional areas.(Advertisement)
August 1, 2005... What does every manufacturer have in common today, from global giants like Hewlett-Packard and Procter & Gamble, to midsize enterprises like nutrition products maker Nutramax Manufacturing? Simply put, they face intense pressure to perform. ...

All integration all the time: aluminum materials processor gets clear view of operations with Microsoft portal technology.(Advertisement)
August 1, 2005... Justus de Hooge can rattle off a whole list of system upgrades made over the years at the plant for which he is information technology and information systems manager. But ask him about the underlying goal behind the initiatives, and he comes...

Product development, simplified: cleaning products supplier gets products to market faster using Microsoft-based PLM.(Advertisement)
August 1, 2005... JohnsonDiversey, Sturtevant, Wis., owes its status as the world's second-largest supplier of commercial cleaning and sanitation products to the expertise of its research & development (R&D) team. But JohnsonDiversey management also knows it...

Close watch over the factory: automaker gains insight to plant trends with Microsoft-based intelligence system.(Advertisement)
August 1, 2005... DaimlerChrysler is no stranger to advanced systems for manufacturing intelligence. The automaker--which has its U.S. headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich.--uses a custom-built factory information system across most of its North American plants....

Seeing the big picture: auto parts maker takes on global competition with Microsoft-based PLM.(Advertisement)
August 1, 2005... Delta Technologies Group, like most U.S.-based manufacturers, is feeling the effects of global competition. But the Auburn Hills, Mich.-based supplier of injected-molded parts, such as door and instrument panels for the automotive industry, is...

Moving fast while staying under control: Microsoft-based PLM keeps wheel-systems supplier in the fast lane.(Advertisement)
August 1, 2005... Unverferth Manufacturing Co. is well known in markets such as agriculture, where its wheel systems and other equipment are a leading brand. But the Kalida, Ohio-based company is a midsize manufacturer--not a Fortune 500 behemoth that would be...

Microsoft partner solutions for manufacturing.(Advertisement)
August 1, 2005... Microsoft partner solutions for manufacturing Supplier SOLUTIONS FOR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND LIFE-CYCLE MANAGEMENT (PLM): Actify Actify offers a digital...