QAD Inc. continues to gain new customers via its relatively autonomous divisions, such as Precision Software for transportation management, and the recently acquired DynaSys for supply chain management (SCM) and CEBOS for quality management. QAD expects all of those products to carry their own weight and continue to sell to non-QAD enterprise resource planning (ERP) customers (in addition to cross-selling to QAD ERP customers).

Most recently, DynaSys, a division that provides solutions for demand and supply chain planning, announced that the RAJA Group has implemented DynaSys n.SKEP Retail Planning to help its growth strategy. The European distributor of packaging, business supplies, and consumables deployed DynaSys n.SKEP Retail Planning “Ready To Plan” (RTP) solution as part of its plan to upgrade its IT systems.

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Early in 2013, WNS Holdings Ltd, a provider of global business process outsourcing (BPO) services, announced its strategic partnership with Kinaxis, the provider of RapidResponse, an enterprise cloud service for supply chain management (SCM) and sales and operations planning (S&OP). RapidResponse is a single product that delivers the underlying planning, simulation, and collaboration capabilities essential to making long-term and short-term demand and supply balancing decisions across the enterprise. RapidResponse’s SCM applications—S&OP, Master Planning & Scheduling (MPS), Capacity and Constraint Management, Inventory and Supply Management, Engineering Change Management, Demand Management, and Order Promise Management—can be deployed using a common data model and user interface (UI).

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Part 1 of this blog series introduced the concept of (Rapid) Response Management in the realm of supply chain management (SCM) via a software category pioneer, Kinaxis. The currently bullish Kinaxis has a number of customers that are SAP ERP customers too, and for a long time SAP was at first dismissive (or at least ambivalent) regarding the need for Response Management, as the company had its own well-known SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (SAP APO) product. In addition, Kinaxis has had to compete with other advanced planning and scheduling (APS) providers such as JDA Software (former i2 and Manugistics), Logility, and Oracle.

Since November 2010, SAP has been distributing a supply chain solution by a lesser-known German software company ICON-SCM as SAP Supply Chain Response Management (SAP SCRM) by ICON-SCM, a solution extension to its own SCM suite, SAP SCM (see TEC’s article entitled SAP SCM – Stepping out of Obscurity). SAP had investigated several options to satisfy this role, and presumably one of those options might have been Kinaxis. For its part, Oracle released its internally designed standalone product in 2009 called Oracle Rapid Planner, which can be layered on top of Oracle’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) products and other ERP products.

Now, Kinaxis feels vindicated by Oracle and SAP’s endorsement of the market at long last, but is slighted by the IKON-SCM partnership, plus, it is a fierce competition now. In addition, isn’t “optimization” part of the SAP APO name, and why then did SAP introduce a separate SCRM solution? It seems we may be talking about different kinds of optimization. Maybe in certain situations it’s more appropriate to use one kind of optimization versus the other.

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My recent series on how to plan and manage in uncertainty and volatility (which conditions have become the “new normal” in many sectors and industries) has generated much interest and many comments. As mentioned in the series, the inspiration came from Kinaxis customers’ case studies presented during the Kinexions 2011 user conference.

Ottawa (Canada)-based Kinaxis has been experiencing a renaissance of sorts lately in these days of dispersed complex supply networks and outsourced and offshore manufacturing (with so-called brand owners and their vast network of suppliers). After over 25 years in existence, and some name changes for both the company and its products since the inception, it is not exactly easy to explain what Kinaxis offers (or even better, where its capabilities start and end in the realm of supply chain management [SCM]).

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Part 1 of this blog series discussed the genesis of ProfitKey International, one of the longest-standing enterprise resource planning (ERP) providers for small to midsize discrete manufacturers that has never been merged with another peer product. After the protracted bankruptcy saga of its former parent company, HALO Technology Holdings, ProfitKey was recently bought out by Phoenix Asset Management, and is now keen on starting a new chapter.

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This post starts with a trivia question: Please name the mid-market enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor that has existed the longest in the market with an ERP product that has never been merged with another product? In addition, the vendor and its product offerings have never been covered by TEC and myself. As a hint, the company was founded in 1979 and has always focused on discrete make-to-order (MTO) and engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing.

Is there anyone out there wanting to venture a guess? If more hints are needed, it is not MAPICS XA, which was founded in 1977 by IBM, but now belongs to Infor and is currently called Infor ERP Discrete iEnterprise (and before that had changed many ownerships and shared a roof with other ERP products). SYSPRO has been independent since 1978, but has been a frequent topic on this site. It is not QAD either, which has been independent since 1979, but TEC has repeatedly reported about this vendor (see the most recent article on the company). It is not ABAS Software AG either, which has also been independent since its founding in 1980 (TEC just published an article on the company).

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My recent article entitled “Workforce Scheduling & Optimization: The Missing Link on the Shop Floor?” analyzed the importance of manufacturing workforce scheduling & optimization solutions and stated that many manufacturing enterprises still use rudimentary tools and practices (if that) to manage their labor. The article stated that most manufacturing organizations do not yet understand the strategic value that workforce scheduling could provide to them.

Often, manufacturing companies (complacently or ignorantly) think that the existing practices and tools that they have in place for labor scheduling are “good enough” or that workforce scheduling for their environment is so unique and complex that it cannot be properly automated. Until recently, a few percentiles of improvement in labor utilization or productivity hasn’t been much of an incentive for manufacturing executives to invest in sophisticated workforce management (WFM) systems. Labor has been customarily viewed as a constraint (or even a necessary evil) to the successful movement of goods through the supply chain.

What a difference in attitude a protracted economic downturn can make. Because labor represents a large percentage of any organization’s controllable costs, many manufacturing companies have lately realized that the benefits of implementing automated workforce scheduling can be significant.

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Part 1 of this blog series started with a discussion of the fact that the ability to sense demand and become a demand-driven (responsive) business is more than just the catch phrase du jour: it has become a recipe for survival. For the past few decades, the providers of a multiplicity of by-and-large integrated manufacturing software solutions have been offering help for embattled manufacturers. From fully integrated business management systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) down to more focused modular plant-level solutions, including Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) systems, manufacturers have been perplexed by how to best combine and deploy these options and islands of information.

My posting concluded that ERP systems are good for long-term planning and transactional accounting, but not necessarily appropriate for scheduling and execution on the shop floor. Only those companies that have infinite (or lots to spare) capacity, low product mix, high customer tolerance for long order lead times, and low inventory holding costs could get by using ERP for scheduling.

In other words, not many manufacturers can be fully satisfied by ERP. The next logical question was whether Lean Manufacturing practices could alleviate the abovementioned ERP shortfalls. Part 2 then acknowledged that lean ERP capabilities are well suited for producing parts with level demand (so-called “runners” in Preactor’s apt lingo) but not necessarily for parts with variable demands and make-to-order (MTO) traits (so-called “repeaters” and “strangers”).

This realization has created a coming-of-age environment for APS systems, whose first generation of products a decade ago has had their share of mixed results. The final part of this series will analyze how APS, as a manufacturing glue of sorts, relates to ERP, lean manufacturing, and MES. Is there a value proposition for integrating all these disparate systems? 

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Part 1 of this blog series started with the fact that the ability to sense demand and become a demand-driven (responsive) business is more than just the catch phrase du jour: it has become a recipe for survival. Every sensible enterprise is on a quest to deliver on time and as quickly as necessary, with minimum inventory (and working capital), and the highest necessary utilization.

For a few decades, the providers of a multiplicity of by and large integrated manufacturing software solutions have been offering help for embattled manufacturers. From fully integrated business management systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) down to more focused modular plant-level solutions including Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) systems, manufacturers have been perplexed with how best to combine and deploy these options and islands of information.

The article concluded that ERP systems are good for planning and transactional accounting purposes, but not necessarily appropriate for scheduling and execution on the shop floor. Only those companies that have infinite (or lots of spare) capacity, low product mix, their customers’ tolerance for long order lead times, and low inventory holding costs could get by using ERP for scheduling.

In other words, not many manufacturers can be fully satisfied by ERP. The next logical question is whether Lean Manufacturing practices can alleviate the abovementioned ERP shortfalls. 

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Especially in today’s globally competitive and recessionary environment it is imperative that companies further eliminate waste, become leaner, and become more agile to respond to customer’s demand. The ability to sense demand and become a demand-driven (responsive) business is more than just the catch-phrase du jour: it has become a recipe for survival. Everyone is on a quest to deliver on time and as quickly as necessary, with minimum inventory (and working capital), and highest necessary utilization. 

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Part 1 of this series analyzed the late-March acquisition of long-struggling inventory optimization (IO) provider Optiant by long well-performing supply chain management (SCM) provider Logility. I then discussed Logility’s acquisition history to set the stage for the current offerings that Optiant will join.The 2004 acquisition of Demand Management, Inc. (DMI) and its Demand Solutions brand was especially valuable as it provided more than 800 active customers in the growing small and midsize enterprise (SME) market for Logility. Today, Logility’s customer base encompasses about 1,250 companies located in more than 70 countries, which gives Logility the largest installed base of supply chain planning (SCP) customers among application software vendors. Moreover, Logility is possibly the only SCP vendor that can meet the needs of SMEs, large companies (i.e., from US $200 million to US $1 billion in revenues), and Fortune 1000 markets (with over US$1 billion in revenues).

Part 2 thus first analyzed the Demand Solutions product line [evaluate this product] to the SME market through DMI’s global value added resellers (VAR) network. The article then started to analyze the Logility Voyager Solutions suite [evaluate this product], which is a broader SCM offering for the upper end of the market. The final part of this blog series now continues with the analysis of the Logility Voyager Solutions suite and analyzes how Optiant might fit in.

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Part 1 of this series analyzed the late-March acquisition of long struggling inventory optimization (IO) provider Optiant by long well-performing supply chain management (SCM) provider Logility. The blog post then discussed Logility’s acquisition history to set the stage for the current offerings that Optiant will join.

The 2004 acquisition of Demand Management, Inc. (DMI) and its Demand Solutions brand was particularly valuable as it provided more than 800 active customers in the growing small and midsize enterprise (SME) market for Logility. Today, Logility’s customer base encompasses about 1,250 companies located in more than 70 countries.

These facts give Logility the largest installed base of supply chain planning (SCP) customers among application software vendors. Logility is possibly the only SCP vendor that can meet the needs of SMEs, large companies (i.e., from US $200 million to US $1 billion in revenues), and Fortune 1000 markets (with over US$1 billion in revenues). 

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In spite of the 2009 recession, some SCM vendors were able to create traction in the supply chain space this year. From an industry landscape perspective, three events from 2009 will have a more far-reaching impact than any other in this space, primarily because they’re priming the conditions for still more vendor competition and industry volatility in the year to come. Read the rest of this entry »

TEC regularly works with companies to identify the right software vendors for their industry and particular needs. I’m going to provide you with information about ERP systems and how they relate to steel industry requirements (note: you can always consult our Vendor Showcase to find out more about specific software vendors). Read the rest of this entry »

Manufacturers serving such retail giants as Wal-Mart or Costco are exposed to severe challenges—not only because of the economies of scale these outlets demand, but also because of the investment required in technology and capital equipment to manage the sheer volume of manufactured goods. Read the rest of this entry »