Today, many assets are designed and manufactured with the help of product lifecycle management (PLM) tools and systems, which contain highly valuable product definition information for enterprise asset management (EAM) and computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) operations.

That being said, if there is a way to tie the two systems (EAM and PLM) together, the result will be beneficial to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), asset owners, and third-party maintenance service providers. However, this isn’t an easy job. The following are a few barriers between EAM and PLM as I see it. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve begun publishing a new type of report (free download) called a Product Certification Report. These have been in the works for a while so I’m very happy to announce the first two are now available. I’ll post the links below and then explain what these reports are.

• Meridian Global LMS (an enterprise learning management system [LMS] as certified by Sherry Fox)
• Pronto Software’s Pronto Xi (an ERP system available for a variety of industries as certified by Aleksey Osintsev)

We actually develop two reports for every software system we certify. One report (examples published at the links above) is written for potential buyers of the product, it’s relevant to someone researching or comparing various software systems for their own selection projects. It should be a useful, independent and unbiased addition to an in-depth evaluation process. Vendors also receive their own copies of the report, with insights that pertain to their product development and competitive landscape.  Read the rest of this entry »

Part I of this blog series introduced the burning issues of food safety and the resultant need for a holistic and proactive safety strategy (rather than to reactively recall plagued products). The previous post also talked in more detail about Lawson Software’s holistic approach entitled The “4Ps” of Food Safety.

In this part, Rory Granros, process industry and product marketing manager at Infor, also strongly opines that in order to protect product safety, companies need a holistic and proactive Product Compliance Strategy. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 2 of this blog topic continued to analyze IBM’s rationale behind acquiring ILOG to bolster its service oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) platforms, in part due to the capabilities of archrival Oracle.

What About ILOG’s SCM Products?

Whether as a sort of “collateral damage” (given IBM’s foremost interest in beefing up its SOA/BPM infrastructure product) or maybe not, the acquisition also leaves IBM with the supply chain management (SCM) applications business that ILOG has recently been developing in pursuit of a more profitable custom solution strategy. This strategy was going to complement ILOG’s tried-and-true “technology & platform” strategy of providing business rules management system (BRMS), optimization engines, and visualization tools. Read the rest of this entry »

According to a recent NYT article, the hotel industry saw record revenue last year reaching $138 billion, growing $28 billion from the previous year. In response, hotels increased rates and major chains like Hyatt and Marriott began planning new hotels. While the recent subprime crisis, low US dollar, and high gas prices have caused these chains to scale back new developments, they have not trimmed them down by much. Over 6,000 new hotels have been built, with a third of those still under construction. Read the rest of this entry »

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 Read the rest of this entry »

TEC analyst Alex Hankewicz was positively purring after his certification of the IFS Applications EAM functionality a couple of weeks ago, thanks to what he called its comprehensive functionality and well thought-out and scalable architecture.

He’s not normally very effusive, so when he described it as “one of the best I’ve seen,” I thought it was time to offer readers a walkthrough of TEC’s EAM Evaluation Center, which you can use to generate a free shortlist of EAM solutions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Part I of this blog post introduced the common software deployment models and Consona CRM’s approach in that regard. To the end of enabling Total Customer Management (TCM) via an adaptive CRM offering, Consona CRM is built with a superior core infrastructure (customer data model, BPM, BI, SOA) and a holistic, best-of-breed product portfolio.

Consona claims to be one of the market’s rare CRM offerings that is both operational and collaborative, with many years of a broad range of consulting, technical, and business process services that have created the related methodology and blueprint.

Consona CRM Portfolio

The vendor believes that it offers the best value for price in the market due to the extensive product’s flexibility and adaptability, ease of customization, configuration, integration and upgrades, and due to the depth of the product’s extensibility.

These capabilities come from the combination of Onyx Adaptive CRM (i.e., BPM, BI, SFA, customer service, customer data management and customer data integration [CDI]), KNOVA (i.e., self-service and knowledge management [KM]) and the partnership with Million Handshakes (part of Portrait Software) for marketing automation. Read the rest of this entry »