Yet another of our weekly news round-ups from the world of supply chain. This week, we bring you some brief (and not so brief) news from SAP, TradeCard, Apriso, TECSYS, Epic Data, Waterloo Software, and Fishbowl Inventory. His Eminence, Pope Benedict XVI, may be going off duty to hide from the world, but we aren’t. The office is open, the phones are working, and the Wifi is running. We are ready to talk supply chain.

SAP announced this week the general availability of v9.0 of the SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM) application. Read the rest of this entry »

Retalix’ acquisition of Cornell Mayo Associates is symptomatic of the current trend of acquisition and consolidation in the retail marketplace (just look at RedPrairie’s four recent acquisitions in this area). This is a fast-changing marketplace, with retailers looking for broader solutions and less interested in multiple point solutions. Predicting how this merger will go is tricky, but in general I think it has to be a good move for Retalix. Retalix continues to execute on its strategy to expand into adjacent retail segments.

Cornell Mayo enhances the company’s position in the department store retail segment, and complements Retalix’s strongholds in the high-volume, high-complexity retail market (e.g., convenience stores, fast food restaurants, gas stations, and supermarkets). It will be interesting to watch for any cross-sales opportunities between Cornell Mayo’s point-of-sale (POS) and back-office apps and Retalix’ software tools for pricing, cashier balancing, sales trend reporting, labor scheduling, inventory management, accounting, and loyalty program management. As far as I know, the combination still lacks retail store task management and e-commerce solutions.

Profile: Retalix
Compare Retalix with other point-of-sale systems!

Openbravo ERP is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution on the less expensive side of the spectrum, which is valued by distribution and retail industries as well as by manufacturing, services, public-sector, and nonprofit organizations.

I caught up with Openbravo’s John Fandl recently about the company’s latest iteration of its ERP solution (version 3). In the past, we’ve mostly mentioned Openbravo as a peer to other open source ERP vendors, but it deserves to be considered in its own right. Read the rest of this entry »

Distribution organizations play a key role between the manufacturers and retailers. Being the middle organization between a manufacturer and a retailer, a distribution center (DC) needs to have a robust operation and accurate information for delivering products and services to its customers. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I attended a supply chain management (SCM) user conference in Florida.

The main objective of the user conference was to help users learn and share experiences to eliminate business pains faced either due to lack of technology or business processes. MS Excel, was proudly mentioned in many of the conversations I had with supply chain professionals. It felt like SCM professionals were married to Excel, and their supply chain and operational activities cannot function without it.  Read the rest of this entry »

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If this proverb were applied in today’s operations, every organization would be in a reactive mode of maintenance and work against the lean manufacturing concepts.

Any breakdown or downtime on the manufacturing floor, in the warehouse, in transportation, or any other business process will create missed customer commitments, failed deliveries, idle time, and lost labor hours. Instead of taking the risk and being in reactive mode, wouldn’t it be nice to have systems or procedures through which an organization can know the status of its equipment? In today’s fast-paced market environment it’s beneficial for organizations to know which equipment needs preventative or scheduled maintenance for better planning, commitment, and allocation of resources. Read the rest of this entry »

When I speak with distribution executives nowadays, they all say the same thing: “We are struggling to keep our heads above water because of the economy.” However, before the economy took a turn for the worse, they talked about low profit margins, high inventory levels with low turns, and an erosion of their profitability because of their warehouses. I am often forced to ask, “Is the economy really that bad? Or, is your inability to deliver what your customers want, when they want it, and at a competitive price making it seem worse to your organization?”

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A couple of weeks ago, we started a series of blog posts product lifecycle management (PLM) about how TEC defines different types of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and what sets them apart. We will continue with a detailed description of process manufacturing ERP, and we will introduce some of the top-rated vendors in this domain. Read the rest of this entry »

To achieve success in today’s retail industry, retailers that are small to midsize businesses (SMBs) need to effectively meet their customers’ needs on time, with the right price, in the right quantity—and at the right place, with the right promotions. All of these things can be very overwhelming for a retailer. To get them, retailers require tools that support effective and precise operations. In this volatile global economy, every retailer is trying to beat the competition and win over the customer base. The winners in this race are the retailers that can provide customers the supreme (winning) combination of product, price, and customer service, and do it without affecting profitability. Read the rest of this entry »

Many CFOs, CTOs, supply chain managers, and logistics managers struggle to decide which supply chain management (SCM) software is best-suited to their organizational needs. It doesn’t help that there is an abundance (literally hundreds) of SCM solutions available on the market. Today, I’ll help you understand key SCM modules, and look at some key players with well established SCM solutions. Read the rest of this entry »

In a previous blog post, I discussed two approaches to bringing down the overall cost of your supply chain (by using either cost-cutting or -reducing methods). Another blog was about bringing cost down by using better or best inventory management processes and practices. As we have already discussed the methods, processes, and practices, let’s look now at some of the technological aspects of reducing cost.

The first question that comes to mind is: will supply chain software help reduce the cost of the supply chain? So the riddle is to have or not to have supply chain software within your organization…? Read the rest of this entry »

In my previous blog I discussed two approaches to bringing down your cost: cost cutting and cost reducing, with regards to the overall supply chain network. The most effective way of cost reduction in supply chain is through the collaborative effort of the whole organization. As discussed previously, the supply chain has various areas where cost reduction can be done, but for this blog, I want to focus on cost reduction with better or best inventory management processes and practices.Basically inventory can appear in a variety of forms, such as raw material, goods in process, and finished goods. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes all of us are well aware that the global economy is in a downturn. We hear it in the news, on blogs, in articles, and we see it around us with massive layoffs and lower consumer spending. So while we have heard all about these problems, what is the solution to fix these issues from an enterprise point of view? Read the rest of this entry »