Intelligent Manufacturing € January € 1997 € Vol. 3 € No. 1

News in Brief

PeopleSoft Divulges Manufacturing Strategy
PeopleSoft (Pleasanton, Calif.; http://www.peoplesoft.com), a supplier of industry-specific enterprise solutions, has announced its focused strategy for offering both enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain optimization solutions under a single, global business organization. The newly-acquired Red Pepper Software division (see Intelligent Manufacturing, September 1996) will remain intact as a product development and service organization within this business unit.

The PeopleSoft manufacturing industry business unit provides two solutions: 1) ERP systems comprised of PeopleSoft Manufacturing, Distribution, Financials and HRMS applications, and 2) Red Pepper optimization systems for supply chain, single plant and order-promising operations. Manufacturers can choose to implement Red Pepper embedded in PeopleSoft ERP solutions, or interface Red Pepper applications with their existing transaction-processing systems.

PeopleSoft Manufacturing software integrates ERP transaction and planning optimization functionality. It is based on the Red Pepper advanced real-time planning and scheduling system, as well as integrated product configuration capabilities, a highly customizable, flexible architecture, and embedded workflow technology. On a global basis, PeopleSoft will provide Red Pepper's planning applications for users of Oracle, SAP, Baan, J.D. Edwards, QAD, Marcam, and SSA applications.

Woodard Inks OneWorld Pact with J.D. Edwards
Woodard Inc. (Owosso, Mich.; http://www.woodard-furniture.com), a manufacturer of wrought-iron and aluminum outdoor and casual furniture, has selected OneWorld software from J.D. Edwards & Co. (Denver, Colo.; http://www.jdedwards.com), a supplier of enterprise-wide business applications, as part of its strategy to streamline its information system by implementing an open, enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.

J.D. Edwards is currently implementing the OneWorld financial, manufacturing and distribution applications at Woodard's Owosso headquarters and at its Maxton, N.C., facility, which operates with more than 80 users. The ERP solution will allow Woodard to track the receipt of raw materials through assembly process, while managing the inventory and distribution of finished goods to retailers based on sales forecasts. This streamlined information system provides real-time data to the entire corporation, from shop floor workers to the president. Woodard's OneWorld installation is deployed on a Digital Alpha Server running Windows NT and Oracle.

Tyecin and Oracle Deliver Solution to Level One
Tyecin Systems Inc. (Los Altos, Calif.; http://www.tyecin.com) and Oracle Corp. (Redwood Shores, Calif.; http://www.oracle.com) have launched a cooperative project to deliver integration of Oracle's enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution and Tyecin's planning and scheduling products for both the factory and enterprise levels to Level One Communications (Sacramento, Calif.; http://www.level1.com), a semiconductor manufacturer. The integrated systems will provide Level One with a total system solution tying together transaction systems, manufacturing execution systems (MES), finite capacity scheduling, and constraint-based supply chain optimization for total order management.

The integration effort will encompass Oracle Manufacturing, Financials and Distribution modules, plus the full suite of Tyecin software for planning and scheduling manufacturing operations from plant level to global enterprise.

Tecnomatix Signs $10M Deal with Mazda
Tecnomatix Technologies (Novi, Mich.; http://www.tecnomatix.com), a supplier of computer-aided production engineering (CAPE) software products, has signed a $10 million contract with automobile manufacturer Mazda Motor Corp. (Irvine, Calif.; http://www.mazda.com) for implementation of various CAPE products. Mazda will purchase over 100 software licenses, including ROBCAD for manufacturing process design, Valisys for tolerance management, Dynamo for dynamic mock-ups and PART for NC process planning.

This contract follows Mazda's selection of Tecnomatix as its standard CAPE supplier. Since 1995 the two companies have been working together on various pilot projects as part of the Mazda Digital

Innovation program, which aims to cut production development time and costs while improving the use of manufacturing facilities.

SELECT Purchases Systems Engineer from LBMS
SELECT Software Tools (Santa Ana, Calif.; http://www.selectst.com), a supplier of object-oriented modeling tools, has purchased the Systems Engineer product line from LBMS Inc. (Houston, Tex.; http://www.lbms.com), a provider of process management products, for $2 million in cash. SELECT will continue to invest in developing Systems Engineer, while also continuing to support the existing worldwide user base. Systems Engineer provides the data modeling functionality required for the development and integration of data warehousing, custom and package applications across the enterprise.

By acquiring Systems Engineer and integrating the technology with its SELECT Enterprise product, SELECT will provide a solution for multi-tier data and object-oriented application modeling.

Last summer, as part of a major corporate restructuring, LBMS announced plans to focus its market strategy around Process Engineer, a process management toolset. The acquisition of Systems Engineer by SELECT enables LBMS to concentrate on the process management market and provides users with a development path toward an object-oriented and component based modeling environment.

Consilium Signs Deal with HP
Consilium Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.; http://www.consilium.com), a developer of manufacturing execution system (MES) software, and Hewlett-Packard Co. (Palo Alto, Calif.; http://www.hp.com), a manufacturer of computing, communications and measurement products and services, have signed a corporate licensing agreement for worldwide acquisition of Consilium's WorkStream DFS (Distributed Factory System) manufacturing execution system (MES) product family for HP's internal use. WorkStream DFS products include WorkStream Open and WorkStream DFS application servers.

Gensym Forms Intelligent Manufacturing Unit
Gensym Corp. (Cambridge, Mass.; http://www.gensym.com), a supplier of software for developing intelligent systems, has formed a manufacturing business unit to better serve its customers. Gensym's G2 software is used in manufacturing to monitor, diagnose and control dynamic events in time-critical environments.

PMDC Chooses SynQuest's Software
PolyGram Manufacturing and Distribution Centers Inc. (PMDC) (Grover, N.C.), a manufacturer of compact disks, has selected Optimized Planning and Synchronized Manufacturing software from SynQuest Inc. (Norcross, Ga.; http://www.synquest.com) for its music compact disk manufacturing operations. PMDC will use the software to synchronize planning, scheduling and operations.

AlliedSignal Aerospace Signs Deal with Enterprise
AlliedSignal Aerospace (Torrance, Calif.; http://www.alliedsignal.com/aerospace), a manufacturer of aircraft systems and components, has signed a multi-year agreement with Enterprise Planning Systems (Kanata, Ont., Canada; http://www.webplan.com), a supplier of Web-enabled planning and scheduling software for manufacturers, providing for at least 12 AlliedSignal Aerospace sites to implement webPLAN across North America.

AlliedSignal will use webPLAN, an intelligent planning and scheduling tool, to support an inventory reduction program within the organization. The first webPLAN implementation, currently underway, is the AlliedSignal Engines facility in Phoenix, Ariz.