May 1997, Volume 14, No. 5
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May 1997, Volume 14, No. 5
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Viracon (Owatonna, Minn.; http://www.viracon.com), a manufacturer of high-performance architectural fabricated glass, has awarded a $1.7 million contract for supply chain synchronization software and services to SynQuest Inc. (Norcross, Ga.; http://www.synquest.com). Viracon plans to create a flow-type environment, where increased visibility and production synchronization will help the company keep things moving while reducing work-in-process.
Typically, Viracon supplies glass to contractors who construct 20- to 30-story high-rise buildings. The company's products have been used to construct such buildings as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tenn. With SynQuest software, Viracon expects to increase its production capacity by 25% without adding additional labor. Increased labor productivity is critical because of a labor shortage in the region.
By necessity Viracon operates in a fluid production environment where delivery dates are constantly shifting. For example, bad weather on a site frequently can stall building construction and the need for delivery by two weeks. On the other hand, contractors may ask to move up delivery, if construction is proceeding more quickly than expected. To improve responsiveness , the SynQuest system will help Viracon synchronize activities, at the same time improving productivity and increasing visibility and control in this dynamic manufacturing environment.
Just increasing production capacity to meet demand in current markets won't allow Viracon to meet its overall corporate growth objectives. The company is targeting an aggressive 233% cumulative growth by the turn of the century. To meet this goal, Viracon will use SynQuest capabilities to help the company enter a new market, the medium-performance fabricated glass market, with its high-performance fabricated glass products. Viracon's success in this new market is contingent on its ability to become more agile and responsive to short-interval customer demand and demand changes.
To expand into the medium-performance market, Viracon needs to shorten time-to-market and improve customer responsiveness. The SynQuest software will provide the company with the capability to model and optimize its manufacturing operation and reduce the time it takes to fulfill orders and respond to customer order changes.
International TechneGroup Inc. (ITI) (Milford, Ohio; http://www.iti-oh.com), a supplier of concurrent product and manufacturing process development tools, and Metaphase Technology (Arden Hills, Minn.; http://www.metaphasetech.com), a provider of enterprise information management solutions, have agreed to develop an interface between Metaphase Series 2 and Oracle Manufacturing from Oracle Corp. (Redwood Shores, Calif.; http://www.oracle.com). ITI and Metaphase will jointly develop and support an integration that allows users to more effectively manage the movement of product information between the two enterprise solutions.
The interface project was initiated in response to the large number of users of both Metaphase Series 2 and Oracle Manufacturing, giving rise to an increased need to facilitate information exchange between these two systems. ITI's Metaphase-Oracle Manufacturing Interface will meet this need through a real-time, bi-directional information exchange.
The Interface will transfer information between the systems, enabling users to enter, manipulate and query product data using their normal working environments. As design and manufacturing events unfold in the life of a product, information integrity is enhanced across the entire enterprise, while data maintenance efforts are reduced.
Cookie and cracker producer Grupo Gamesa (Monterrey, Mexico), a subsidiary of Frito-Lay International, has licensed the Rhythm suite of supply chain management software solutions from i2 Technologies Inc. (Irving, Tex.; http://www.i2.com). i2's Rhythm Factory Planner and Advanced Scheduler applications will be tightly integrated into Gamesa's system architecture.
Because Grupo's products have a limited shelf life and multiple distribution channels, improving time-to-market is a key issue. The Rhythm suite of solutions will be used to support complex manufacturing and distribution networks, ranging from large, chain supermarkets to small, family-owned businesses.
Rhythm provides a global view of the entire supply chain from sourcing to delivery. A constraint-based supply chain planning tool, Rhythm allows users to generate integrated solutions to planning and scheduling problems across single and multi-enterprise supply chains.
Chesapeake Decision Sciences Inc. (New Providence, N.J.; http://www.chesapeake.com), a knowledge-based solutions provider, and PDS Technologies (Cambridge, Mass.), a newly formed spinoff of Gensym Corp., have formed a partnership to provide intelligent supply chain solutions. The partnership will provide a common model for implementing a suite of integrated supply chain decision support applications, including forecasting and demand management, production and distribution planning, predictive scheduling, dynamic rescheduling and manufacturing execution.
This supply chain management suite is based on the PDS/2 Supply Chain Application Framework. PDS and Chesapeake have also signed a marketing agreement for Chesapeake to deliver and support the product suite worldwide.
PDS/2 Supply Chain Application Framework integrates all levels of supply chain decision-making processes, ensuring they are synchronized and efficient. PDS/2 is fully distributed, and uses intelligent agent technology. PDS/2 enables organizations to integrate Chesapeake's MIMI (Manager for Interactive Modeling Interfaces), a supply chain decision support and optimization toolset, with transaction processing systems such as SAP's R/3, to fully realize the benefits of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
PDS/2 also allows real-time integration of MIMI with SAP's R/3, and similar transaction systems, to enable business scenarios such as dynamic "Able To Promise" (ATP) in the order fulfillment process. PDS/2 also links MIMI planning and scheduling applications with dynamic, reactive production scheduling applications at the manufacturing execution systems (MES) and distributed control systems (DCS) level.
Every application in these scenarios is controlled by various intelligent agents and is managed by PDS/2's integrated Java Workflow Manager. Business scenarios across systems and solutions within the supply chain management suite can be modeled and simulated with PDS/2 Business Process Modeler.
Arthur Andersen (Los Angeles, Calif.; http://www.arthurandersen.com), a professional services firm, has signed an agreement with QAD Inc. (Carpinteria, Calif.; http://www.qad.com) a provider of enterprise resource planning (ERP) manufacturing software. It is anticipated that QAD's experience in the manufacturing software industry coupled with Arthur Andersen's experience working with manufacturing companies worldwide will yield practical solutions that can improve an organization's business performance.
Arthur Andersen's experience providing technology-enabled solutions to middle market companies complements QAD's position as an open systems ERP vendor for mid-size manufacturing companies.