Intelligent Manufacturing € June € 1996 € Vol. 2 € No. 6

Merger Mania Shakes Up Manufacturing Software Industry

By David Blanchard
Editor

If a good vendor is hard to find, then it just got a little bit harder for manufacturers in search of software solutions. In the past month, no fewer than three manufacturing software suppliers have been gobbled up in acquisition deals, leaving the industry as a whole even more confused than it typically is.

In perhaps the biggest merger deal in recent memory, The Baan Co. (Menlo Park, Calif.), a supplier of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, has acquired Berclain Group Inc. (Sainte-Foy, Quebec, Canada), a provider of scheduling and manufacturing synchronization solutions, in a stock-swap transaction.

Berclain will become a wholly owned subsidiary, operating independently within Baan. Berclain will also retain its distribution and support network as it currently exists.

The merger came almost on the heels of the announcement of a strategic product development alliance between the two companies. Work is already underway on jointly integrating Baan's Triton ERP applications with Berclain's MOOPI scheduling and synchronization software. MOOPI's synchronization engine will extend Triton's manufacturing functionality into the day-to-day workings of the plant floor. MOOPI also provides a full view into the detail of timing and interdependencies of plant floor resources.

The goal is to combine enterprise-wide visibility and product optimization into a solution that allows a manufacturing organization to respond to and understand information at an enterprise level while executing in a manner that balances costs with responsiveness at a local level.

Explaining the strategy behind the merger, Tom Tinsley, president of Baan, noted that Baan will now "have both the transaction and the decision support sides of manufacturing and distribution software. Berclain will gain technology for plantwide optimization and synchronization, which is also the core needed for next-generation intelligent resource planning."

Berclain's participation in the CIIMPLEX (Consortium for Integrated Intelligent Manufacturing Planning and Execution) project will remain unchanged. This object-oriented ERP-to-plant execution integration project also involves IBM, QAD, JD Edwards, and other manufacturers and universities.

Meanwhile, GenRad Inc. (Concord, Mass.), a vendor of software productivity tools for electronics manufacturers, has signed a definitive merger agreement with Mitron Corp. (Portland, Ore.), a rival developer of software applications for electronics manufacturing including its CIMBridge software applications. The products enable users to collect electronics manufacturing data for greater control, shorter time-to-market, and lower costs. The transaction is valued at approximately $20 million.
Mitron's software products are used primarily by manufacturers of electronics products such as PCs, communications and computer-based peripherals. Mitron competes in what is known as the manufacturing information market.

GenRad plans to utilize Mitron's expertise in intelligent systems to create expert diagnostic information systems for electronics process optimization from design through manufacturing and service. For instance, knowledge-based systems will be introduced to GenRad's Advanced Diagnostic Solutions group, based in Manchester, England.

And finally -- for this month, anyway -- Manugistics Group Inc. (Rockville, Md.), a provider of software and services for supply chain management, has acquired Avyx Inc. (Englewood, Colo.), a supplier of advanced manufacturing scheduling solutions. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Avyx's employees will make up Manugistics' Center of Manufacturing Expertise.
Manugistics will continue to market its existing Manufacturing Planning solution, as well as Avyx's advanced technology. The products will be integrated in Manugistics' Advanced Manufacturing Scheduling solution, to be announced later this year.

Avyx's object-oriented tools are designed to help solve complex manufacturing scheduling problems, including high-volume repetitive, discrete and process. The company's scheduling methodology was originally developed as part of a research project with NASA's space shuttle program and has since been adapted for commercial use in manufacturing markets.