June 1997, Volume 14, No. 6
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June 1997, Volume 14, No. 6
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The Value Chain Initiative (VCI), an industry-wide effort led by software giant Microsoft (Redmond, Wash.; http://www.microsoft.com/industry/trans) to develop solutions for supply chain information management, has formed a steering committee to provide structure to and facilitate the overall direction of the growing consortium, now numbering over 90. The steering committee is composed of five suppliers of supply chain technology solutions: i2 Technologies, InterTrans Logistics Solutions, Numetrix, Sterling Commerce and UPS Worldwide Logistics.
Six industry segment committees have also been created to help build structured data sets that will migrate within the VCI framework: distribution management, transportation management, EDI and electronic commerce, import/export, inventory control, and warehousing management. The VCI is focusing on specific customer needs through these industry segments.
The VCI was formed last fall to create a next-generation enterprise suite of applications that share information throughout the supply chain (see Intelligent Manufacturing, November 1996). Using the Microsoft BackOffice family and the Windows NT operating system, combined with the connectivity of the Internet, these tool sets will provide the basis for collaborative communication and management decision support among trading partners worldwide.
Tecnomatix Technologies (Novi, Mich.; http://www.tecnomatix.com) has signed an agreement with Structural Dynamics Research Corp. (SDRC) (Milford, Ohio; http://www.sdrc.com) through which Tecnomatix will provide software products and maintenance services to automaker Ford Motor (Dearborn, Mich.; http://www.ford.com) and its suppliers worldwide. Tecnomatix products included in this agreement are ROBCAD for manufacturing process design, Dynamo for dynamic mock-ups, and PART for NC process planning.
The agreement is valued at up to $22 million for software products and maintenance services through 1999, and will result in $6.8 million in initial revenue to Tecnomatix from Ford. Tecnomatix also expects to be requested to provide training, implementation and development services for additional revenues in excess of $5 million. Altogether total revenues from this program may reach up to $30 million through 1999.
Ford has appointed SDRC to be the primary supplier for its C3P program for revolutionizing all product development information technology. Under C3P, Ford will integrate computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided production engineering (CAPE) into a unified global system of concurrent engineering. Under this program, Tecnomatix's CAPE products will become a strategic component of Ford's information technology architecture.
Workgroup Technology (Lexington, Mass.; http://www.workgroup.com), a vendor of product data management (PDM) solutions, and Siemens Industrial and Building Systems Group (Mannheim, Germany; http://www.siemens.com), a manufacturer of electrotechnical equipment, are developing an integration between SAP's R/3 business applications software and Workgroup Technology's CMS software. By tightly integrating CMS to R/3, customers will be able to electronically manage their product information from the first conceptual models in advanced product marketing through all manufacturing phases.
CMS manages the actual work outputs, or deliverables, of product managers, change coordinators, engineers and other professionals throughout the product lifecycle. It provides vault and version control, file security, product structure management, configuration management, process management, information distribution, viewing, and integration with desktop applications. SAP's R/3 is designed to model a range of business processes, particularly the manufacturing planning and execution processes known as MRPII/ERP.
Workgroup Technology provides customers with a controlled configuration of the parts, drawings and geometric information that is required for manufacturing processes. Through the integration with SAP, these customers are expected to experience a reduction in the time, costs and potential errors associated with the reentry of part and document lists.
i2 Technologies (Irving, Tex.; http://www.i2.com), a provider of intelligent planning and optimization software for global supply chain management, has acquired Optimax Systems (Cambridge, Mass.; http://www.optimax.com), a developer of scheduling and sequencing tools for supply chain management. The transaction is valued at $52 million.
i2's Rhythm family of supply chain optimization solutions employ an open, object-based architecture, which allows ease-of-integration with complementary solutions. The i2 and Optimax development teams will begin working to embed genetic algorithms from the OptiFlex solution within Rhythm. The new solution will optimize performance by balancing scheduling issues and overall business goals.
Not content to rest on its laurels, i2 has also acquired Think Systems (Parsippany, N.J.; http://www.thinksys.com), a provider of demand chain solutions, in a transaction valued at $146 million. i2 will combine its planning and optimization algorithms — including those just acquired from Optimax — with Think Systems' multi-dimensional data representation capabilities for demand planning to provide a broad-based solution that delivers full visibility across the supply chain. This solution will provide planning across the supply chain from retailer to scheduling of manufacturing and distribution to sourcing of raw materials.
Automaker Mazda Motor (Hiroshima, Japan; http://www.mazda.com) has selected VisMockUp, a product visualization and digital prototyping software tool from Engineering Animation Inc. (EAI) (Ames, Iowa; http://www.eai.com), for vehicle design and manufacturing within its new concurrent engineering system. EAI's software will be deployed throughout Mazda's engineering group as part of a contract that will be implemented over the next three years.
EAI will provide Mazda with software licensing for VisMockUp, a product visualization software application for digital prototyping. Mazda will implement VisMockUp as part of the Mazda Digital Innovation program, which aims to reduce development costs and time-to-market via concurrent engineering, digital vehicle mock-ups and simulations, and virtual manufacturing.
VisMockUp will enable Mazda to combine 3D visualization technology with total design packaging analysis functions to identify and eliminate design flaws early in the development cycle, helping to reduce the costs for product development. VisMockUp offers a robust set of analysis tools designed to analyze an entire assembly, including interference and collision detection, proximity and attribute filtering and measurement tools.
In addition, VisMockUp will provide Mazda with a wide range of collaboration tools that take full advantage of the corporate intranet, including a visual environment which facilitates peer-to-peer communication, enabling multiple designers to simultaneously view and analyze large assemblies.
Allied Domecq (London, U.K.; http://www.allieddomecq.co.uk), a spirits and wine manufacturer, has selected System Software Associates (Chicago, Ill.; http://www.ssax.com) to supply a global enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Based on SSA's BPCS Client/Server 6.0 software, the new ERP system will be used by 1,500 employees throughout Allied Domecq's production sites in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Mexico, France, Spain and Portugal. It will process bottling, distilling and blending for Allied Domecq's key brands, monitoring channel demand from multiple markets through a single inventory system.
Initially, BPCS will be implemented in mixed-mode on Allied Domecq's existing AS/400 platform, preserving the company's investment in IBM hardware. SSA's object-oriented development of BPCS is also in line with Allied Domecq's future application development plans and will facilitate the extension of BPCS into areas such as bulk spirit management and integration with other Allied Domecq systems.
Marcam (Newton, Mass.; http://www.marcam.com) plans to separate into two independent, publicly traded companies — MAPICS and Marcam Solutions — to enable each company to focus on its core market opportunities, to better serve its customer base and to capitalize and finance its business. Marcam has filed a registration statement for a $75 million public offering of MAPICS common stock.
Under the new structure, Marcam Solutions will focus on delivering enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to process manufacturers, while MAPICS will provide ERP solutions primarily for discrete manufacturers.
The Baan Company (Menlo Park, Calif.; http://www.baan.com), a provider of enterprise software, has acquired Aurum Software (Santa Clara, Calif.; http://www.aurum.com), a supplier of customer relationship management software, in a deal worth an estimated $250 million. This acquisition will enable Baan to bridge sales, marketing and customer service applications with enterprise resource planning (ERP), creating a single enterprise applications backbone.
Aurum will continue to operate independently as a wholly owned subsidiary of Baan, maintaining its focus on developing and marketing software for front office applications.
An enterprise applications backbone provides an integrated approach to buying, selling and producing products and services. With this approach, the entire business process is streamlined and any contact with customers becomes decision support knowledge for the company. Sales information flows directly to and from manufacturing, customer input helps drive manufacturing and production operations, and realistic manufacturing schedules can help to set realistic customer expectations.
Baan and Aurum will each continue to maintain an open technology
approach to support customers and to integrate with other enterprise
applications technologies and processes.