Editor's Note: Steve Melnyk roamed the exhibit floor during the APICS International Conference and Exhibition to provide us with his personal take on the state of resource management software.

By Steven A. Melnyk,
Ph.D., CPIM
Software Editor

By most accounts, this latest APICS conference held in Washington, D.C., was a success. More than 6,000 participants were in attendance, and the number of vendor exhibits was more than 190. During the conference, I, as the software editor, had a chance to explore this vast exhibition of manufacturing software. The following are some of the major trends I was able to uncover as I viewed the many exhibits and talked with numerous representatives. As with past reviews, the following article is not a comprehensive representation of all the products on display at the conference. I did not identify all the vendors with products that embody a certain trait or represent a certain development. To the vendors that I have overlooked, I extend my apologies.

In some ways, the offerings presented by the numerous vendors represented a continuation of past trends. These continuations were most evident in the following areas:

• Viva ERP/SCM. Numerous vendors, ranging from large firms such as IBM, J.D. Edwards, Baan, QAD and SAP, to smaller firms such as Alliance Manufacturing Software and TTW, presented enterprise resource planning (ERP) or supply chain management (SCM) systems. I could not find a stand-alone manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) package anywhere on the exhibit floor. One reason for this state can be found in the view that MRP II as a stand-alone solution is now obsolete, while ERP and SCM (often times incorporating MRP II functionality) represent the latest and greatest advances in manufacturing planning and control system software. While this may be the case, there were many instances in which this change was more cosmetic than real. That is, the packages may be relabeled ERP, yet they really do not contain any more functionality than the traditional MRP II system. In one case, for example, an ERP package was found that limited itself to scheduling, capacity planning and scheduling, purchasing, and shop floor execution. All of these are simply MRP II (if that) capabilities.

I found it interesting that, to my knowledge, not one vendor presenting a total computer-based solution as represented by computer integrated manufacturing (CIM).

• Increasing importance of the Internet. In my article following the 1995 conference in Orlando, I described the interesting experiences of Enterprise Planning Systems from Kanata, Ontario. This company was one of the first to integrate the Internet into the operation of its manufacturing planning system. At that time, this was a rather revolutionary development. Since then, interest in the use of the Internet continues to grow. A number of firms such as FocusSoft and Logility incorporate the Internet as an active element of their packages. In most cases, the role of the Internet is limited to either home page development and presentation or order entry/sales catalog presentation. That is, the packages offer the user the ability to present products online and to take and process customer queries and orders. In one case, a vendor demonstrated a prototype of a product configuratory package that makes use of the Internet to manage the flow of information. In general, however, the full capabilities of the Internet have yet to be tapped.

• Increasing importance of the supply chain. The concept of supply chain management was very much of a hot topic — just as it was in 1996 in New Orleans. A large number of vendors such as J.D. Edwards, Adapta, Manugistics, Bridgeware, Distinction Software, Prescient Systems, FYGIR and IBM presented their solutions to various aspects of the SCM problem. Some packages were presented as comprehensive solutions to the problem of managing supply and demand issues within the supply chain. Others targeted very specific applications. ISIS presented a forecasting package aimed at helping managers deal with multiple level forecasts — a reality encountered within most SCM environments.

• Increasing acceptance of visual/GUI interfaces and analysis. This is both a continuation of an existing trend and the emergence of a new trend. On one hand, vendors continue their movement toward Windows-style graphic user interfaces (GUI). Increasingly, vendors are standardizing on either Windows 95 or Windows NT. This decision reflects, in part, the standard, common, shared interface present in these two packages. On the other hand, some firms are trying to replace text-based reports with reports that are more visual and graphical in nature. Lilly Software presented an interesting approach to the presentation of reports in their product, Visual Manufacturing. In this package, the routing and status of jobs are presented graphically. Looking at the graphical reports, you can tell what operations have been completed on the order and what operations remained to be completed. You can also determine whether material has been issued to the orders.

In addition to these continuing trends, a number of new trends were also present. The following are the most important or interesting of these trends:

• Increasing market focus within the packages. About three or four years ago, most MRP/MRP II/ERP packages would have been presented as being capable of handling almost any production environment. This year, we saw an increasing number of vendors developing and presenting packages targeted at very specific and well-defined markets. For example, Glovia International (a joint venture between MDIS and Fujitsu) and IFS both aim their offerings at firms engaged primarily in project-oriented management. FocusSoft is targeting mid-sized firms. Promira is targeting firms with "complex" products. Finally, Western Data Systems (WDS) aims its product at aerospace and military markets. Market focusing is interesting because it seems to indicate that vendors now recognize the burden imposed by trying to build one package to handle all possible settings. This burden ultimately translates into higher costs — costs that some customers are not willing to pay.

• The emergence of configure-to-order. Of particular interest was a new type of market orientation — configure to order (CTO). This product uses standard components to uniquely configure a product to a specific customer's requirements within the same (or a shorter) lead time than you would encounter in a make-to-order environment. This approach is found within packages offered by FocusSoft, Premisys and Intentia (to name a few). With this new category, vendors acknowledge the importance of lead time as a competitive priority.

• Increasing presence of partnering. Many firms have discovered the concept of core competencies. That is, they are recognizing that they cannot be experts in all areas. As a result, they are focusing on certain areas where they can develop a competitive advantage. The other areas are subcontracted out. This approach is very evident in the way some vendors structure their products. They have decided to focus on certain activities and to partner with other firms to bring in the needed, missing capabilities. For example, FocusSoft designed its package so that it does a good job on activities such as product configuration, order entry, material planning and capacity planning. It does not offer financial/accounting modules. Those capabilities are obtained by incorporating financial/accounting packages from certain "best of class" vendors. A similar approach is offered by Ortems. This company focuses its activities on the plant level, not necessarily the enterprise level.

• Increasing presence of international firms. This conference saw a more pronounced presence by international vendors. Specifically, at least three new internationally based software vendors were present — Ortems (France), Intentia (Sweden) and IFS (Sweden). These companies offer a different approach to issues such as database structuring and ERP. For example, Ortems focuses primarily on the plant level. It works, in most cases, with two databases. The first is the broader enterprise database. This would be the data used by an ERP system. The detailed information not needed by the enterprise database, but definitely needed by the plant, would be captured and used within the plant database. This approach offers an interesting compromise to the challenge of how to balance corporate needs against plant information needs.

• Increasing role of logistics. Finally, this conference saw the first large-scale presence of logistics software vendors — such as Tecsys, Logility and CAPS Logistics. Their presence indicates the recognition of the interdependency between manufacturing and logistics. With the advent and increasing acceptance of supply chain management, we can expect to see a blurring of boundaries between these two systems. In other words, we can expect to see more logistics-oriented software vendors at future APICS conferences.

This year's event was both interesting and intense. Even with all the topics covered in this article, the scope of all the trends and developments observed at the conference could not be fully conveyed in the preceding discussion. For example, we have not discussed the increasing presence of finite capacity scheduling systems, visual simulations or forecasting packages. However, it is hoped that the points detailed above will give you an idea of some major changes now taking place within the manufacturing software arena.

Copyright © 2020 by APICS — The Educational Society for Resource Management. All rights reserved.

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