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All together now
We’re all aware of the limitations of information silos. Antony Adshead takes a look at technologies and techniques available to get them talking and interacting |
17/09/2007
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Hype versus reality
Advances in IT are now so fast and potentially so transformational that it’s getting difficult to differentiate between hype and reality. Brian Tinham seeks direction |
01/06/2007
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Data hub gets global bearings group rolling
When automotive bearings firms Glacier Industrial Bearings, Glacier Vandervell and Garlock Bearings came together as GGB, the group found itself with 13 sites around the world, some manufacturing, some distribution, some sales offices – but all with different ERP and legacy systems and incompatible business processes and parts data. It needed to consolidate its IT, but it also needed to cut costs, reduce inventories and improve customer service by getting slick and lean internally, inter-site and in its supply chains. |
04/12/2006
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Supply chain e-synchronisation: dream now reality
The number one technical challenge for manufacturers wanting the goal of a synchronised, demand-driven supply chain is getting ‘visibility’. Put simply, lack of real-time supply chain information is the biggest barrier to achieving the promises of cost reduction, time compression and agility. So we continue to build in safety stock, lead time and ultimately inflexibility precisely because we just don’t know what’s going on this minute, and the next and the next. It’s not that it can’t be done: it can and is with web-based technologies in all sorts of sectors – but not by many. Which brings us to the number one business challenge: recognising that our bigger picture manufacturing operations aren’t anything like as slick, cost effective or competitive as they could be. We may well have moved mountains internally in production, and even progressed lean thinking, for example, into other departments so that the right information flows just in time, the right processes are automated and the rest of it. But what about extending that to our suppliers? |
24/10/2006
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Bombardier gets big time on the rails
Bombardier Transportation expects to make a 30% materials saving within three years on the back of a software tool that sees and standardises data across legacy systems. The firm has squared up to an extreme challenge: after years of acquiring and consolidating businesses it had more than 70 databases in eight legacy systems containing an apparent 2.8 million parts from some 200,000 suppliers. What’s more, those were distributed as more than 9 million records in five languages. |
04/10/2006
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An ideal standard for Ideal Standard
Automated EDI transactions with customers now up 25% in Italy and 40% in the UK are among early benefits at bathroom and kitchen fixtures manufacturer Ideal Standard – as a result of implementing an integration server system aimed eventually at covering its entire global trading community. Not only is it shaving cost from what were previously inefficient manual processes, but it’s improving customer service, increasing order accuracy, speeding up problem resolution and driving business volumes. |
03/10/2006
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Make this your online home page
www.mcsolutions.co.uk has been massively upgraded. Brian Tinham test drives the amazing new free online resource for news, reference and supplier information covering all of IT for all of manufacturing and engineering industry |
14/07/2006
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Going for global integration
EUR 8bn global pharmaceuticals, chemicals and performance
materials conglomerate DSM reports success with its `Vision
2005' project for company-wide process streamlining and system integration. |
18/05/2006
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Looking after the family silver
Almost all of us have legacy systems of one sort or another. Antony Adshead looks at what can be done to breathe new life into those key investments |
18/05/2006
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An ideal standard for Ideal Standard
When Ideal Standard was going for growth across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, it solved its IT challenges using e-business and integration services. Brian Tinham reports |
11/04/2006
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The missing link in the adaptive enterprise?
Even in the best run enterprise, there is one simple certainty: one second after the business forecast and plan are produced the real world takes over. According to former AMR analyst Simon Pollard, now SAP’s VP discrete manufacturing in EMEA, the secret lies in knowing just how different they are |
01/03/2006
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Finding the keys to standard variety
Improved productivity (all the way from estimating and quoting to production and shipping), better use of working capital and greatly enhanced global business visibility are among benefits at £35 million labelling manufacturer Worldmark International. They’ve been achieved since installing a new make-to-order ERP system |
01/02/2006
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JCI takes supply chain operations beyond MRP
European consumers’ love affair with their vehicles, which has seen cars become fashion items to be personalised to the nth degree, has resulted not only in an explosion of complexity in terms of potential configurations, but the problem of dealing with late changes. Improving technology and the desire to differentiate has encouraged dealers to accept late changes to orders, and with the OEMs’ ongoing drive to reduce the turnaround time from order to delivery, that puts ever more pressure on the supply chain |
01/02/2006
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Cut and paste for business processes
Since foils and llaminates manufacturer API went live with Oracle’s E-Business suite at its Laminates Division in the north west about 12 months ago, it has rolled the ERP system out across five UK locations despite the usual business challenges. API IS director Iain Anderson reckons that by the end of this year, the company will be live across all its global businesses: that’s five operating groups and 15 locations. And he says that speed of deployment is because of Oracle’s On-Demand hosting and consulting services, its BPEL (business process execution language) Process Manager, which uses Web Services interfaces, and its templated business processes – and prioritising |
01/02/2006
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So for 2006, your what should new dawn bring?
As we stare 2006 in the face, and wonder what the hell happened to 2005, there are some important issues to resolve and priorities to set – and that work needs to be done before the Christmas festivities bring sane thought to a grinding halt. We’re talking business strategy, but also then the operational stuff. The work we put in now to getting all that as right as possible will determine the scale and speed of our success or indeed failure over the next year or two |
01/11/2005
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For suppliers, there’s a message in a portal
Web-based trading hubs, aimed at manufacturers of virtually all sizes that haven’t gone for good old fashioned EDI, and those that need additional e-commerce for some of their supply chain transactions, are proving key to enabling much needed efficiency, flexibility and business cost reductions. They’ve been around for some time, but users seem now to be grasping their significance, and software and service providers alike are reporting growing numbers of supplier portal implementations. Some are with high profile brands and industry communities; others are much more modest, involving SMEs in niche sectors. The floodgates aren’t open, but numbers are beginning to ramp up |
01/10/2005
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How to get real net improvements
The contribution our foundation IT networks could be making to cost-cutting is being overlooked. If your IT manager is clamouring to upgrade the LAN (local area network) and/or the WAN (wide area network) that links your business out to your trading partners it will almost certainly be worth taking note. Network technologies have moved very quickly over the past few years – from dial-up modems to systems capable of handling the equivalent of millions of fax pages per second |
01/10/2005
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Systems talking to systems
There are many reasons to want to integrate data and information systems in any manufacturing business. Most firms that have grown organically and/or by acquisition sooner or later find they need to link legacy systems and get the enterprise working more collaboratively. At the very least, you’re likely to want to be able to run reports quickly and easily for the entire company, aggregating current data from disparate departments and sites. We all need to make the workings of our businesses more transparent in order to target cost, process and efficiency improvements |
01/09/2005
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Datastream gets cheap high availability Oracle service on Linux platform
Machinery performance software and services provider Datastream Systems says it’s ensuring ultra-high availability for its web-hosted Datastream 7i offering by using SteelEye LifeKeeper for Oracle software. Datastream initially looked at SteelEye back in 2002 when it decided to migrate its Oracle database and applications from Solaris to HP ProLiant servers running Linux |
01/09/2005
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Your legacy needs tender loving care
You’ll struggle to find many in the IT community that believe you should be ripping out and replacing your legacy systems with new technology. Indeed, some point out that to do so merely creates the next legacy. Whether you accept that or not, informed opinion concurs that, contrary to some of the packaged enterprise software vendors’ plentifully cast aspersions, legacy is fairly beautiful. At least you should be extracting as much value from that investment as possible for as long as possible |
01/07/2005
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Seal of success for James Walker
James Walker manufactures a massive range of gaskets, seals
and packings for a wide range of industries, and for everything
from new build to MRO (maintenance repair and overhaul) applications. The firm has a large number of product families and immense attribute, size, material and performance ranges within each: what’s more, they’re being added to all the time. |
16/05/2005
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A bumper harvest from your supply
£60m malt-maker Muntons in East Anglia went live with SAP,
initially R/3 v4.6 but then mySAP.com, and in just a few months
achieved full return on its sub-£1m investment. Indeed within
one year it had saved more than £2m from debtor days improvements alone. And it’s set to make even more returns with SAP’s APO (advanced planner and optimiser). |
16/05/2005
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