Not waiting for the merger transaction with Lawson Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: LWSN) to close, Intentia International AB (XSSE: INT B) announced the release of Intentia Application Suite (IAS) 5.1. IAS is a full integration of Intentia's entire application portfolio that, like Lawson's upcoming Landmark product, uses service-oriented architecture (SOA) to create business processes and develop applications flexibly, while enabling Web services and a faster return on investment (ROI). For details on the merger announcement, see "New" Lawson Software's Transatlantic Extended-ERP Intentions. IAS is a solution aimed specifically at companies in the manufacturing, distribution, and maintenance industries. Particular focus is placed on those companies in food and beverage, fashion, wholesale distribution, and asset and maintenance intensive industries that include enterprise asset management (EAM) and product service management (PSM). It consists of eight Intentia application areas, including customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise management (ENM), supplier relationship management (SRM), supply chain management (SCM), enterprise process management (EPM), workplace management (WPM), value chain collaboration (VCC), and foundation and tools (FTO).
Part two of the "New" Lawson Software's Transatlantic Extended-ERP Intentions series.
Intentia points out that the product is further evidence of the company's ongoing commitment to SOA (for more of pertinent information, see SOA-based Applications and Infrastructure--The Next Frontier?). Intentia invested early in Java technology and currently has over 250 live customer implementations, and it already delivers a fully Web services-enabled application suite.
The latest release boasts many new features within the CRM, SCM, and FTO applications. Within the CRM applications, the Intentia e-Sales product has a new advanced channel, category, and market analysis functionality, which is provided through Cognos ReportNet. It is designed to improve a user company's ability to implement sales strategies in order to increase revenue and profit. In addition, new capabilities should help fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies improve category, space, and promotion management. Information from both the sales and order fulfillment processes is now available in the field sales solution, which should enable salespeople to improve individual efficiency during customer visits, and ultimately, create opportunities to increase sales.
This is Part Two of a four-part note. Part One detailed the merger. Part Three will analyze the market impact. Part Four will cover challenges and make user recommendations.
Supply Chain Management
Within the supply chain planning (SCP) realm of the SCM applications, Intentia has introduced sales quotas, transport rules, and purchase agreements functionality. These constraints aim at increasing planning efficiency and optimizing profit by controlling what, how much, when, and to whom products are purchased, processed, moved, and sold. Lastly, Movex Adaptation Kit (MAK), a tool within FTO, has new features that reduce the time, effort, and cost involved in supporting and maintaining IAS. These new features include validation wizards, improved language editing, and one-click analyses.
As to further vertically differentiate its functional scope, mid-July, Intentia also released a stock build optimization solution that strives to maximize food and beverage manufacturers' stock mixes and reduce the surplus of finished goods inventory by up to 20 percent to avoid stockouts and product waste. In other words, the solution tackles one of the major issues facing the food and beverage industry—the need to build stock to meet seasonal peaks and promotional spikes. According to reports from the Food Marketing Institute and Grocery Manufacturers of America, product waste is estimated to have cost food manufacturers $2.57 billion (USD) in 2004, and $6 billion (USD) in lost retail sales from stockouts, which run as high as 13 percent during promotion periods.
To that end, the Intentia solution processes a wide spectrum of business variables that impact stock exposure risk. Today, manufacturers still rely heavily on spreadsheets to calculate stock builds, which becomes unmanageable given the number of products and factors that must be navigated. These include changes to capacity, shelf life and cost constraints, margins, new products, and recipe and manufacturing process changes. In fact, according to a measurement formula created by Intentia, the level of stock build complexity increases exponentially with the number of production lines and products planned. For example, increasing the number of products from two to four over a twelve week planning period increases data complexity by a factor of 100, and from two products to six by a factor of 10,000.
To calculate the optimum target stock per period, by product stock keeping unit (SKU) and to meet peaks based on demand forecast, available production capacity, existing inventory, and costs, the stock build optimization solution creates a time-phased stock plan—reportedly in a matter of minutes. This plan optimizes customer service levels and profit margins, thus eliminating over-stocking and the risk of product waste. The solution also incorporates the shelf life of each product, regardless of whether the products are stored under room temperature, chilled, or frozen conditions.
During the stock build optimization process, the solution evaluates the cost impact of alternative manufacturing processes, production costs, and stock holding costs to ensure that all possibilities are explored. Maximum and minimum stock levels and the days' coverage of stock are taken into account during the stock build process. In addition to managing these complex variables, Intentia's stock build optimization solution provides manufacturers with the opportunity to collaborate with retailers by creating promotional scenarios and proposals that can utilize spare capacity and inventory. The solution might have the added advantage of requiring little or no alteration to current business processes, as it runs on a personal computer (PC) with Windows XP, and takes approximately 15 to 20 days to install, while using only limited resources from the user company.
SOURCE:-
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/intentia-prepares-for-merger-with-lawson-18237/
Part two of the "New" Lawson Software's Transatlantic Extended-ERP Intentions series.
Intentia points out that the product is further evidence of the company's ongoing commitment to SOA (for more of pertinent information, see SOA-based Applications and Infrastructure--The Next Frontier?). Intentia invested early in Java technology and currently has over 250 live customer implementations, and it already delivers a fully Web services-enabled application suite.
The latest release boasts many new features within the CRM, SCM, and FTO applications. Within the CRM applications, the Intentia e-Sales product has a new advanced channel, category, and market analysis functionality, which is provided through Cognos ReportNet. It is designed to improve a user company's ability to implement sales strategies in order to increase revenue and profit. In addition, new capabilities should help fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies improve category, space, and promotion management. Information from both the sales and order fulfillment processes is now available in the field sales solution, which should enable salespeople to improve individual efficiency during customer visits, and ultimately, create opportunities to increase sales.
This is Part Two of a four-part note. Part One detailed the merger. Part Three will analyze the market impact. Part Four will cover challenges and make user recommendations.
Supply Chain Management
Within the supply chain planning (SCP) realm of the SCM applications, Intentia has introduced sales quotas, transport rules, and purchase agreements functionality. These constraints aim at increasing planning efficiency and optimizing profit by controlling what, how much, when, and to whom products are purchased, processed, moved, and sold. Lastly, Movex Adaptation Kit (MAK), a tool within FTO, has new features that reduce the time, effort, and cost involved in supporting and maintaining IAS. These new features include validation wizards, improved language editing, and one-click analyses.
As to further vertically differentiate its functional scope, mid-July, Intentia also released a stock build optimization solution that strives to maximize food and beverage manufacturers' stock mixes and reduce the surplus of finished goods inventory by up to 20 percent to avoid stockouts and product waste. In other words, the solution tackles one of the major issues facing the food and beverage industry—the need to build stock to meet seasonal peaks and promotional spikes. According to reports from the Food Marketing Institute and Grocery Manufacturers of America, product waste is estimated to have cost food manufacturers $2.57 billion (USD) in 2004, and $6 billion (USD) in lost retail sales from stockouts, which run as high as 13 percent during promotion periods.
To that end, the Intentia solution processes a wide spectrum of business variables that impact stock exposure risk. Today, manufacturers still rely heavily on spreadsheets to calculate stock builds, which becomes unmanageable given the number of products and factors that must be navigated. These include changes to capacity, shelf life and cost constraints, margins, new products, and recipe and manufacturing process changes. In fact, according to a measurement formula created by Intentia, the level of stock build complexity increases exponentially with the number of production lines and products planned. For example, increasing the number of products from two to four over a twelve week planning period increases data complexity by a factor of 100, and from two products to six by a factor of 10,000.
To calculate the optimum target stock per period, by product stock keeping unit (SKU) and to meet peaks based on demand forecast, available production capacity, existing inventory, and costs, the stock build optimization solution creates a time-phased stock plan—reportedly in a matter of minutes. This plan optimizes customer service levels and profit margins, thus eliminating over-stocking and the risk of product waste. The solution also incorporates the shelf life of each product, regardless of whether the products are stored under room temperature, chilled, or frozen conditions.
During the stock build optimization process, the solution evaluates the cost impact of alternative manufacturing processes, production costs, and stock holding costs to ensure that all possibilities are explored. Maximum and minimum stock levels and the days' coverage of stock are taken into account during the stock build process. In addition to managing these complex variables, Intentia's stock build optimization solution provides manufacturers with the opportunity to collaborate with retailers by creating promotional scenarios and proposals that can utilize spare capacity and inventory. The solution might have the added advantage of requiring little or no alteration to current business processes, as it runs on a personal computer (PC) with Windows XP, and takes approximately 15 to 20 days to install, while using only limited resources from the user company.
SOURCE:-
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/intentia-prepares-for-merger-with-lawson-18237/
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