IDII News - New Website Features

• NEW! New Advance Transportation Management System RFI is available. The Advance TMS RFI is designed to rapidly speed up the TMS software selection process significantly. Features include 900 precise questions with pop-up text that clearly explains each question, validated responses, and color highlighting that matches vendor responses. Includes a time saving TMS Score Card. Saves 10 to 15 man days of time!
  Order TMS RFI - TMS RFI Information with Screen Snapshots - TMS RFI Brochure (PDF)
  
  
• SOFTWARE VENDORS - Next Edition of the Warehouse & Logistics Software Directory is wrapping up NOW. You must complete our survey by August 31st to be in this September's issue. Deadline is approaching rapidly. Contact IDII for a survey form.
  
  
  
• WMS DISCUSSION - Ask a question! - Share your knowledge!
  
  

• New White Papers
• Read It - 5 Reasons Why Projects Fail - Excellent
• New White Papers Announced In Last Newsletter
• Read It - Seven Ways to Boost Order Accuracy to Near Perfect Levels - Very Good
• Read It - Seven New Ways to Immediately Increase Order Fulfillment Speed - Very Good
• Read It - 7 Ways Your Competitors are Reducing Costs & Improving Customer Service—and How You Can Too - Very Good
  
  

Software Company News

• Automation Associates Canada, Inc. (WMS, 3PL) announced that RF Pathways Link 5.0 has obtained its Certified Integration to SAP R/3 Ver. 4.0, 4.5 and 4.6. This advanced interface solution brings together SAP and RF Pathways WMS technology to maximize worker productivity, enhance customer service and provide a competitive advantage.

  RF Pathways WMS is a user-configurable, standard software package that now seamlessly integrates with the SAP R/3 Business Framework Architecture. RF Pathways WMS provides close to 99.7% inventory accuracy, doubles the pick rate, automates product movement and typically provides a return on investment in less than 9 months.
  

• Cypress Inland Corporation (YMS) announces a light version of YardView™ yard management software. YardView Light is a desktop and small network yard management system aimed at economically replacing spreadsheets, grease boards, legal pads and other manual tools. YardView Light has an easy to use Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser interface and uses a Microsoft Access database. Designed for 1-3 network users, YardView Light requires a newer Microsoft Windows Operating System, and Microsoft Office 2000 or Office XP Professional. YardView Light can be customized and modified at additional cost. More robust YardView yard management solutions are also available.




Logistics.com Inc. (TMS, TMS Optimization) announced the launch of OptiManage 7.3, the most recent version of its Web-native, real-time transportation management system (TMS). Two new features are available now in OptiManage 7.3:

* Collaborative Dock Door Scheduling: Provides management and visibility of dock schedules for both shippers and carriers. The online tool streamlines the time-intensive process of creating feasible dock door appointments, considering actual dock capacities.

* Purchase Order Management: Customers enter purchase orders directly into OptiManage, allowing the creation of shipments from the purchase order line items and enhanced inventory visibility and tracking. Ordered versus shipped inventory is tracked at the SKU level, providing visibility into inventory in transit. Through permissions, shippers can allow vendors and customers to view and create purchase orders online.

• PeopleSoft (CRM, HR, ERP, SCM) announced PeopleSoft AppConnect, a new product suite of pre-integrated portal, integration and warehouse solutions that reduces the complexities of integrating multi-vendor applications. PeopleSoft AppConnect utilises Web services technology to simplify integration and, as a result, customers can dramatically reduce custom development and ongoing maintenance of multiple integration technologies.
  
  

• SupplySolution, Inc.(SCE, MRP) announced i-Supplyä 4.4.0. User Defined Suggested Delivery 4.4.0 enhancements include:
  
  Enhanced Suggested Delivery Logic to allow for customer defined Suggested Delivery Formulas. Client Management, Product Management, and Development will control and implement the formulas once they are requested by the customer. User Defined Fields and other columns can now be incorporated into the calculation.
  
  1. The formulas will be activated at the buyer/supplier level initially.
     
  2. The default formulas will be the formulas as they are today for CIM, KB, and Advanced Repetitive
  
  Reasons - Satisfy many different enhancement requests for this type of functionality. It will also complement our capabilities to create 862/DELJIT data from our Suggested Delivery to be interfaced to the sellers MRP.

  Improved Hot Links from the Inventory Console

  Inventory Console Jumps to Pre-Filtered
  Last Delivery - Ship ID - History All items for that ship ID
  Last Delivery - Qty or Date/Time - History Only show history for that item. Set the date range from 1 week prior to the date of the last shipment to the current date/time.
  Next Shipment - ship ID Queue - All items within the associated shipping ID
  Next Shipment - Qty or Date/Time Queue - For all shipments for that specific item
  Next Shipment - ship ID - Set Multi-Item shipment All items for that supplier/buyer.
  Status bar - Projected On-Hand Inventory - For the item selected
  Summary percentage squares - Critical inventory tab - For that supplier/buyer

  Shipping Screen - After a shipment is completed the user remains on the shipping screen and a message appears saying that the shipment has been completed or saved.

  Enhanced Export from the Shipping/Receiving Queue -

  1. Currently, when exporting from the shipping or receiving queue all items / shipment ID's in-transit for that customer/supplier get exported, independent of what is displayed on the screen. There are no selection criteria available to the user to limit the export.

  2. New- Shipping/Receiving Queue custom export now allows selection criteria at the Shipment or item level.

  3. Reasons - Allows users to export specific shipments or promises. Also, this new logic facilitates improved bar code printing from the shipping queue while shipping (Note: Bar code printing is an optional service).

• WorldChain, Inc. (SCEM, Optimization) announced WorldChain Version 3.0 software suite. WorldChain customers are moving away from the traditional forecast-based "push" supply chain model to dramatically more responsive "pull-based" models where the company and its entire supply chain executes off the same customer demand signal. Applicable for both discrete and process manufacturers, Some key features and enhancements include:

  Network Inventory and Order Management:
  -- Intelligent, automated pull signals propagated across the network of partners to ensure synchronized execution of the supply chain
  -- Visibility to target inventory versus actual demand, capture inventory violations, order history and time-phased inventory
  -- Management of the entire order lifecycle
  -- A common shared database providing a unified real-time view of orders, inventories, and shipments across all partners across the company, its channel partners and suppliers, or in-transit between them
  -- Integration to extended trading partners' back-end systems

  Network Repair Logistics:
  -- Repair order capture and maintenance, including price validation and network-wide transaction reconciliation
  -- Work-in-Progress status reporting and order close verification
  -- Visibility to repair order status and repair order history, leakage, and historical volume analysis
  -- Scrap status and tracking

  Dashboard: A newly enhanced, browser-based GUI provides extensive monitoring and navigation capabilities for real-time metrics, SLA status, event reporting and resolution.

  Event Manager: Manages policy-based events and tracks those events through to resolution to ensure resources are focused on proactively managing exceptions. Event triggers include both line-item transaction discrepancies and imminent SLA violations.

  Performance Management: Highly configurable and automated system monitors and reports each entity's performance and compliance with SLAs.

  Supply Chain Configuration: A model-based representation of the entire supply chain including where material is stored in the supply chain, how it moves through the supply chain, how orders are sourced and fulfilled, and which entity owns inventory at any point in the supply chain. The supply chain configurator can readily extend the WorldChain solution to support complex, n-tier supplier chains.

  Policy Manager: Rules-based configuration of SLAs, business policies, and escalation hierarchies that can be tailored to each unique supply chain structure, with automatic extensible screens for new policy additions.

  WorldChain Connect(TM): Provides broad standards-based connectivity to support all the leading protocols and formats. Integrates back-end office systems and operates seamlessly with multiple B2B/EAI vendors such as webMethods, Vitiria, and BEA.

Quotes to Ponder - List of Quotes to Ponder from prior issues.

• "Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."
  - Albert Einstein
  

• "Do not neglect your gift."
  - 1 Timothy 4:14 NIV
  

• Acronym Finder - Great for Buzzwords, Keywords, Acronyms - Acronym Finder
• Famous Quotes - Even has a "Who Said That?" - http://www.quoteland.com/
  

Online Book Catalog - Intuitive Categories

Books on Shipping, Warehousing, Distribution, Operations, WMS, ERP, MRP, CRM, Supply Chain, Customer Service, Logistics, Facility Layout & Design, Metrics & Measurements, and books on software solution providers SAP, Peoplesoft.

"Warehouse & Logistics Software Directory" Order From Amazon or IDII

"Supply Chain Management Based on SAP Systems" Order From Amazon

"ADVANCED WMS RFI Search Bundle" Available from IDII only
Obal, Philip	Advanced Version is available only from IDII

Valuable Future Events - List Your Event or Convention

Supply Chain & Logistics 2002 Conference - September 10 - 12, 2002 - Georgia International Convention Center, College Park, GA. This event will have a sharp focus on logistics, while incorporating the critical components of warehousing, transportation, distribution and e-commerce. http://www.supplychainlogistics.com

Frontline Solutions' Supply - September 23 - 26, 2002 - McCormick Pace, Chicago, IL. 250 technology & service providers, and over 100 conference sessions help you understand and compare the latest generation of data-capture, mobile computing, warehousing, and collaborative technology. Visit http://www.frontlinexpo.com or call 1-800-331-5706.

Council of Logistics Management Annual Conference - Sept 29 - Oct 2, 2002 - San Francisco, CA. This year's conference offers 36 tracks (educational) on supply chain, logistics, CPFR, technology, and Sunday is a software showcase day. See http://www.clm1.org