• New White Papers - View List of All Recent White Papers
• New - Logistics Execution Systems Perspective - Excellent
• New - WMS Planning, Design, and Procurement - Excellent
• New - Supply Chain Metrics - Excellent
• New - Measuring and Selling the Value of Logistics - Excellent
• White Papers Announced In Last Newsletters
• Ten Best Practices for Motor Freight Management - Excellent
• The “Network Effect” in a Collaborative Shipping Model - Excellent
• Voice Technology - Good
  

IDII News

New Event Calendar! - Send us your events to add to the Events Calendar!

Enhanced White Paper Indexes - Faster & Cleaner Navigation to get technical.

New! Books on Freight & Transportation - Freight Audit, Loss, Traffic, Transporation, Logistics.
New! Books on Manufacturing - Production Planning - Planning, Scheduling, MES.

Technology & Software Product News

• 
• EPC™ Evaluation Kits Now Shipping. The Auto-ID Center has started shipping EPC Evaluation Kits so users and vendors can begin to experiment with the new technology. The kits provide the essential tools to enable companies to start working with the EPC™ network, and allow the technology to go through a vital evaluation process. Each kit contains an EPC™ reader, EPC™ tags and Savant™ software. Users can set the system up within minutes and begin to experiment with the technology in their own environment, they can even purchase several kits to create a mini field test environment. At present, kits are only available to sponsors, and can be ordered from the sponsors’ section of the Center’s web site. Information about what the kit contains, and how to use it, is publicly available and can be downloaded here.
  
  
• FREIGHTlist.com, Inc. announces the latest release of EPAY MANAGER, the electronic payment application designed for the transportation industry. The release of the exclusive payment grid adds flexibility to EPAY MANAGER, by allowing payers to offer flexible payment terms on each transaction and payees to select payment and discount options that meets their needs at the time of service. Once a payment option is selected, EPAY will automatically schedule and pay the invoice on the specified date.
  
  “The payment grid allows EPAY MANAGER to serve the larger shipper market, by allowing companies with large carrier bases to form a private payment network. Instead of having to outsource accounts payable and receivable to a third party, the payment, billing and collection processes can now be kept in house, with a shorter and more efficient process. In addition, the system allows shippers to realize significant cost savings, by offering carriers what they need most, flexible payment terms.” says Tom Whaley.
  
  
• Manhattan Associates (WMS, TMS, Nasdaq: MANH) announced that Zimag Logistics (Mexico's largest 3PL company) selected Manhattan Associates' PkMS. Zimag selected PkMS to replace its legacy system following a two-year evaluation of competitive offerings. Zimag switched to PkMS to meet the increasingly sophisticated distribution needs of its Fortune 1000 clients including Colgate-Palmolive, Energizer, Maybelline and Tesa Tape. Editor's note: We usually do -not- list wins in the newsletter, but this caught our eye. Manhattan is getting serious about 3PL and other verticals!
  
  
• Manugistics (SCM, TMS, Optimization, Nasdaq: MANU) and Mxi Technologies Join Forces to Offer Maintenance, Repair &Overhaul and Supply Chain Optimization Solutions for Aviation Industry. Maintenix creates plans for future scheduled maintenance based on calendar days, flying hours or cycles, which can be predicted accurately based on expected flying patterns. Plans can then be easily adapted as changes to expected flight patterns inevitably take place. Maintenix captures accurate point-of-maintenance data on in-service failures and non-routine work, allowing unscheduled maintenance to be predicted with confidence as well.

  These deterministic and probabilistic demand signals can then drive supply chain optimization, utilizing Manugistics' industry-proven solutions, which project demand for routine and non-routine materials and recommend an economical inventory planning strategy. Manugistics can also enable clients to automate communication with suppliers, resulting in an optimized fulfillment plan that helps assure that service targets are met at the lowest possible cost.
  

• RedPrairie Streamlines Shipment Loading and Increases DC Throughput with New Dock Door Scheduling Module. The Dock Door Scheduler is available pre-integrated with other components of RedPrairie's DigitaLogistix® suite, such as its transportation management system, DLx® Transportation, or as a standalone solution. Dock Door Scheduler is a web-based portal that enables companies to intelligently manage both inbound and outbound dock door activities. With capabilities beyond the basic appointment scheduling functions found in some WMS and yard management systems, RedPrairie's Dock Door Scheduler uses smart technology to optimally match and schedule loads, based on load characteristics, data center capacities, and door and equipment constraints. It helps logistics managers to avoid facility congestion, level workload across dock door assets, and achieve a more continuous flow of goods both inbound and outbound. Its first implementation is at a major retail chain where it will manage complex dock door activity.
  
  
• V3 Systems (WMS, 3PL) released Version 4.7. A key feature of Version 4.7 for all customers is a “process control” system that gives users direct control over specific functions so they can individually choose how the software will operate in response to particular or changing business processes, facility characteristics or customer requirements. The Version 4.7 release also includes the introduction of the V3 Integration Server. The Integration Server provides a comprehensive set of supply chain execution messages for B2B connectivity through standard XML-based messaging.
  
  
• Valdero Introduces Multi-Tier Demand Visibility Application. Multi-Tier Demand Visibility fits into a robust series of products that include Supply Demand Matching, and Multi-Tier Supply Visibility. The Multi-Tier Demand Visibility product provides manufacturers with tools to manage products through the demand cycle by:

  · Tracking Distributed Demand - Enables real-time visibility of actual demand across multiple tiers and channels of complex distribution networks.

  · Monitoring Excess Finished Goods - Analyze inventory sell-in and sell-thru to avoid price protection and stock rotation penalties from excess finished goods in multiple distribution channels.

  · Providing Continuous Demand Management - Ability to monitor customer demand throughout your entire distribution channel to improve responsiveness and customer fill rates.
  

• Viewlocity, Inc. (SCEM, SCP, Nasdaq: VLCY) announced Supply Web Application (SWA) Version 4.2. Some enhancements available in SWA 4.2 include: cross-domain event handlers, forecast alerting, KPI alerting, and enhanced user interfaces. The Adaptive Execution feature in SWA 4.2 streamlines an organization's ability to address supply chain exceptions by enabling users to collaborate and resolve these exceptions through predefined workflows and business rules. This feature also allows for the routing of supply chain exceptions to community participants for efficient handling and resolution. In addition to providing a predefined set of industry and business specific work flows, the Adaptive Execution feature also enables users to customize and configure new workflows for the resolution of alerts and exceptions within their own supply chain roles.

  Two-Way Wireless Communication - SWA 4.2 further extends the alert notification functionality of earlier versions by providing two-way wireless, multi-modal communication support. This feature enables companies to establish and distribute automated, fully interactive voice and text communications simultaneously through the recipient's wired or wireless device of choice (i.e. Phone, Fax, E-mail, Pager, SMS, WAP phone, PDAs, and other wireless devices), and drive the next action in a preconfigured or custom workflow.

  With the wireless multi-modal communication offering, information latency is virtually eliminated, as trading partners are made aware of events and exceptions as they occur and can respond immediately. This enables companies to better manage the generation and routing of critical business information, slashing operating costs, boosting productivity, and increasing competitive advantage.

  The Data Cleansing feature alleviates end user concerns about the reliability, validity, integrity, and completeness of their data based on primary and secondary (i.e. trading partner) data sources. As records are added, Data Cleansing enables organizations to: apply a validation process that can identify data patterns and discrepancies based on predefined business, sequence, or structure heuristics; manually or automatically resolve data quality and integrity problems; and submit the "clean" data for processing. The data cleansing feature provides the ability to handle various data formats (i.e. dates, strings) and prepare information for matching through parsing and standardization. With data cleansing, companies manage data more efficiently and realize significantly higher data quality.

  SWA 4.2's Supplier Management feature facilitates the user's ability to capture contract information and compare it to actual supplier performance. In conjunction with event management, Supplier Management enables evaluation of supplier compliance with negotiated contracts and makes the same information available to suppliers. The feature provides:

  Supplier Scorecards - allowing companies to collect supplier performance information from disparate enterprise systems and create scorecards to measure supplier performance;
  Contract and Scorecard Maintenance - allowing companies to maintain contract information, which may include company-specific performance criteria (e.g. service levels, on-time shipments, quality, etc.) along with category weightings, resulting in an overall supplier rating; and
  Supplier Performance Management - allowing users to identify and track supplier performance trends.
  

  
  
  

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

• “Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination."
  - Roy Goodman.
  

• "The mind of the prudent acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge."
  - Proverbs 18:15

• The American Journal of Transportation - http://www.logisticsworld.com
• The LogisticsWorld Directory - http://www.ajot.com
  
  

Online Book Catalog - Intuitive Categories

Books on Freight & Transportation, E-Commerce, Shipping, Warehousing, Distribution, Operations, WMS, ERP, MRP, Production Planning & Scheduling, CRM, Supply Chain, Customer Service, Logistics, Facility Layout & Design, Metrics & Measurements. Software Providers SAP, Peoplesoft.

IT & Project Management Books: Software Project Management - IT Management - Software Testing - RFP Development - Proposal Writing.

Essential Guide to Peoplesoft Development and Customization Order From Amazon

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

MRP II Standard System : A Handbook for Manufacturing Software Survival Order From Amazon

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

Valuable Future Events - Event Calendar is now online!

  April 27, 2003
26th Seminar 1 - New England APICS Chapter
April 27-29 @ Crowne Plaza Hotel, Warwick, RI. The New England Region Apics
chapters are sponsoring the 26th Seminar 1 this year. Supply Chain
Management and Control; Leadership and Personal Skills Development; Project
Management, Information and Service; and Process Management and Planning are
the flights. Each flight will have 9 presentations on that topic. For more
information please visit http://www.seminar1.org/ .

April 27, 2003
WERC Annual Conference - Warehouse Education Research Council
San Francisco - April 27 - 30, 2003. Facility tours, classes, and much more! Well worth the time - High education content. See http://www.werc.org/ to register!

  May 05, 2003
Optimizing Warehouse Operations
May 5-6, 2003 is our two-day "Optimizing Warehouse Operations" seminar in Toronto, Canada presented for the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University.

You are most welcome to participate in these events. For more detailed information please use this link http://www.komintl.com/pub/eng/NewsEvents/events.htm

   May 07, 2003
Logility's Connections Symposium
Swissotel, Atlanta, May 7-8, 2003
Hear firsthand from Logility customers how Logility Voyager Solutions are powering the collaborative supply chain.
www.logility.com/conn2003

  May 12, 2003
Texas Instruments RFid Systems is providing a daylong RFID Boot Camp
May 12 - Fort Lauderdale, Florida - to educate distributors, systems integrators and VARs about cutting-edge radio frequency applications and the business value and competitive advantages RFID solutions can offer their customers. This event is followed by the RFID World Conference and Expo, May 13-14. For the complete program agenda and RFID World Conference and Expo show details, visit www.rfid-world.com/rfid or call 1-800-608-9641

  May 13, 2003
RFID World Conference and Exposition
May 13-14. For the complete program agenda and RFID World Conference and Expo show details, visit www.rfid-world.com/rfid or call 1-800-608-9641.

  May 13, 2003
RFID World Conference & Expo
May 13 - 14. RFID Conference & Show. Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. See http://www.rfid-world.com/rfid/ or call 800.608.9641

  Everyday
14/05/2003 - 16/05/2003
SCL 2003 Conference and Tradeshow: Execution Strategy
SCL's Annual Conference and Tradeshow is all about getting results from your supply chain concepts. At 9:00 am on Thursday, May 15th in Toronto, Canada, Allan Kohl presents "Distribution Centre Evaluation, Re-engineering and Greenfield Design: The Key to Productivity" for SCL participants

   May 19, 2003
Managing Warehouse Operations (WERC Seminar)
May 19-20, 2003
Atlanta, GA
Wyndham Atlanta Hotel

Before you throw more money, more technology or more space at your warehousing problems—WAIT! Have you gone back to the basics? Whether you’re looking to increase customer service, reduce inventory, increase productivity, handle more SKUs or operate in less space, many effective solutions are available just by re-evaluating current processes, procedures and strategies within your operation. But you need to know what to look for, which is the focus of this seminar.

For all the details, visit http://www.werc.org/seminars/seminars.asp?SEMINAR_ID=29

  May 20, 2003
Distribution/Computer EXPO 2003
May 20 - 22, 2003 - Navy Pier - Chicago, IL. The largest Exposition for logistics and supply chain technology including; distribution, transportation, and warehousing. Held in conjunction is the D/C EXPO seminars focusing on the latest trends and advances in logistics and supply chain technologies. Visit our website at www.logistar.com or call our toll free number - 800-338-4112

  June 10, 2003
2003 Provia Software User Conference
"Do More...Get More" - June 10 - 12, 2003 - Grandover Resort, Greensboro, NC. For more information, visit http://www.provia.com/user_conf/Conf_overview.htm

  July 15, 2003
INTERNATIONAL CARGO SECURITY SUMMIT - Workshops
The Sutton Place Hotel, Chicago, IL, USA. Those involved in Cargo Security are encouraged to reserve their places early. Visit our website www.wcbf.com/security/6002 or US delegates call TOLLFREE 800-959-6549 or 312-466-5774, European and ROW delegates call: Freephone 0800-1958 601 or +44-207-872-5891 Ask to speak to Customer Services or the Summit Director.

  July 16, 2003
INTERNATIONAL CARGO SECURITY SUMMIT - Conference
July 16-17. The Sutton Place Hotel, Chicago, IL, USA. Those involved in Cargo Security are encouraged to reserve their places early. Visit our website www.wcbf.com/security/6002 or US delegates call TOLLFREE 800-959-6549 or 312-466-5774, European and ROW delegates call: Freephone 0800-1958 601 or +44-207-872-5891 Ask to speak to Customer Services or the Summit Director.

   July 21, 2003
Maximizing Warehouse Space: The Key to Productivity (WERC Seminar)
July 21-22, 2003
Princeton, NJ
Radisson Hotel

Warehouse space is—or at least should be—a hot topic in every facility. After all, you make daily decisions about product location, picking, putaway, shipping and receiving that all revolve around the layout and design of your facility. So how is your facility doing? Although dock doors and columns can’t be changed, there are some fundamental rules of thumb that will help you maximize the space in your warehouse. You’ll examine all of the elements for planning space on day one, and then on day two you’ll work in a group to redesign a fictional DC using the information you learned.

For all the details, visit http://www.werc.org/seminars/seminars.asp?SEMINAR_ID=30

September 21, 2003
CLM Conference - Council of Logistics Management
Sept 21 to 24, 2003 at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois. CLM is an educational organization for the logistics professional. Well worth it - High Educational Content. See http://www.clm1.org/ to register.

Need to list your event? Send it to us via e-mail at editor@idii.com!