Tools and Practices that Deal with Waste
Lean Manufacturing: A Primer described seven categories of waste. The following dozen or so fundamental technical tools and practices of lean manufacturing have long been used to curb or eliminate some of these types of waste. Note that this is not necessarily an exhaustive list, nor are the items within it in any particular order of importance.
This is Part Two of a multi-part note.
The Five S's
The first practice mentioned here sprang from the same Japanese system that originally gave birth to lean manufacturing. The five S's is a methodology for organizing, cleaning, developing, and sustaining a productive work environment to create a workspace that is more organized and efficient. The rationale behind the five S's is that a clean workspace provides a safer, more productive environment for employees and promotes good business. The five terms beginning with "S" are manual disciplines employees should use to create a workplace suitable for lean production. The first term, sort (seiri in Japanese), means to separate needed items from unneeded ones and remove the latter. The second term, simplify, straighten, or set in order (seiton in Japanese) means to neatly arrange items for use. Shine, sweep, or scrub (seiso in Japanese) means to clean up the work area to establish ownership and responsibility, while standardize, systemize, or schedule (seiketsu in Japanese) means to standardize efforts as checklists, so as to practice the preceding three principles of sort, simplify, and scrub on a daily basis. Finally, sustain (shisuke in Japanese) means to always follow the first four S's so as to create a disciplined culture that practices and repeats the Five S principles until they become a way of life for employees.
Visual Controls
In terms of tools, lean manufacturing tends to focus heavily on visual controls to make life straightforward for operators and to avoid errors. Visual control requires that the entire workplace is set up with visible and intuitive signals that allow any employee to instantaneously know what is going on, understand any process, and see clearly what is being done correctly and what is out of place. Typical visual control mechanisms include warning signs, lockout tags, labels, and color-coded markings. One example is andon, an electronic board that provides visibility of floor status as well as information to help coordinate the efforts to linked work centers, through signal lights that are green (for "running"), red (for "stop"), and yellow (for "needs attention"). The primary benefit of visual control is that it is a simple and intuitive method that shows an employee quickly when a process is functioning properly and when it is not.
Standardized Work
Knowing which processes to perform is as important as knowing when they are functioning properly. To ensure that the required product quality level, consistency, effectiveness, and efficiency are realized, documented step-by-step processes, or standard operation procedures (SOP), are needed to define the standardized work necessary to reduce errors and touch times. Standardized work is one of the most overlooked tools of lean manufacturing, despite entailing the useful creation and documentation of clearly defined operations for both workers and machines. Such clearly defined operations allow manufacturers to apply best practices to manufacturing processes. Standardized work also provides the foundation for continuous improvement, since documented processes can be more easily analyzed and improved. To define standardized work, SOPs should use pictures, words, tables, symbols, colors, and visual indicators to communicate a consistent, intuitive message to diverse workgroups. Such graphical instructions, also known as operation method sheets (OMS), explain each step in the sequence of event (SOE) defined for a given production line, and can design and produce visual work instructions on paper or on screen.
Mistake Proofing
As continual improvement is one of the primary concepts behind lean manufacturing, mistake proofing, or poka-yoke in Japanese, is an important waste reduction tool. Mistake proofing is an essential failsafe activity to prevent errors at their source. In simple terms, mistake proofing is any device, mechanism, or technique that either prevents a mistake from being made or makes the mistake obvious so as to avoid a product defect. The objective of mistake proofing is either to prevent the cause of defects in manufacturing or to ensure that each item can be inspected cost-effectively so that no defective items reach downstream processes. For example, in an assembly operation, if each correct part is not used, a sensing device detects that a part was unused and shuts down the operation, thereby preventing the assembler from moving the incomplete part to the next station or beginning another operation.
Total Productive Maintenance
Lean manufacturing further requires manufacturers to address equipment productivity issues through the adoption of total productive maintenance (TPM), which is a set of techniques, originally pioneered by Denso in the Toyota Group in Japan, that consists of corrective maintenance and maintenance prevention, plus continual efforts to adapt, modify, and refine equipment to increase flexibility, reduce material handling, and promote continuous flows (see Lean Asset Management—Is Preventive Maintenance Anti-lean?). TPM is operator-oriented maintenance that involves of all qualified employees in all maintenance activities. Its goal, hand in hand with the aforementioned five S's, is to ensure resource availability by eliminating machine-related accidents, defects, and breakdowns that sap efficiency and drain productivity on the factory floor. This includes setup and adjustment losses, idling and minor stoppages, reduced operating speeds, defects, rework, and startup yield losses.
Machine breakdown is a critical issue for the shop floor, as in a lean environment one machine going down can stop the entire production line or flow. Accordingly, TPM and other advanced enterprise asset management (EAM) options increase equipment reliability, and thus improve availability, reduce downtime, reduce product scrap (and wasted time managing that scrap), and increase machine tolerances (and consequently quality). As a further aid, diagnostics management features can automatically identify situations where the current maintenance strategy is not working and trigger a continuous improvement review. This often requires support for reliability driven maintenance (RDM), which can underpin the TPM strategy (see Reliability Driven Maintenance—Closing the CMMS Value Gap?). Finally, enterprise systems that can synchronize maintenance and production planning should maximize the available production time and contribute towards greater throughput and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).
Simulation is another tool to help reduce maintenance-related waste. By supporting simulation, advanced service management systems typically include maintenance scheduling based on production plans, with automated update of the maintenance schedule based on actual finished production (with electronic links into the equipment's own runtime meters to schedule maintenance). The idea is to eliminate the following "big six" maintenance-related wastes.
- Equipment downtime
- Setup and adjustments
- Minor stoppages or idleness
- Unplanned breaks
- Time spent making rejected product due to machine error
- Rejects during start ups
Cellular Manufacturing
Moving from maintenance to manufacturing processes, the lean philosophy traditionally depends on cellular manufacturing, which is a manufacturing process that produces families of parts within a single line or cell of machines controlled by operators who work only within the line or cell. Manufacturing cells, arranged to ergonomically minimize workers' stretching and reaching for parts, supplies, or tools to accomplish the task, often replaced traditional, linear production lines to help companies produce products in smaller lot sizes, ensure a more continuous flow, and improve product quality. A related concept, nagara, is the Japanese term used to depict a production system where seemingly unrelated tasks can be produced by the same operator simultaneously. Nowadays, however, lean thinking is moving beyond pure cell- and product grouping-based production.
Single-digit Setup
Since lean manufacturing requires manufacturers to produce to customer demand only, it requires them to make products in ever smaller batches. This is opposed to the traditional long runs of equipment and the fallacy that it is more efficient to run a big, EOQ-based batch rather to run several shorter ones that include changeovers. Yet, long runs mean large inventories, which in turn tie up large sums of money and keep customers waiting longer for finished goods and services. This trend toward smaller batches has created a need to reduce setup and changeover times throughout the manufacturing process. This is accomplished via the various embodiments of the single-digit setup (SDS) idea of performing setups in less than ten minutes (e.g., through astute jigs, optimized sequencing of internal and external process activities, roller tables or conveyers, hydraulic clamps, knobs and quick, fasteners, etc.). Related to this is the single-minute exchange of die (SMED) concept of setup times of less than ten minutes, which was developed by Shigeo Shingo in 1970 at Toyota.
Pull System
A pull system is another key characteristic of lean, demand-driven manufacturing, since the ultimate goal here is to have the flow of materials controlled by replacing only what has been actually consumed. Pull systems, also known as kanban (coming from the Japanese words kan, which means "card", and ban which means "signal"), ensure that production and material requirements are based on actual customer demand rather than on inevitably inaccurate forecasting tools. A kanban signal, which can be a card, empty squares on the floor for bins, lights, or a computer software generated signal, triggers the movement, production, or supply of materials or components that are usually held in bins of a fixed size. The aim is to improve inventory control and shorten production cycle times by controlling the level of inventory and work by the number of kanbans in the system. Over time and with process improvements, the quantity of components in the kanban bin can be reduced or resized dynamically, on-the-fly, as required.
Pull systems and pull signals (i.e., any signal that indicates when to produce or transport items in a pull replenishment system) can be found in many operational departments. For example, in just-in-time (JIT) production control systems, a kanban card can be used as the pull signal to replenish parts for the using operation. In material control, the withdrawal of inventory can also be demanded by the using operation, with material not being issued until a signal comes from the user. Likewise, in distribution, there would be a pull system for replenishing field warehouse inventories, where replenishment decisions are made at the field warehouse itself, not at the central warehouse or plant.
Conversely, materials requirements planning (MRP) is a push system, which schedules production based on forecasts and customer orders. Thus, MRP creates plans to "push" materials through the production process based on forecasts that by nature cannot be accurate. That is to say, traditional MRP methods rely on the movement of materials through functionally-oriented work centers or production lines (rather than lean cells), and are designed to maximize efficiencies and lower unit cost by producing products in large lots. Production is planned, scheduled, and managed to meet a combination of actual and forecast demand. Thus, production orders stemming from the master production schedule (MPS) and MRP planned orders are "pushed" out to the factory floor and in stock.
Sequencing and Mixed-model Production
Another lean tool is sequencing, or determining the order in which a manufacturing facility will process a number of different jobs from one production line in order to achieve objectives (e.g., the quantities needed daily). This is also referred to as mixed-model production, as it makes several different parts or products in varying lot sizes so that a factory produces close to the same mix of products that will be sold that day. The mixed-model schedule or sequence governs the making and the delivery of component parts, including those provided by outside suppliers. Again, the goal is to build models according to daily demand. This is of paramount importance in the automotive industry, given that competition for a growing percentage of sophisticated consumers in the global marketplace is driving automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to offer products with an ever-increasing number of features and options.
Today, from the perspective of pure functionality, cars and trucks are becoming a commodity, and competitive product differentiation can therefore be achieved mostly through offering unique colors, fabrics, styles, features, and option packages, which create thousands of potential combinations for any given type of vehicle. Stocking all of these combinations is price-prohibitive, while discovering whether a particular vehicle combination was produced is much too time-consuming, akin to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. In addition, fastidious customers expect immediate availability of unique vehicle features and option sets. These factors create a conundrum—how to quickly and profitably deliver a customized, finished vehicle.
Allowing buyers to uniquely configure their own vehicle and delivering their "perfect order" within a reasonable timeframe requires a radical departure from the traditional methods of mass production. This new process identifies the unique, individual requirements of each vehicle and synchronizes its assembly with JIT delivery of specifically configured components from suppliers. These components are then delivered to the OEM assembly plant in the exact sequence that each car or truck goes down the final assembly line, which allows the OEMs to produce a tailored vehicle for each customer.
It boils down to the fact that suppliers today are confronted with the dilemma of guaranteeing high levels of customer satisfaction as measured in on-time deliveries and high product quality at reasonable costs, while simultaneously striving to maintain low levels of inventory. For instance, if a car buyer selects or modifies the color of leather seats in the vehicle he orders just one week before that vehicle starts production, how can the supplier provide it if it takes the supplier twelve weeks to buy the leather that goes onto the seats? Furthermore, within the supply chain itself actual requirements and projected demand for component parts are typically out of sync.
Historically, these problems have been overcome by maintaining additional quantities of raw or finished material as a "buffer" against requirements that exceed projected amounts. This extra downstream inventory, along with the attendant time lags and postponements in delivery caused by spikes in demand, conspire to add to the overall levels of inventory carried by suppliers. However, these practices seem to be changing since the advent of solutions, such as QAD JIT Sequencing Module (JIT/S), which help suppliers execute the JIT delivery of configured components while simultaneously coordinating supply and demand to minimize inventory levels and reduce the amount of extra costs caused by expediting activities in the supply chain. To do this, the JIT/S module integrates the mid-range or long-term planning and supply chain communication functions of MRP processes with its execution processes, which are focused on manufacturing configured products that are delivered to the customer at the exact time they are needed.
Such solutions illustrate the difference between kanban and other lean manufacturing techniques and JIT sequencing. Both are execution-oriented, since both respond to demand in near real time. However, lean manufacturing customarily tends to focus on the replenishment and supply of commodity parts (i.e., parts that are shipped in standard packs by the dozen or as case lots), while JIT sequencing concentrates on unique (or configured) parts, which are shipped individually or shipped with other configured parts of the same kind. In practice, kanban communicates a fixed quantity of demand over a variable time frame, or a variable quantity of demand over a fixed time frame. Neither of these processes adequately address the configuration requirements seen in sequencing. In other words, while kanban systems typically manage the supply or production of items with low variability, sequencing manages the production of highly configured, variable items. Therefore, in a JIT sequence, the statement of demand expresses the exact configuration of the needed item. For example a requirement for a seat would be to "deliver tan, leather, left front seat, with heater and electronic motor lumbar support mechanism, by 14:15 for Vehicle Number 12345".
Activity-based Costing
Another waste reduction practice is the allocation of overhead costs on a more realistic basis than direct labor or machine hours. The tool that achieves this is an activity-based cost (ABC) accounting system, which accumulates costs based on activities performed and then uses cost drivers to allocate these costs to products or other bases, such as customers, markets, or projects. The ABC information about cost pools and drivers, activity analysis, and business processes is then used for activity-based management (ABM) to identify business strategies; improve product design, manufacturing, and distribution; and ultimately remove waste from operations. The system is considered to provide a truer reflection of actual revenues and costs than traditional cost accounting, in which the focus is generally placed on reducing costs in all the various accounts, leveraging the traditional absorption costing approach to inventory valuation in which variable costs and a portion of fixed costs are assigned to each unit of production (whereas the fixed costs are usually allocated to units of output on the basis of direct labor hours, machine hours, or material costs).
Leveled Production
Leveled production, known in Japanese as heijunka, involves producing products in a specific uniform cycle to overcome the queuing and line stoppage problems associated with traditional manufacturing and to match the planned rate of end product sales. Leveled production means that production cycle times at individual work stations or production cells are coordinated based on the customer demand, so that work moves continuously and smoothly throughout the entire manufacturing process.
One way to achieve leveled production is by implementing takt time (the term is based on the German word for an orchestra conductor's baton, used to regulate the speed, beat, and timing at which musicians play), which means basing the production rate on an estimate of how many units per hour must be processed at each work canter in order to meet market demand. Takt time sets the pace of production to match the rate of customer demand, and becomes the heartbeat of any lean production system. As the "pacemaker" of a lean system, takt time is essential to the smooth flow of work through production cells, and is a key factor in planning and scheduling work. It is computed as the available production time per day divided by the rate of daily customer demand. For example, if one assumes demand is 10,000 units per month, or 500 units per day, and planned available capacity is 420 minutes per day, the takt time would then equal 420 minutes per day divided by 500 units per day, or 0.84 minutes per unit, which means that a unit should be planned to exit the production system on average every 0.84 minutes.
By using takt time, production can be leveled to either a set level or to between a minimum and maximum level. These levels can be set in a computer system for any date and any period length, from a day upwards. Leveled production results in a steady demand pattern, which ensures a predictable, smooth schedule and avoids capacity bottlenecks. This simplifies planning and control (since every day in the plan within the leveled period is basically the same), creates stability in production, and gives operators a far better understanding of what they have to do each day and how they are performing against goals and targets. It also makes life easier for upstream suppliers who can be passed stable schedules.
Closely related to the above concept is line balancing, which can be used in two ways. On the one hand, it can be used to identify the number of workers and the duties each worker should accomplish to meet the changing demands. This requires the balancing of the assignment of the tasks to workstations in a manner that minimizes the number of workstations and minimizes the total amount of idle time at all stations for a given output level. In balancing these tasks, the specified time requirement per unit of product for each task and its sequential relationship with the other tasks must be considered. On the other hand, the technique can be used for determining the product mix that can be run down an assembly line to provide a fairly consistent flow of work through that assembly line at the planned line rate (i.e., takt time).
Flow Manufacturing
In fact, traditionally, lean manufacturing always has kept such a continuous flow of materials in mind. Properly designed manufacturing lines or cells are planned and loaded according to takt time and operate smoothly through the use of the aforementioned visual controls and mistake-proof procedures. Flow manufacturing pulls materials from external supplier or internal feeder operations through a synchronized manufacturing process in order to satisfy customer demand. The term flow manufacturing is closely related to, and thus often confused with, other demand-driven manufacturing strategies that streamline processes and eliminate waste, such as agile, JIT, and lean manufacturing, given that all of these use pull signals to replenish supplies and are subject to continuous improvement. However, flow manufacturing leverages some additional algorithmic techniques to help manufacturers create any product on any given day, and in any given quantity including the "quantity of one" (i.e., EOQ = 1), while keeping inventories to a minimum and shortening cycle times to fill customer orders ever more quickly.
To support continuous flow, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems must provide a rate-based scheduling and execution application that helps maintain takt time throughout all operations and does not require work orders or other paperwork. For more information, see Pull versus Push: a Discussion of Lean, JIT, Flow, and Traditional MRP.
This concludes Part Two of a multi-part note.
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Part 2: Results | Ramco Systems - Diversity Marshaled Through Flexibility | How Some ERP Vendors Demonstrated - Warts and All
Part 1 | Should interBiz Mean Intelligence And Prediction Beyond ERP? - Part 2: Challenges and Market Impact | Is SCT And Logistics.com Partnership A Déjà vu? | Should interBiz Mean Intelligence And Prediction Beyond ERP? | SAP Opens The ‘Miss Congeniality’ Contest | Navision Enhances Its e-Vision And Looks To Expand Vertically - Part 3: Challenges & User Recommendations | Navision Enhances Its e-Vision And Looks To Expand Vertically - Part 2: Market Impact | Navision Enhances Its e-Vision And Looks To Expand Vertically | ERP Selection Facts and Figures Case Study - Part 2: Qualitative Assessments and Analysis | ERP Selection Facts and Figures Case Study
Part 1: Business Model Scenarios | Lilly Software Visualizes Its eBusiness Offering, NOW. Part 2: Market Impact | PeopleSoft Remains Rock-Hard And Economy Proof | Lilly Software Visualizes Its eBusiness Offering, NOW | Glovia On B2B Reinventing Trail | Kewill And Microsoft Great Plains To Further Mutually Complement | Soft Economy Dents SAP’s Armored Shield As Well | Syspro Hatches 'Encore' IMPACT On SME Manufacturers. Part 2: Market Impact | PRISM Users Get A Dedicated, Independent Web Community | INFIMACS Becoming Ever More RELEVANT For Project-Based Industries. Part 2: Market Impact and User Recommendations | INFIMACS Becoming Ever More RELEVANT For Project-Based Industries. Part 1: Recent Developments | Clarity of Vision: Clarify Sold to Amdocs by Nortel | Collaborative Commerce: ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: IFS - Part 2 of 2 | Way To Go, Ross Systems! | Collaborative Commerce: ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: IFS - Part 1 of 2 | Geac Awakens On Its Deathbed - Part 2: Geac's Response | What's With Oracle's And SAP's Differing Clairvoyance? | Geac Awakens On Its Deathbed - Part 1: Event Summary | The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond – Part 5: Recommendations | The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond – Part 4: Market Predictions | The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond – Part 3: Rating The Vendors | MAPICS Unifies The Brand And Interacts For CRM Solutions | The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond – Part 2: Vendor Reactions | The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond – Aging Gracefully With The ‘New Kids On The Block’ | Shall Bifurcated Tack Reverse J.D. Edwards’ Bad Spell? | E-Business Sell Side Success at H.B. Fuller | IFS Glows Amidst The Mid-Market Gloom | Business Intelligence Success at Biomet, Inc. | Oracle Makes A U-Turn At The 'All Things To All People' Exit | 'Collaborative Commerce': ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: SAP AG | Sausage Producer Packs Out the Profit with Technology | 'Collaborative Commerce': ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: Baan and Parent Company, Invensys | Intentia’s Intents To Be More Fashionable | 'Collaborative Commerce': ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: J.D. Edwards | Frontstep Still Awaiting Better Times | E-Business Customer Service Success at H.B. Fuller Company | Will V8 Help SSA GT Regain Lost Ground? | PeopleSoft Keeps Truckin’ On A Potholed Road Ahead | SCT Extends Into Business Intelligence | Epicor Shows Resilience When It Needs It The Most | ERP Trivia - Every Why Should Have Its Wherefore
Part 2: ERP Key Success Factors | J.D. Edwards Fires Siebel, Hires YOU | ERP Trivia - Every Why Should Have Its Wherefore
Part 1: ERP Trends | Single Source or Best of Breed - The Debate Continues | SAP Thrives On Competitors' Plight, In Part | Can You Add New Life To an Old ERP System? | Made2Manage Manages Throughout Soft Market | Microsoft Great Plains Procures eProcure At Last | SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 5: Challenges and User Recommendations | SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 4: SAP's Strategy | i2, SAP, Oracle Poised For Showdown in Q4 | SAP – A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 3: Market Impact | SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 2: Expanding Functionality | Lawson Software Means Business With PSA and IPO | SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 1: Alliances | PeopleSoft Supply Chain Is Music To Mid Market Ears | It Is Possible - SAP And Baan Strange Bedfellows | Oracle Claims The Worst Is Over And Turns To KISS For A Boost
Part 3: The Challenge of Gaining Competitive Advantage | Oracle Claims The Worst Is Over And Turns To KISS For A Boost
Part 2: The Implications | Oracle Claims The Worst Is Over And Turns To KISS For A Boost
Part 1: The News | NavisionDamgaard Reverts To Navision, But In Name Only | J.D. Edwards' QUEST To End Its String Of Pyrrhic Victories
Part 2: The Implications | J.D. Edwards' QUEST To End Its String Of Pyrrhic Victories
Part 1: The News | Baan Achieves A Speedy Recovery Despite The Tough Times | PeopleSoft: Giving Fervent Hope To The Market And Jitters To The Competition. Part 2: The Implications | PeopleSoft: Giving Fervent Hope To The Market And Jitters To The Competition. Part 1: The News | ERP Selection Case Study Audio Conference Transcript | Fed Gives ERP A Shot In The Arm | Will QAD Finally Get The Break (-Even)? | IFS' Tamed Growth + Continued Losses + Increased Competitors' Lobby Talk = Decreased Customer Confidence | ROI Systems - A Little ERP Fellow That Gets By | PeopleSoft - Catching Its Second Wind From The Internet
Part 3: Predictions and Recommendations | PeopleSoft - Catching Its Second Wind From The Internet
Part 2: Strengths and Challenges | Latest Development on Epicor's Trying The Divestiture Tack | PeopleSoft - Catching Its Second Wind From The Internet
Part 1: About PeopleSoft | Epicor To Try The Divestiture Tack, Too | MAPICS Clings To Its Customers' Loyalty | Is Ross Systems Up To A Hat Trick? | SAP Remains One Of The Market’s Beacons Of Hope | The Mid-Market Is Consolidating, Lo And Behold | SSA Acquires MAX Hoping To Leap From Its MIN | IBM Buys What’s Left of Informix | Where Is ERP Headed (Or Better, Where Should It Be Headed)?
Part 4: ASP’s and New Pricing Models | Invensys Announces New Division - Baan Process | Where Is ERP Headed (Or Better, Where Should It Be Headed)?
Part 3: E-Business and Mid-Market Shakeout | Geac Decomposes To Survive | Where Is ERP Headed (Or Better, Where Should It Be Headed)?
Part 2: Product Architecture and Web-Basing | Where Is ERP Headed (Or Better, Where Should It Be Headed)? Part 1: Functional Scope and Vertical Focus | SAP Acquires TopTier To Further Broaden Its Horizons | Oracle Sails Slower In The Low Tide, But Mayday Signal Is Quite Far-Fetched | IFS Aspires To Capture North American Market Against The Low Tide | Is Intentia Truly Industry’s First In Food Traceability? | QAD Finally Breaks The Red Ink Streak, But… | Epicor Software Corp.: Completing Painstaking "e"Volution Part 2: Evaluating Epicor | J.D. Edwards Saved By SCM, Narrowly, And Only For Now | Epicor Software Corp.: Completing Painstaking "e"Volution Part 1: About Epicor | Stalled Navision + Mixed Bag Damgaard = Satisfactory NavisionDamgaard | Infinium Attempts To Better Gain Some Markets' Ear | MAPICS XA Expands BI Offering Through Partnership With Vanguard | Has Intentia Turned The Corner? Almost. | Ross Systems Closes Ranks For A (Possible) Turnaround | PeopleSoft Plays Hardball | Is Made2Manage Made2Survive? Seems So. | Frontstep (Nee Symix Systems) A Step Closer To A Turnaround | Small ERP Vendors Missing The ASP Boat | SAP Defies Economic Slowdown, For Now | Can Lilly Software Get More VISUAL? | Fourth Shift Hopes To Thrive On China’s Greener Pastures | ERP Beginner's Guide In So Many Words | PeopleSoft Joins The Hunt For SMEs | Will 2001 Be The Year Of Baan’s Miraculous Comeback?
Definitely Maybe. | Extricity Makes a Move into IBM’s Sphere of B2B Influence | Microsoft And Great Plains – A Friendship That Turned Into A Marriage | SCT Corporation: The Last Viable Process Manufacturing Vendor Standing? | Oracle Sails Despite Market’s Low Tide; How Far Will It Go? | J.D. Edwards Reaches $1B Milestone In Another Losing Year | QAD’s Costly eTransition Continues | e-Catalysts Delivers Digital Marketplace | Made2Manage Systems, Inc.: M2M From A2Z For SMEs? | Does NavisionDamgaard Merger Mark Further Mid-Market Consolidation? | Essential ERP - Its Functional Scope | The Essential ERP - Its Genesis & Future | Ross Systems Continues To Slip, But Pledges to Fight Tooth And Claw | IFS Has A Magic Growth Formula; But What About Profitability? | SAP Claims Big Gains In The Low-End Battleground | Symix Starts New Year Under New Name, But Old Issues Remain | IBI + IBM = EAI | Baan – What Will The Future In Invensys’ Stable Bring? Part 2: Evaluating Baan | Infinium Ends Its Most Challenging Year | JuxtaComm And IBM Integrate Their Integration Products | Great Plains Unveils New E-Commerce Solution | Great Plains Taps The Web To Deliver Product Support | Epicor Delivers On Milestones, But Its Situation Remains Bleak | Onyx Software: CRM Vendor Battling For Viability | What On Earth Is Going On With SSA? | BEA Systems Has A Broad Vision For E-Business Infrastructures | Baan – What Will The Future In Invensys’ Stable Bring? Part 1: About Baan | Big ERP Players Courting Government Agencies | Intentia Possibly Seeing Daylight | Geac Lives By Acquisitions; Will It Die By An Acquisition? | SAP Q3 Results Cause Mixed Reactions | Fourth Shift Tightens Belt To Weather The Drought | PeopleSoft Delivers Oxymoron In 'Supply Chain in a Box' | PeopleSoft – Again A Force To Be Reckoned With? | Another Type Of Virus Hits The World (And Gets Microsoft No Less) | J.D. Edwards – A Collaboration Thought Leader Or A Disguised ERP Follower? Part 2: Evaluating J.D. Edwards | J.D. Edwards – A Collaboration Thought Leader Or A Disguised ERP Follower? Part 1: About J.D. Edwards | Lawson Software Expands Vertically As Well | ROI Systems Catching Up With e-Commerce | IBM Aims Renamed UNIX Server at Sun | Great Plains’ Latest Product Offering — Ready to Stampede the SME Market? | Great Plains' eEnterprise Solution 'N Sync with Microsoft's New Platforms | Navision Executes At a Slower Pace | Symix Systems Front-Steps Into Greener e-Commerce Pastures | Has SAP Found Magic Formula (One) To Learn The Ropes Of Marketing? | Is Baan Showing Signs of Life After Death? | Oracle – How to Disappoint Analysts by Doubling Profits | Ross Systems Ends Year On a Sour Note and Braces Itself For Survivor’s Game | Will Oracle’s Freebie Shot Hurt (Or Only Graze) Siebel? | Great Plains – An SME Market Leader, But At What Cost? | IFS Marches On, Although With a String of Losses | Siebel: Great Plans for Great Plains | Commerce One Holds Announcement Festival | Fourth Shift Corporation: Working Overtime To Provide Complete Customer Care | SynQuest Posts Mixed Results | J.D. Edwards’ Mixed Blessings | QAD Continues to Wade Through Red Ink | eConnections Expands Web With IPNet | Geac Trying Its Luck in Partnering | Ultimate Connection Seeking Its US Retail Connection Through Solomon Software Partners | New Release For Ariba’s Software | Thru-Put Announces Features For New APS Release | Oracle Applications - An Internet-Reinvented Feisty Challenger | American Software Has Been Starving While Delivering Innovations | Intentia Has Been Bleeding For Its Platform Independence | ERP Belle Époque Officially Ended With the Demise of Baan and SSA | PowerCerv Facing Another Stormy Season | The Pros and Cons of Collaborative Planning | MAPICS Back On Track, But Not Without Restructuring Pains | Global Vendor Negotiation Strategies | Winner Takes All – Siebel Ousts SalesLogix From Solomon’s Deal | PeopleSoft 8 Launched – Anything to Write Home About? | PeopleSoft: No More a Humble Kid From a Rough Neighborhood? | IBM Nabs Another Application Vendor | Catalyst International to Tread Water With SAP Through 2000 | Epicor Software Corp.: How Far From Being 'One-Stop' Shop? | SCT Comes Back With a Vengeance | Lawson Software Marches Over $300M Milestone | SAP Remains Solid While Transitioning | They Can Run, But You Can’t Hide | How Has Made2Manage Systems Been Managing Itself? | Baan Defectors – Is This Only Tip of an Iceberg? | Is Fourth Shift Succeeding in Providing 'Complete Customer Care'? | SAP - A Leader Under Reconstruction | How Detrimental Can a 2nd-In-Charge’s Departure Be? | Can Geac Reshuffle the ERP Standings? | More Vendors Bail on Oracle in Favor of IBM | ERP Getting a New Breath of Fresh Air in Europe | Has Market Been Too Harsh On Great Plains? | Great Plains Supply Chain Series To Be Powered By Logility | J.D. Edwards Chooses Freedom to Choose EAI | Siebel Has Done It Again – This Time with Navision | American Software - A Tacit Avant-Garde? | Ross Systems, Inc.: In Process of Renaissance | How Has MAPICS Been Extending? | PeopleSoft Manufacturing - This Time For Sure?! | i2 Technologies’ Latest Offering: J. D. Edwards OneWorld™ | SAP to Become Leaner, Meaner and More Organized | J. D. Edwards FOCUSes on Active Supply Chain | Infinium Software, Inc.: Having All the Right Cards? | Access Commerce Spices Up North American CRM Fray | No More Mr. Nice Guy With J.D. Edwards | Enterprise Resource Planning Systems Audio Conference | IFS Far Cry From Running Out of Breath | Infinium and Elcom Walk Down ASP Aisle | ROI Systems, Inc.: Will Slow and Steady Remain in the Race? | Baan Yet Another ERP Vendor to Find a Sanctuary Under Invensys’ Wing | MAPICS Red Ink Stained While Extending Its Offering | Intentia’s Growing Pains | Ross Systems’ Renaissance Yet to Happen | Epicor Continues To Bleed | Symix Systems’ Slips Into Red During Its E-Commerce Transition | Will Solomon Finally Satisfy Great Plains’ Insatiable Appetite? | Baan Sinks Deeper into Red Quicksand | Lawson Software’s CRM and ASP Moves – Wise, Bold, Injudicious, Enforced, or Something Else? | Is SAP Stumbling? Perhaps. | Yet Another ‘Big 5 ERP’ CEO Casualty | Navision Software a/s: Mid-market iNvasion | Essential ERP – Current Market Trends – Part II | Will That Wretched ERP Finally Die? Possibly, But Only the Acronym! | Yet Another ERP/CRM Partnership | Oracle Flying High on Q3 Report: Is Gold All That Glitters? | Navision Becoming More Visible | Geac Announces Q3 Results and Acquires CRM Vendor | ERP Demand Being Re-heated | ERP Vendors Venturing into PSA | Solomon Software: Breaking Away from Perception as “Best-of-Breed-Accounting” Vendor | JD Edwards’ Alliances: Is It Too Much of a Good Thing? | GLOVIA to be Resuscitated (Hopefully) | JD Edwards Reports Strong License Revenue Growth in Q1 2000, but… | Intentia Attempts to Become ‘Lean and Mean’ | Vendors Begin to Round Out Their CRM Suites | J.D. Edwards Names SynQuest Preferred Solution | Oracle Integrates Front and Back Office with Applications 11i | PeopleSoft's CEO Steps Down | SSA Seeks Support from Synquest | SAP sets up Apparel and Footwear team | Geac and JBA Join Forces to Form New ERP Giant | Computer Associates, Baan Japan and EXE Announce Strategic Alliance to Provide Total Supply Chain Management Solutions | Oracle to Enlist BPA Systems in its Mid-Market Quest | SAP Lowers Revenue Expectations | Symix Maintains Consistent Profitability Despite Y2K Market Conditions | Software Leasing Trend Slams Baan Earnings | Intentia Americas Gains Momentum with 10 New Deals Inked During Last Two Weeks | MAPICS Reports Solid Profitability Despite Dismal Fiscal 1999 4% Growth | Baan Releases New Supply Chain Products | French Government awards ERP contract to Peoplesoft | Business Software Firms Sued Over Implementation - Lawsuits Bring ERP Problems to Light | Geac Metamorphosises JBA Into Gear, but Cuts 20% of Staff | SAP Details CRM Plans | J.D. Edwards Incurs Further Losses In Third Quarter | Intentia and Dash Associates Team Up | Key Product Delays Take a Toll on Oracle Users | ERP Packages For Midsize Firms in the Works | QAD Reports Third-Quarter--Revenue Rises 56 Percent | Pronto ERP 'Coming to America' | System Software Associates Announces Fiscal Fourth Quarter Results - The Agony Continues | J.D. Edwards Closes Out Millennium on an Up Note | Boeing Expands Baan Licensing Deal | Oracle Reports Strong Profits | QAD Offers Improved E-Commerce Applications with Greater Flexibility and Customization Capabilities | Heads Roll at Consulting Giant in Wake of SEC Investigation | Is Baan Clinically Dead? | Manhattan Associates Partners with Intentia | PeopleSoft Completes Acquisition of Vantive; Vantive CRM Applications Integrate with PeopleSoft and Other ERP Systems | SAP, PeopleSoft Earnings Look Brighter; ERP Strikes Back | Great Plains on a Shopping Spree | Geac Upgrades Accounting And Human-Resources Apps -- SQL Release 6.0 Simplifies Purchasing And HR Services For Midsize Companies | MAPICS, Inc. to Acquire Pivotpoint, Expanding e-business Offerings for Mid-Sized Manufacturing Establishments | PeopleSoft Takes Aim at Foods Industry | ERP Vendors Moving to Aerospace and Defense Markets | PeopleSoft Recuperating Slowly, Hoping to Sink 1999 into Oblivion Quickly | Baan Posts $236 Million Loss and Sells Off Coda for Nearly $40M Less Than It Paid | Symix Expands Its Product Offering While Remaining Profitable | IFS Continues to Blossom | SAP Declares Victory Over Manugistics, Takes Aim at i2 | Food Producer Files $20m Lawsuit Against Oracle | Oracle Loses Again | PeopleSoft Programs Cause Headaches at Number of Universities | Hummingbird Announces Extraction and Portal Strategy for ERP | SAP Posts Solid Q499, but Warns of Q100 | Analysis of Lawson Delivering New Retail Analytic Capabilities | ERP Vendor Lawson Software Extends to IBM's DB2 Universal Database | J.D. Edwards Teams with FRx Software to Improve Reporting Solutions | SAP and HP on the Web Together | Analysis of SAS Institute and IBM Intelligence Alliance | E-Commerce Lesson: Success Gets a Yawn, Failure Takes a Beating | Oracle is Word One at Ford | SAP's New Level of e-Commerce: mySAP.com | Intentia Floats Vaporware Agent to Replace Business Planning | BAAN Announces "Open World": Business-To-Business Collaboration Over The Internet | Lawson Plays Well With Others | IBM Announces Netfinity 4000R Super-Thin Server | The "S" in SAP Doesn't Stand for Security (that goes for PeopleSoft too) | Oracle Co. - Internet Paradigm Boosts Applications Growth | SAP AG - ERP Leader with a "New Dimension" | Baan Company N.V. - Is the Worst Over? | J.D. Edwards and Numetrix Ponder the Future as One | Symix Sytems: Shifting SME's Focus to Their Customers | MAPICS: Will Customer Satisfaction be Enough? | Intentia: Java Evolution From AS/400 | SSA: Evolving into systems integrator to survive | JBA: Will it remain "@ctive Enterprise"? | Marcam Solutions: Shifting its Focus to MES | Industrial & Financial Systems, IFS AB: Thriving on Product Flexibility and Incremental Deployability | Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) Market - Dismal 1999, the New Millennium to bring Relief (for Some) | Lawson Software: Self-Evidently Thriving on Innovations | QAD Inc.: The Art of Vertical Focus | Great Plains: Strong Channel and Microsoft focus for Dynamic(s) Growth | SAP's Dr. Peter Barth on Client/Server and Database Issues with SAP R/3 | PeopleSoft on Client/Server and Database Issues | Baan E-Commerce: a Wing, a Prayer & a Single Platform | J.D. Edwards - Creating OneWorld of Mid-sized ERP Users | PeopleSoft - Are Business Intelligence and e-Commerce Enough? | Q: Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Billionaire? A: Baan -- Foster Care for Its Orphans Needed As Well | Geac Computer Corporation: Mastering Growth by Acquisitions |