This report is based on aggregate data collected from more than 375 Project Portfolio Management (PPM) software comparisons performed using Technology Evaluation Centers’ (TEC’s) TEC Advisor software selection application during the 2012 calendar year. Read this report to see what TEC data reveals about what your peers are looking for in PPM solutions, including the most common PPM requirements for customization, delivery model, functionalities, and sever and database platforms, as well as budget sizes.
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The governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) concept remains as relevant as ever. In addition to the traditional goal of meeting compliance obligations, companies today see the investment in risk and compliance management as a means of aligning their risk and controls with broader strategic goals, building better relationships with stakeholders, and enhancing overall performance. Read this white paper for survey finding and interviews that suggest several action points.
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The Autodesk University 2012 conference was a big deal—with about 9,000 attendees from about 100 different countries, and with thousands of virtual attendees taking advantage of more than 1,000 online classes. All were eager to learn about the latest in product design technologies, including the cloud, mobility, product lifecycle management, and real-time simulation. Get all the details in P.J. Jakovljevic’s report.
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There are a host of ERP available to chemical manufacturers—the challenge is selecting the right one that offers a baseline product with industry-specific functionality. But many ERP applications are not industry-specific and require major modifications, or, one must select from an industry template that may or may not fit specific needs. Today’s chemical manufacturing companies no longer have to compromise. Find out why.
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To satisfy customer requirements profitably, food and beverage (F&B) manufacturers must work at the pace of change, which has accelerated in regulations, consumer buying patterns, and the needs of retail, restaurant, and industrial foodservice customers. Know the three major challenges facing F&B manufacturers today and what they need to do to streamline their operations for greater efficiencies and waste reduction in order to survive.
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Organic supply chain (OSC) companies that dissemble organic raw material (beef, pork, poultry, and agricultural products), have very specific requirements that generic process ERP systems cannot address, and ERP vendors have not taken the time to develop a solution with the flexibility to manage the variability needed by an OSC company. This paper presents the unique issues and requirements found in this special market.
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The PLM world is currently witness to fervent debate on the most appropriate type of PLM/CAD software. Best-of-breed solutions offer the needed capabilities and hence integrate the necessary software modules as per the customer’s needs, whereas all-in-one CAD/PLM suites attempt a “one size fits all” approach. In his report, TEC principal analyst P.J. Jakovljevic provides his view on the intricacies of these two approaches.
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“Green” server and datacenter design requires a focus on environmental sustainability. Prior studies have focused on operational energy consumption as a proxy for sustainability, but this metric only captures part of the environmental impact. Understanding the total impact requires examining the entire lifecycle of the system, beyond operational energy, to also include material use and manufacturing. See how one methodology can do that.
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Consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers face pressures from fickle consumers, powerful retailers, globalization, and more. The CPG manufacturing industry is large and thriving, but margins are slim and competition is furious. There are hundreds of product categories, and to compete, firms must constantly innovate. See how small-to-medium CPG manufacturers can survive in the face of these external pressures and fewer resources?
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Today, compliance pains come from three sources: government, large industrial or retail customers, and even smaller customers who are asking for unique delivery, packaging, assembly or other services. This white paper presents "compliance" as an enormous opportunity for the small to medium size business owner. Read it and understand the compliance demands within the distribution environment and how they affect your business.
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The food industry today is fraught with certification and standards that require third-party audits into traceability processes and the speed of product recalls. Technology can be your best friend when it comes to doing farm-to-fork traceability in the most efficient and effective way. This white paper explains why the old system for lot tracking and recall won’t make the grade in the new world of compliance.
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Enterprise applications require fast access to large volumes of information, and are pushing the performance limits of traditional storage architectures. Although it's easy to add storage capacity by adding more disk drives and arrays, it's not so easy to scale storage I/O performance. See how hybrid storage pools enable a new approach to storage architectures--increasing performance, reducing costs, and simplifying management.
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Principal TEC Analyst P.J. Jakovljevic is back--and so is his encyclopedic knowledge of all things software. In today's special report, P.J. gives you a comprehensive overview of the latest developments at PTC Windchill, and a look at what lies ahead for its flagship PLM products.
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Retailers have caught on to the hottest industry trend since skinny jeans: private-label apparel. And for good reason. The benefits range from exclusivity and increased profit margins to the ability to offset rising raw material costs by focusing on more profitable lines. Extended product lifecycle management systems are crucial to ensuring the profitability of your private-label goods initiative. Download this white paper to find out why.
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Line planning is vital for the development of each season’s fashion collection. Both retailers and brands must closely manage the development of their lines to ensure tight focus on the right products, key deadlines, and cost and profit margins. But many companies only scratch the surface of line planning’s true potential. Line planning is much more than you may have thought—and it's for retailers and brands of all shapes and sizes.
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This paper presents an introduction to the discipline of requirements engineering in a form tailored for software engineers. Requirements engineering is the process of turning the unstructured requests of stakeholders into useful requirements, and can be an engineering discipline as rigorous and involved as software architecture. This paper attempts to provide a brief tutorial in order to improve the overall level of requirements used for software projects.
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Apparel companies have to cut their lead times in half if they want to stay competitive—a difficult task without the right product lifecycle management (PLM) solution. In this white paper, you’ll discover how PLM solutions can help your company achieve faster time-to-market. And you’ll learn how integrating PLM with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system maximizes the capabilities of both.
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Regardless of the size of the organization, embedding governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) management into all business process is imperative. But most organizations are reactive rather than proactive when it comes to undertaking a risk management initiative. Leading companies identify building a risk-aware culture as a key strategy. Read on to find out more about ways to enable effective access risk management.
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Today, Clinical Research Organizations (CRO) and clinical service providers play an ever-increasing role across the value chain. The wave of eClinical solutions has prompted many such organizations to implement training management and qualification management programs to both employees and associated clinical research sites and physicians. Read this paper for four guiding rules for structuring an eClinical training solution.
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Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are critical to efficient operations, quality control, and regulatory compliance. Yet many recent FDA violations have focused on firms’ failure to properly use SOPs. This paper reviews best practices for the life science industry for training on SOPs. Specifically, how the latest learning management technology has the potential to improve learner retention through automated assessments.
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Semiconductor manufacturers can work more closely with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and expand into new markets by using Web 2.0 technologies. Infosys' experts reveal "white spaces" in semiconductor marketing strategies that can be addressed by digital and mobile capabilities. They demonstrate how best practices in information and customer experience embedded in Infosys' Semiconductor Digital Engagement Maturity Model can deliver a competitive advantage.
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The longstanding silos within organizations may be ready for busting, and the right IT strategy can facilitate the collaboration needed to break them down, even extending to suppliers, customers, and partners, integrating all processes from idea to delivery. This paper features an interview with SAP’s heads of solution marketing for product lifecycle management and for supply chain management about the idea-to-delivery concept.
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Today’s “new normal” business environment demands a new view of what customers value and an improved approach to delivering that value. The idea to delivery (I2D) framework posits that multiple companies now compete as a business network rather than as individual enterprises, each relying on the others to achieve collective success. This paper includes an action plan with the evolutionary steps companies can take to move toward this approach.
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When food manufacturer Unigate (now Uniq plc) embarked on a multi-million–pound plan to update the manufacturing and financial systems at its factories in the United Kingdom, it needed a system that would provide flexibility in production without loss of efficiency. The company chose Solarsoft’s Tropos ERP, which was particularly strong on recipe management—the core of Uniq’s business. Read about Uniq’s benefits with Tropos.
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When whisky distiller Morrison Bowmore saw that its old information technology (IT) system could no longer cope with its rapidly expanding business, it knew it had to future-proof its business and replace the system with a mix of packaged and bespoke software. See how Tropos ERP, Tropos Whisky Workbench, and Tropos Active helped the company improve the management of its blending and bottling processes, among other benefits.
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To meet rigorous traceability requirements, pharmaceutical manufacturers must arm themselves with the right tools, processes, and insight to uncover and report every element along the supply chain—from origin, all the way to the shelf. And, the cost of all this insight can’t be a barrier to enterprise financial success. If you’re ready to take traceability to the next level, there are a few things you’ll need to know.
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As a manufacturer your fate is tied to your ERP system. Whether you use a homegrown system, a generic, stand-alone ERP package, or a highly modified best-of-breed solution with a patchwork of third-party applications, there is a risk that your solution will become outdated and will not be able to meet the needs of your business. If this is the case, here are three major reasons to help you justify an ERP system replacement.
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Production has stopped at your establishment due to an issue with one of your ingredients. It would be so much easier if everyone had access to the required information with a simple push of a button. As a food and beverage manufacturer, you have unique industry requirements. This white paper from Solarsoft explores why an integrated ERP system specific to your industry may be better suited than a generic ERP system.
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For many manufacturers, traceability is a valiant goal. But, for food and beverage producers, it’s a critical requirement. No one wants to put a single person at risk, let alone tens or hundreds. Yet, incidents of food-borne illnesses show up in the news every day. If your company is ready to tackle traceability as a legitimate problem, and stop viewing it as a trendy buzzword, there are four things you’ll need to know.
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PTC Windchill 10 is TEC Certified for online evaluation of core product lifecycle management (PLM) for discrete industries solutions in the Core PLM for Discrete Industries Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Sage 300 ERP (formerly Sage ERP Accpac) 6.0 is TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for services in the ERP Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Advanced Projects for Microsoft Dynamics AX v.4.0 from Adeaca is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of product portfolio management (PPM) for professional services automation (PSA) in TEC's PPM for PSA Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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PTC Windchill 10 is TEC Certified for online evaluation product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions in the PLM Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that address the needs of service industries such as advertising agencies represent a growing market. Although there are exceptions, business software vendors still approach the industry with a generalized set of functionality. This report aims to establish the areas of product functionality that this industry requires and identify a strategy vendors might take to improve the fit of their solutions to this market.
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This paper discusses the requirements for coupled structural-acoustic simulation and demonstrates the application of this technology to cell-phone
acoustic design. Due to the smaller volume sizes, the low frequency response of the cell phone is affected. The frequency response rolls off faster at low frequencies when smaller microphone back volumes are used. The present work deals with studying this effect on a simple cell phone model with the finite element package, Abaqus. The results from the simulation can be used to better design cell phone cavities for optimum performance.
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Accept360 by Accept Corporation is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of product development and portfolio management solutions in the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Sage ERP X3 v.6 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for distribution in the ERP Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Kraft’s brand portfolio contains many of the world’s favorite snack foods, including Oreo, Ritz, DiGiorno and Kool-Aid. Kraft’s challenge: to ensure consistent flavor and appearance by regulating production processes and measuring the flavor, color, aroma, and other attributes of each product. The solution: two new SAS-powered applications featuring SAS/IntrNet. Learn more about how Kraft get more out of its sensory data than ever before.
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‘GreenSky’ is an end-to-end Carbon Emissions Reporting and Compliance solution for Aviation that covers all aspects of the European Union’s mandate on the Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). With an integrated approach of automated monitoring, reporting, and pre-verification, the solution is a comprehensive framework that offers a rapid deployment methodology for airlines to achieve the most effective means of compliance.
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Today’s manufacturing enterprises gain a key competitive advantage by implementing an extremely strong shop floor control system. See how a comprehensive ERP solution offers manufacturers a clear view of what is happening on their shop floor, and how truly integrated information lets manufacturers increase productivity, reduce scrap and total work-in-process inventory, and gain dramatic increases in production throughput.
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For manufacturers that lack a well-structured product lifecycle management (PLM) program, the instantaneous flow of information only speeds up confusion, duplication of effort, and poor decision making. Find out how a SaaS-based ERP solution is essential for creating an effective, comprehensive integrated PLM program that improves productivity, accuracy, and decision making—and ultimately increases company profitability.
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In just a few short years, social media has revolutionized the way people communicate and share information. For apparel companies, going social is no longer an option; it is a strategic business element that provides them the opportunity to collect detailed information on users and their habits, elicit real feedback and suggestions, and refine their offering and messaging to better suit user demands.
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Project-based solutions (PBS) is a new type of enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for complex, engineer-to-order companies and companies facing rapid change. And these days, most companies do face change, and their legacy ERP systems strain to keep up. Is PBS a better choice for you than traditional ERP?
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Promoting band image, improving overall business performance, and keeping customers happy is a main concern of many businesses. This paper demonstrates how the Extended Enterprise platform can help specific verticals to promote and sell their products to external audiences. Know the value of the Extended Enterprise solution in financial services, insurance, government, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and associations.
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SmartOrg Portfolio Navigator is TEC Certified for online evaluation of product development and portfolio management (PD&PM) solutions in the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Fashion brands and retailers are learning that simply changing processes isn’t enough to add value to their business, turning to product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions to help meet growing demands for innovative products while strengthening brands and profitability. Learn why the fashion business and creative processes must be integrated at every step of the product lifecycle to result in breakthrough improvement.
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Portfolio management provides insight into what is the best way to distribute resources among the various innovative options/projects to ensure that a maximum yield is realized against acceptable risks; there is a good fit between the projects and the various strategic themes; and there is a good mix between the various types of projects. Read this paper to learn about the different approaches used n portfolio management.
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Rapid implementation is key to achieving rapid benefits. How can an industry that expects a slow return on investment speed up the process? Centric believes that customers should expect to see meaningful returns on product lifecycle management (PLM) investments within a product cycle, or four to six months. Learn the principles behind Centric’s rapid implementation methodology and how one customer reaped rapid benefits.
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Loss of strategic vision and leadership can pose a greater threat to organizations than dramatic economic downturn. Companies that invest in technology wisely will gain a competitive advantage and even prosper during hard times. Achieving financial results hinges on finding a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution that delivers business benefits not only in the short-term but also long into the future. Read how now.
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The PLM product Lectra Fashion PLM (V2R2) is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of fashion product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions in TEC's PLM Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Integrated water resources management (IWRM) is a framework that supports collaboration and fosters proactive decision making for efficient management of scarce water resources. GoldSim is a software tool for conducting simulations of complex systems to support management and decision making in engineering, science, and business. This paper provides a brief overview of GoldSim, with special emphasis on IWRM applications.
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Creating high-value portfolios is simpler when the factors that create and destroy value for a project are clearly identified, quantified, and managed over the life of the project. Focusing on portfolio and project value throughout the product lifecycle can unlock the hidden potential missing in many portfolio management processes. Learn how product portfolio management (PPM) solutions can help you quantify project value.
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Hewlett Packard (HP) is a leader in innovation. The success of its merger with Compaq created an opportunity to develop entirely new areas of the business. Executives recognized that this would require exploring radically new ideas and managing the tremendous uncertainty surrounding moving into new businesses. Discover how implementing new project evaluation processes and software helped them deal with this challenge.
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CXInsight for Electronics (v5.2.0) from Adeon Software House is now TEC Certified for online comparison of discrete product lifecycle management (PLM) software in TEC's Evaluation Centers. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Ultimate Software is in a very competitive market. Its continued success is fueled by relentlessly delivering new products and incremental innovation. A few years ago, the company’s strategic initiatives were to evolve of their software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model and launch new features targeted to medium sized enterprises. Learn how a new product portfolio management (PPM) solution helped Ultimate Software reach its goals.
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All too often, telecom companies try to innovate in scattershot ways that make it difficult to identify market opportunities. They dedicate valuable resources to developing services, only to see these services fail in the marketplace. That’s why telecom companies need to implement better approaches to innovation. Learn about effective processes for identifying, developing, and bringing innovative services to market.
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Outsourcing of software development work requires careful considerations and practices to alleviate the potential challenges involved. This white paper summarizes the challenges and describes Code Rocket: a software visualization and documentation system that offers assistance for supporting recommended best practices for outsourcing.
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For most distribution companies, managing operating expenses has a far bigger impact on the business than simply pouring more revenue into the top of the funnel. In today’s tough times, operating expenses have moved to the center of the boardroom table and the top of the agenda. Learn what the five main value drivers in distribution are, and find out how to avoid seven common distribution and wholesale “sins.”
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For industries in regulated environments, validation of processes and systems is a required part of business. The goal of the validation process is to provide confidence in a process or system by demonstrating consistent and repeatable results through documented evidence. This article provides an overview of a validation for a computer software system, for compliance with US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations.
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Today’s businesses are operating in a global marketplace. Not only are customers and competitors located worldwide, but employees, suppliers, contractors, and partners are, too. Learn how global product development (GPD) initiatives can help your company accelerate time-to-market, reduce product development costs, maximize productivity, enhance product quality, drive innovation, and optimize operational efficiencies.
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Selecting a product lifecycle management (PLM) system can be a challenge if a company is not aware of the options available on the market. But if an organization starts by understanding what the technology should address, and further understands the needs of its unique business and market segment, it can select a PLM tool that makes product development more efficient, and can help transform the organization. Find out how.
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Over the past several year, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and product lifecycle management (PLM) have developed into critical success factors for manufacturers—with each bringing unique value to the enterprise. Learn how ERP and PLM, when combined, provide a wholly collaborative environment that has a major impact on successful product development performance and the ability to maintain a competitive advantage.
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XEI Scientific Inc. was looking for a way to bring order to its product information and instill discipline to make sure it had a solid product development process in place. The company also needed a location to store and manage its product documentation. Learn how XEI chose a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution that helped improve development process and provided the required data management capabilities.
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When Edge Products’ new management team saw that the company’s manual engineering processes were not conducive to its constantly changing product design environment, they immediately sought to improve change and part control processes. Learn how a new product lifecycle management (PLM) solution helped Edge reduce rework, control change processes, decrease warranty costs, and cut product return rates by 50 percent.
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With over 150 people in its product development teams working to deliver a number of highly customized product lines, crystal and optical component manufacturer Crystal Technology Inc. needed to revisit its product development processes, and find ways to improve efficiency. Learn how a new product lifecycle management (PLM) system helped the company reduce engineering change cycles by 16 percent and save $250,000.
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Astronics Advanced Electronic Systems was having problems with its product development processes. The company’s home-grown system of Windows folders, Excel files, and Access databases was causing data inconsistencies that led to costly rework. Learn how Astronics chose a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution that eliminated data inconsistencies, streamlined communication, and helped save the company time and money.
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Electronics manufacturing is one of the most complex manufacturing processes. Special software functionality is required to manage information throughout the supply chain, collaborate with subcontractors, and minimize development time. Learn about product lifecycle management (PLM) and product data management (PDM) solutions that provide the right data management functionality for electronics manufacturers.
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In today’s challenging economic environment, forward-thinking companies are looking at technology solutions that can help them weather the economic storm, and deliver long-term performance benefits. Discover four key trends that are relevant to today’s economic situation, and learn how leading retailers and brands are embracing product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions to enhance bottom-line efficiency.
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With the promise of transforming the way products are developed, product lifecycle management (PLM) is one of the fastest growing areas of technology investment for retailers and brands alike. Best-practice experience shows that the most successful PLM implementations are initiated to support an organization’s key strategic objectives, and ultimately improve profitability through enhanced operational efficiency. Find out more.
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This IDC Vendor Profile focuses on PTC’s FlexPLM product for the retail, footwear, and apparel (RFA) industry—a product that leverages the product lifecycle management (PLM) capabilities of PTC’s Windchill product line. Find out about PTC’s entrance into the RFA market, its acquisition of Aptavis, and its customer collaborations with companies such as Nike, Liz Claiborne, and Nordstrom for continuing product development.
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With demand for its products growing rapidly, Chinese motorcycle maker Grand River needed to ramp up scalable production capacity and respond to market requirements quickly. At the same time, the company needed to ensure compliance with environmental regulations, ensure quality assurance, and lower overall product costs. Learn how a new manufacturing process management (MPM) system helped Grand River achieve its goals.
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With its globally distributed operations, Stiebel Eltron—a manufacturer of high-end heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment—needed to streamline its processes and rationalize data management so teams could work together faster and more efficiently. Discover how implementing new product data management (PDM) and visualization solutions helped the company stimulate new product introductions.
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There is an increasing acceptance among apparel brands and retailers of the fact that product lifecycle management (PLM) applications can streamline the product development process. Although the benefits are apparent, there are questions about the best approach and investments to drive PLM across the organization. This white paper discusses a phased approach for accelerated PLM adoption in an enterprise.
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Parametric Technology Corporation's (PTC's) product lifecycle management (PLM) solution, Windchill 9.0, is now TEC Certified. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations who rely on the integrity of TEC’s research services for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this 28-page TEC report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Business process management (BPM) and process improvement support the management and continuous improvement of business processes, both cross-departmental and enterprise-wide. How can you empower the transformation to lean and manage business operations in the various stages of its transformation, and manage the transition to lean? Learn about a BPM solution that employs lean Six Sigma for faster process improvements.
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Supplier of bearings, seals, and lubrication systems, SKF works closely with its customers to develop products. As such, accurate product data and efficient collaboration—especially in SKF’s automotive division—are crucial. Currently, SKF uses PTC’s Windchill product lifecycle management (PLM) solution suite to manage document sharing, support of internal product development processes, and more. Learn about the benefits.
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Herstal designs, manufactures, and distributes a range of firearms, and has a long history of using product lifecycle management (PLM) and product data management (PDM) technologies. In 2002, the company implemented PTC’s product development suite for its product management needs. With PTC’s software, it reduced research and development (R&D) costs while delivering more products over a shorter period of time. Learn more.
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SharePoint has been well adopted in manufacturing companies as a backbone for Office applications, mainly for document sharing and management. Windchill ProductPoint can enable SharePoint to understand and store complex computer-aided design (CAD) data, and extend SharePoint’s reach into product development. Learn more about the capabilities of the Windchill ProductPoint product lifecycle management (PLM) system.
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With 2008 sales of over $10 billion, a global process manufacturer realized that strategic focus on pricing was critical to enhancing its competitiveness and overall profitability. A key element of the company’s pricing and profitability initiative was to invest in an enterprise-wide pricing solution, to take advantage of ongoing pricing opportunities. Find out about the price management solution the company chose.
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Many of today’s product lifecycle management (PLM)-enabling technologies allow complex information to be shared by dispersed teams of people. Product data management (PDM) technology is used to organize and provide access to your intellectual assets. PLM, its collaborative Product Definition management (cPDm) capabilities, and other solutions can help you go beyond asynchronous data sharing. Find out how.
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Developing, launching, supporting—and profiting—from new products is a challenge. You need to integrate business processes and product data across the product development, data management, design, and analysis applications that make up the extended product lifecycle management (PLM) suite. If you’re looking to identify best-in-class approaches to integrating disparate applications, this report can help you get started.
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The need for innovation is gaining prominence on the executive agenda. But, just how do organizations identify the most promising ideas and translate these ideas into successful products? Learn the answer to this question by examining how leading companies empower their innovators with tools and strategies that allow them to leverage ideas and knowledge to develop a steady stream of new and profitable products.
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Traditionally, change management in product development and engineering has been viewed as a way to control cost and improve efficiencies. But companies are becoming aware that better change can drive top-line benefits—and are developing processes with an eye towards improving speed-to-market. Find out why good change management is becoming more important—and how you can use it as a tool to increase product profitability.
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Electro-mechanical design continues to gain importance, as the majority of today’s products have both electrical and mechanical components and systems. Designing and stimulating these products collaboratively across both domains is essential to producing high quality products. Learn how implementing an electro-computer-aided design (ECAD) and mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD) strategy—now—can help you later.
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Many manufacturers are incorporating embedded systems into their products to meet the growing demand. While this approach offers exciting opportunities for innovation, it also adds a level of complexity to products that have zero tolerance for bugs and must beat the competition to market. But companies that successfully address these challenges are seeing higher profitability—in spite of the current economy. Find out why.
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Product development has never been easy, but in today’s global market, the pressures facing industrial manufacturers are even greater. With more stakeholders involved in the product development process, collaboration and communication are key to competitive advantage. Your challenge: bring all the stakeholders in the same room—in real time. Discover how to succeed by increasing innovation and speeding time-to-market.
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Product development is a mission-critical process. And it can also be very expensive. But thanks to modern computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided engineering (CAE), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), and product lifecycle management (PLM) systems, many manufacturing companies now have the tools that allow better alignment of cost and value-add. This is what’s referred to as “global product development.” Learn more.
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Design globalization—and the access it provides to new markets, talents, and resources around the world—offers many opportunities to manufacturers today. Tapping into this growing network of suppliers and partners does bring risks and challenges. You can achieve best-in-class performance in a global design environment and achieve greater profitability. Find out the product design strategies of best-in-class manufacturers.
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Rich’s legacy IT systems could not interoperate with platforms and applications among departments, preventing a single, centralized view of the product development process and limiting collaboration. The company decided it needed a new product lifecycle management (PLM) system to integrate and accelerate PLM processes. Rich’s new system supports research and development (R&D), formula management, and more.
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For many consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, the environment is too complex to implement a new business process without upgrading the IT systems that support that process. Taking a consumer approach to upgrading can help. You need to seek out solutions that fit your CPG environment, can keep up with continual innovation, and more. But you always need to be thinking ahead. Learn more about developing an IT roadmap.
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Business process management (BPM) is an approach to administering business processes that involves people, organizations, and technologies—and can be carried out using varying levels of automation. Sadly, BPM often falls short of what it is intended to achieve. But there’s a fresh evolution of current BPM: goal-oriented autonomic BPM. Learn about the ideas, techniques, and benefits of autonomic and goal-oriented BPM.
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Efforts to improve the efficiency and maturity of a quality assurance (QA) or test organization have largely been academic exercises, and difficult to apply to real-world software development environments. Today, with newer methods such as the Testing Maturity Model (TMM), it’s easier to assess, implement, and improve test processes. Learn about fresh techniques for assessing the effectiveness of QA organizations.
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Today’s technology and application leaders are pressured to deliver functionality that drives efficiency, innovation, and growth—while reducing costs. As a result, technology and application portfolio management (APM) are top business priorities. Learn about a framework for implementing an APM program that can enable your company to monitor and analyze the impact of application changes and reduce portfolio complexity.
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For many projects, the transition from initiative to production is chaotic and lacks a pragmatic framework for ongoing support. Inheritance Engineering offers a means for carrying out change in a reliable fashion and retaining as much value as possible throughout the life of the software. Unfortunately, this does not occur for a variety of reasons. Find out what those reasons are, and how to address software maintenance.
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Everything manufacturing executives thought they knew about project management and operations management is changing. Now, project managers may be connecting elements of an ongoing enterprise with a project in order to achieve certain defined goals, or use projects in a recurring way. Discover the many benefits manufacturers can realize by adopting a management-by-project approach with project-centric ERP software.
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Extending the capabilities and value of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse is a concern for users. To improve data use and fact-based decision making, and reduce stranded spreadsheets, SAP users can choose a business intelligence (BI) software solution such as IBM Cognos 8, with budgeting, planning, and forecasting functions. Find out more about how you can improve your business performance management content with BI.
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The global march toward making products and services more sustainable is gaining breadth and speed. No manufacturer will be left untouched by this phenomenon. To thrive in this new low-carbon world, you need to have a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of your products’ environmental footprint—from raw materials to manufacturing to distribution to end of life. Learn about life cycle methodologies that can help.
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To reduce time to market and realize the full value of its intellectual property, Cadbury plc needed to ensure compliance with government regulations. The company launched a long-term data management strategy, which included storing all data in a central repository—a product lifecycle management (PLM) system. Find out how Cadbury not only ensured compliance but also improved its response to consumer and customer queries.
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As consumer demand drops, many companies are being forced to lay off staff. That might help in the short term, but those companies still have to keep operations going, reduce costs, keep profits up, and produce high-quality products—only now with far fewer people. This in-depth guide offers nine product development strategies for your company to weather this downturn and prepare for the eventual economic rebound.
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As a successful, rapidly growing apparel company with seven separate divisions, Maggy London needed to streamline its product development lifecycle, improve communications, and eliminate duplication of work. Find out how the company was able to select product lifecycle management (PLM), global sourcing, and inventory control solutions that helped it streamline daily operations and become a more efficient organization.
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Recently introduced Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) regulations include labor-intensive safety and testing guidelines for children’s products, footwear, and apparel. Brands and retailers that may have slashed jobs in response to the weak economy must meet these regulations with fewer people. Learn about solutions that help your company make compliance part of a comprehensive supply chain strategy.
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While the virtues of encrypting PC data are extolled by vendors and the press alike, some painful truths go largely unmentioned. Whether necessary for compliance or state breach disclosure law, or for doing business in a state requiring it, encryption is necessary but difficult. Learn where existing encryption solutions are failing, and find out how emerging tools and trends can make encryption better, and easier.
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The requirements of operating in a global, just-in-time (JIT) market have made supply chains much more complex than they were 10 years ago. Much of the software meant to assist in managing this complexity has itself become too complex to use—and too expensive to cost-justify. Discover the benefits of using a less complex supply chain solution that better supports a collaborative effort along your supply chain.
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Too often, manufacturers implement technology for financial reporting, but overlook efficiencies that can generate cash flow and reduce costs on the shop floor. While credit won’t cure the credit crunch manufacturers are facing, automated processes that improve cash flow and keep lenders in the loop can go a long way in convincing lenders that their risk is low. Find out more about how automated systems can help you.
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Like all fast-growing companies, Ruckus Wireless needed to continue to innovate quickly, speed products to market, manage costs, and meet quality and regulatory compliance requirements—while ramping up its infrastructure to manage the orders, requests, and relationships resulting from its growth. Ruckus looked for—and found—a solution to help it avoid costly errors related to manual processes. The new solution allows the extended enterprise to view and update product information, and more.
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As a contract manufacturer, Western Electronics makes assemblies for its customers. This translates into a huge volume of data being exchanged—and an exponentially greater number of engineering changes to manage. The company was challenged to take control over its processes—especially bill of materials (BOM) management—and lead its customers into following best practices. With its new change management solution, the company is confident it has an accurate history and the latest revisions.
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Since 1996, Air International US (AIUS) has used an outsourced manufacturing strategy instead of maintaining its own facilities. For the first few years, communication between AIUS and its outsourced partners was manual, which formed a barrier preventing the company from maximizing its contract manufacturing strategy. To improve outsourcing processes, AIUS chose a change management solution with bill of materials (BOM) management and a software-as-a-service architecture. Learn more.
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Planning to expand, Align—a medical device manufacturer—identified electronic document management as a vital component of growth. One goal was to reduce the time needed to process change orders, as its current processes were all manual. After the vendor selection process, Align chose a change management solution that offers fully compliant and redundant protection for the company’s data. Learn more about the benefits that helped Align save $250,000 (USD) in administration costs.
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Pixel Velocity, provider of video automation systems to governments and other organizations, grew from having one supplier to having dozens with which they needed to collaborate and source hundreds of components. Knowing operations were becoming too complex to be supported on spreadsheets, the company decided that using a dedicated collaborative bill of materials (BOM) and change management solution would be the smartest choice. Learn about the on-demand solution Pixel now uses.
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Understanding the nature and scope of the sustainability challenge—as well as the attendant opportunities and risks—is of growing importance to firms around the globe. Companies that don’t get involved in the debate risk hurting their own finances, as well as the environment and social conditions worldwide. Learn more about developing a sustainability policy that balances stakeholder demand with social responsibility.
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Promising to transform the way products are developed, product lifecycle management (PLM) is one of the fastest-growing areas of technology investment for retailers and brands alike. But why should your company consider PLM? Find out why successful PLM implementations are initiated to support key strategic objectives, and how PLM can ultimately improve your profitability through enhanced operational efficiency.
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Stiff competition, declining profit margins, and changing consumer requirements have made mass customization necessary. But time-strapped customers don’t tolerate long sales cycles or unnecessary complexity. A self-service product configurator is one way to give customers what they want, and in a short period of time. Discover the three signs your product configurator may not be meeting your—or your customers’—needs.
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Deutsche Woolworth has been in business for over 75 years. After splitting off from its American parent company, the company’s restructuring efforts focused on purchasing processes. It was discovered that there was no purchase planning in place, and no visibility into shipments and goods en route from suppliers. The company deployed a solution that reduced inventory levels by up to 90 percent. Find out how.
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Developing a core competency in global sourcing is one of the critical business initiatives for retailers and channel masters. By understanding exactly how global sourcing strategies impact margins, retailers can develop creative product categories that push margins and profit higher. What do you need to master global sourcing techniques? What technologies should you use? Find out, with the five stages of global sourcing.
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While different business strategies have been used to insulate firms from change, chief executive officers (CEOs) are beginning to see that their companies need to become more agile in making changes to strategy, operations, and products. But turning agility from a buzzword into a business capability means measuring and managing your ability to change. Find out how CEOs can take the lead in defining what agility means.
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New data sources, unstructured data, and greater volumes of data than ever before are creating an information overload. Plus, customers’ demands for faster service stress front-office applications, while parallel demands from internal users place greater demands on back-office systems. Before you discover that your data quality has been rendered ineffective, consider adopting enterprise information management (EIM).
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MISTRAL Engines, founded in 2001, has a line of engines to meet the needs of 21st-century aviation. MISTRAL looked for a data management system that was flexible enough to adjust smoothly and on an ad hoc basis to a company in constant growth and with continuously evolving processes. Find out how its new product lifecycle management (PLM) solution helps the company throughout the full product development process.
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Hydrocontrol, manufacturer of hydraulic components for mobile applications, grew from its founding offices in Italy to being a leading player in the global market. Needing to gather the knowledge of its specialist staff and make it available throughout the company, Hydrocontrol decided to look for a solution that would automate its processes and reduce costs. Discover the product configurator solution it implemented.
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Businesses of all sizes and in all industries are finding it difficult and costly to update and modify enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems after installation. The question isn’t whether a typical ERP solution supports change, but rather at what cost? Learn what midsize companies are doing about maintaining, modifying, and updating their ERP systems post-implementation, and what you could be doing better.
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To successfully meet compliance demands, pharmaceutical manufacturers must develop, implement, and track the effectiveness of a company-wide compliance strategy. Key to that strategy is to adopt industry-specific enterprise software with functionality that supports Federal Drug Administration (FDA) requirements. Learn more about the criteria and recommendations you need to achieve compliance in the pharmaceutical industry.
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Electronic connections with corporate customers determine much of a bank’s competitive differentiation and cost structure. But many banks are held back by outdated file transfer systems, which make it difficult to reliably connect to clients and rapidly deliver new services. Learn how using a managed file transfer platform can help banks simplify data transfers, lower costs, and deliver compelling services to customers.
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As EXEX Jewelry began to grow, the company’s founder realized her existing system of tracking transactions couldn’t keep pace. And increasingly, large retailers demanded that all transactions be completed via electronic data interchange (EDI) and that product information be uploaded to a centralized, third-party repository. Find out how EXEX has improved efficiency and increased product data accuracy with an EDI solution.
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Many companies recognize the need for project portfolio management (PPM) and implement a solution, but encounter cultural resistance to the initiative. Yet other companies can integrate PPM with virtually no resistance. The difference is the readiness for and acceptance of change in the company. Learn how to avoid the pitfalls, adhere to proven best practices, and realize the benefits and huge return on investment (ROI).
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IT service delivery departments today need to keep spending under control without compromising service quality—running a very tight technical and operational ship is vital. Achieving this involves at least three components of application management. Find out what they are, and how you can reduce costs and maximize staff productivity while managing the change process for the Oracle E-Business Suite.
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In hard economic times, IT organizations can maintain operational excellence and sustain service quality while still reducing costs. Achieving this objective involves at least three aspects of application management: managing change, managing technical performance, and managing user performance. Learn more about managing the change process in your PeopleSoft environment, and the value of an integrated change solution.
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Server-based computing has been seen at best as a way to provide those within highly task-based environments with a controlled desktop environment. However, changes in software, hardware, security, and management systems are driving the shift toward server-based computing being suitable for a larger proportion of a company’s user base. Learn how client-side computing can be more tightly controlled yet provide flexibility.
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Whatever you’re building, your company’s success relies on your development team’s success. The path to building great software is through requirements management. Companies that embrace this concept experience fewer errors and frustration, faster planning and development cycles—and they’re able to deliver higher quality products. Learn about seven essential tips for success with requirements management.
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Electronics enterprises must respond to business drivers such as reduced time to market, technological innovation, and distributed operations and cost control to remain competitive. Effective collaboration among internal engineering and manufacturing, as well as external suppliers and distributors, requires great effort. But an engineering collaboration solution can help teams work together in real time. Learn how.
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North American process manufacturers face increasing challenges related to heightened security, pricing pressures, global competition, and rising costs. Thus, continuous improvement of processes is imperative to remaining competitive. How close is your company to world-class? And how focused are you on process improvement? Find out how get started on a process improvement strategy that will have long-term benefits.
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Collecting, organizing, and reporting refrigerant gas usage is challenging and loaded with complexity. Often system auditing is confusing, and it’s difficult to remain in compliance with constantly changing regulations. Find out why staying in compliance is so important, and how you can save money, reduce emissions, and retain critical assets. Thrive in a carbon-constrained world while managing your refrigerants.
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Today’s executives have more challenges and concerns than ever, from compliance to use of technology. To thrive and ultimately excel within a competitive landscape, an organization must have a technology framework capable of meeting today’s marketplace requirements while positioning the company for future growth and challenges. Find out how to better leverage technology investments and become a best-run business.
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Want to know more about distributed agile best practices for software development projects? Find out about the challenges and lessons learned from this implementation of distributed agile for teams distributed across US, Europe, and India. Discover how this large, globally distributed project for a large telecom vendor realized such benefits as better collaboration, higher quality product, and on-time delivery.
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Today, business is driven to change per customers’ needs, and IT organizations must be strategic partners with the lines of business. Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices are gaining popularity as one way to manage change. However, implementing ITIL best practices in an IT organization is not without challenges. Learn about the approaches that can be used for successful ITIL implementation.
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Best practices in technology can help manufacturers of complex products and equipment get their offerings to market more quickly and profitably by enabling them to become more cost effective and efficient. But there are still challenges to be overcome, due to product life cycle complexity. Discover the best practices that can help you make the product and make it right, on time, and within budget—while making a profit.
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The wave of e-sourcing that began a decade ago resembled a “crash diet:” it had an immediate and noticeable effect on enterprises. Today’s challenge is to develop new programs that can sustain the benefits of e-sourcing and “keep the weight off.” Find out how employing advanced sourcing strategies can help you positively impact product development cycles, build stronger supplier relationships, and make better decisions.
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In today’s marketplace, creating sustainable growth requires constant innovation. Innovations—in both product features and service delivery—are increasingly important as a means of differentiating yourself from the competition. Either you invest in innovations or risk losing market share to a competitor. In this webcast, you’ll find out what’s happening globally that makes investing in innovative technology important.
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By automating and optimizing business processes, companies gain the efficiency, clarity, and flexibility they need to support the creative development of products and services. Employees in such an environment spend less time on mundane business tasks, focusing instead on generating new ideas and innovative products. Learn how integrated software solutions can help you invest and innovate to sustain your company’s growth.
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Even in tough economic times, innovative small-to-midsized companies can still find opportunities for growth. Technology and business software solutions like enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), product lifecycle management (PLM), and supplier relationship management (SRM) can help your company ride out the global economic downturn. Find out how.
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Most midsize manufacturers are as capital-intensive and as subject to global cost and price pressures as large companies—yet they lack the resources to exploit revenue and sourcing opportunities around the globe. However, many midsize manufacturers are optimistic about growth prospects in spite of rising costs and downward price pressure, according to a recent study. Find out how they plan to overcome these challenges.
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American Crane & Equipment Corporation (ACECO) designs and manufactures electric overhead traveling cranes. Managing and tracking custom projects for accurate job costing is key—but ACECO’s legacy system involved labor-intensive, manual manipulation of data. ACECO saw that real-time job cost data was vital to operational performance. It found a solution with integrated functionality for all process operations. Learn more.
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In today’s market, customers have no patience for companies that let their size and complex product lines slow them down. The challenge for communication service providers (CSPs) is to leverage their size and complex service offerings to keep pace with competitors. Discover how a next-generation configuration solution can provide you with the tools and the service agility you need to meet and exceed customer expectations.
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Midsize food and beverage companies are striving to be more things to more markets, while ensuring consistent customer satisfaction and regulatory compliance. This industry is experiencing unprecedented opportunities at a time when reliability, quality, and food safety are growing concerns. Learn how business systems that tightly integrate vertical operations have helped these companies achieve a competitive advantage.
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Today’s methods for reusing design can add needed speed to the entire product development process. By using the design of an existing part or assembly as a starting point for a newer part or assembly, you can save time while reducing the risk of making fundamental design errors. Learn how to overcome the challenges of optimizing design reuse, by building a reuse library of metadata that automates information retrieval.
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Manufacturers know that production scrap can come from just about anywhere: from the ordered parts that don’t fit into a finished assembly, or from a physical prototype you’ve used and discarded. Whatever the case, the scrap—and any rework needed to fix the problem—costs you time or money, or both. Learn how you can overcome the most serious causes of production scrap with a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution.
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Master data is instrumental in determining how an organization produces, buys, and sells its goods and services. Inaccurate master data can lead to improper business decisions, loss of revenue, and noncompliance with regulatory and quality mandates. Find out how an Enterprise data management (EDM) strategy can help your company avoid these pitfalls by achieving clean, consolidated, and consistent master data.
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One of the riskiest moves company stakeholders can make is to acquire and merge with another company or to divest themselves of company assets. Despite the best of intentions, many mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures produce results far below expectations. Learn why failure happens, and how to prevent it by following the overriding best practice in successful acquisitions, mergers, and divestitures: preparedness.
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Companies producing and selling complex and configured products can achieve a major competitive edge by successfully implementing product configurator software as a core element of a configurability strategy. This can provide a greater range of product variations, using fewer resources. Learn more about how you can gain the intended benefits from implementing a configurability strategy with product configurator software.
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The constant launch of new telecommunications products creates stiff competition, and to manage increasingly complex product portfolios, you should ensure your processes are optimized, your data is accurate, and your solutions are integrated. The first business area you should focus on is order management. Find out how you can better address the challenges of the order-to-cash cycle, decomposition, provisioning, and more.
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A premium aluminum boat builder struggled to fit into a standard enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. But the company found it difficult to schedule and track engineer-to-order (ETO) jobs, and it was wasting a lot of time duplicating efforts. Also, it needed effective communication between computer-aided design (CAD) and ERP systems. Read about the solution that helped the company streamline its processes.
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A fast-growing robotics product manufacturer needed to track an extremely large inventory of individual products. A daily expanding product line presented even greater hurdles for inventory management, and meeting on-time delivery goals. The company’s old enterprise resource planning (ERP) system wasn’t keeping up, so the company moved to a system that allows more options for product customization and more. Learn how.
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When your quality control plan is complex because there are many features to control—and it involves many people—you need to pay special attention to your quality control process. Also, a complex plan places high demands on your software solution. Discover how an online integrated factory information system can work across production, job tracking, spoilage, and quality to support all of your quality control processes.
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Are you on the front lines of product development and project management, and tired of seeing the same project failure statistics? Are you ready to do something to change your approach to requirements management? Then read about the three most common myths (plus a bonus myth) associated with requirements management, and how you can dispel them once and for all—for more successful products and project outcomes.
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The results of a recent industry survey shed light on the latest trends, challenges, and solutions in software product development for 2008. If you are involved in the planning and development of products, software applications, or systems, this report can help you gain insight into the biggest challenges in innovation, the top barriers to success, which metrics matter most when measuring success, and more.
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Companies spend millions each year conducting mandatory training for audits, the risk of noncompliance, internal training requirements, and a plethora of other reasons. Manual training processes increase a company’s risk of noncompliance—and can be redundant. Read the 10 steps that can help you develop an enterprise-wide compliance training strategy, to reduce the costs and the compliance risks of mandatory training.
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Software developers need a powerful tool to control and plan the quality of their software applications. With a solution that offers project analysis, testing, and bug administration, you have options that can help increase the quality of your software products. Read about a software test tool that has administrative functions to help you more effectively plan, control, and evaluate your software as it’s developed.
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To stay ahead of the competition, medical device manufacturers must find ways to speed product development, create manufacturing efficiencies, and increase the effectiveness of sales and marketing investments—while addressing product safety and regulatory compliance. Read about a solution that incorporates best practices while maintaining the flexibility to support the evolving needs of your growing medical device company.
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Do distributors always have to settle for a trade-off between cost management and customer service? Is it impossible to keep costs down, yet still respond to customer needs and provide high-value products? Cost control needn’t impinge on customer service, and in fact, efficient processes can result in happier customers. How to use an integrated business management system to promote efficiency isn’t a secret—learn more.
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IT administrators need to simplify both complex and routine tasks to deliver increasing value with limited resources. Data center automation can help minimize the duties associated with maintaining the existing infrastructure. Learn about a solution that can enable automated batch processing for more efficient operations, and integrate the diverse application and platform environments often found in today’s data centers.
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Maybe you’re considering software test tools for the first time. Or maybe you have experience but think your existing software test automation process needs retooling. Whatever your perspective, there are tips and tricks you may not know about test design and development. These 10 steps to building software test automation can help you shorten your time to market, improve the quality of your products, and save you money.
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Integrating UNIX, Linux, Mac, Web, and database platforms includes securing all systems with the same authentication, authorization, and group policy services you use for Windows. How can this be done, without intrusive reconfiguration of your existing systems, while still providing the necessary granular administrative control? Learn how to leverage a centralized identity management tool leveraged with Active Directory.
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Ever stricter guidelines and policies to ensure the safety of the US food supply mean many food company executives need to assess their methods of minimizing food safety incidents. Existing “one-up” or “one-back” measures no longer go far enough. Make sure you get a wider view: find out how multi-dimensional traceability (MDT) can help collect and analyze information at every step in the food production process chain.
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Spreadsheets are great for accounting, but they simply don’t cut it when you need to build realistic and dynamic models of complex business and engineering systems. What can you do when your calculations—and your need for visibility and risk management—demand more than rows and columns? Create and manipulate data and equations, and predict the future behavior of systems, with a flexible, object-based simulation platform.
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For most businesses, the subject of regulatory compliance and risk management usually evokes feelings of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. But it doesn’t have to. By taking the right approach, you can turn risk management and compliance into a proactive process that will put your business at the forefront of your market and set you apart from your competitors.
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What does it take to give your clients a better customer experience? While there are many answers to that question, a common answer these days is “through a customer relationship management (CRM) portal.” Learn everything you need to know about CRM portals, including their key characteristics, the different kinds of CRM portals available, who is using them—and most importantly—how they improve customer service.
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To be successful today, companies must form and maintain strong profitable relationships with their customers. Failing to maintain a complete 360-degree view of all customers’ interactions can leave a company in a weakened competitive position. While customer relationship management (CRM) can improve customer interaction, it’s important to know which system will provide you with the best total cost of ownership (TCO).
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Most businesses recognize the strategic importance of customer relationship management (CRM), but some small to medium businesses (SMBs) continue to use basic contact managers or simple spreadsheets to track customers, manage leads, and collaborate on sales. Achieving great results requires more than just installing CRM software. Learn how assessing your business’s CRM maturity level can help build your road map to success.
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Today, financial services firms are increasingly focusing on organic growth—forcing contact centers to drive cross-selling efforts as well as strengthen customer relationships. But in order to contribute to profitable growth, they must be able to quickly identify and address customers in a personalized fashion and present offers that are highly relevant. Discover how a customer interaction optimization solution can help.
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Maximizing transparency and control over travel and expense (T&E) management is essential in a compliant-conscious market. Purpose-built software and on-demand services are part of a best-practices approach that help with not only streamlining your processes, but also analysis and reporting. Find out what you need to know about automated T&E solutions—and how they can help you reduce your risk of noncompliance.
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Customer relationship management (CRM) software can work as a strategic business initiative to help companies accelerate sales while enabling staff to satisfy every customer. But your software is only as good as your business processes, which are good only if employees adhere to them. Monitor your team’s performance with four crucial steps—for a successful CRM implementation, and a successful and growing business.
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In today’s Internet-connected global economy, the market doesn’t allow for companies to sit back and relax into a comfortable niche. Customer loyalty is ever harder to maintain, and you risk losing your business to competition if you can’t respond quickly to market change. Before you lose any more ground, find out how to replace your disconnected, redundant business processes with flexible and efficient ones integrated by IT.
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When it comes to US Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance, safe change actions are critical. But what’s the best approach for file integrity monitoring and change detection? While there are many solutions on the market, continuous file integrity monitoring (CFIM) is winning over the competition worldwide. Find out how CFIM can handle your operational control monitoring requirements.
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If the auditors came knocking, would you be prepared? When they do come, you’ll need to be ready to answer some tough questions regarding your change management processes. Implementing and assessing change management controls for Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) compliance in the US can be a very expensive and time consuming process. Find out how you can reduce the SOX burden by improving the way you manage your change processes.
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Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) helps ensure that projects are delivered on time and within budget, and creates a system for improving accountability. Once KPIs are established, there needs to be a way to easily track this data—otherwise it will become an arduous task that may be done improperly. Learn how leveraging integrated project management software can help drive your business process improvements.
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Manufacturing industries have their own challenges to increase customer value and lower costs. How can enterprises make the most of their resources to create new market opportunities and more efficient supplier and customer networks? An enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution with transparent and hierarchical manufacturing plans can offer increased accuracy, lower inventory costs, and better supply chain performance.
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Logo Business Solutions’ enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, Unity, was implemented by several automotive parts manufacturers and suppliers. Unity’s ability to integrate with electronic data interchange (EDI) helped these companies better handle purchasing, planning, production, invoicing, reporting, and sales. Learn more about the features and functions of Unity ERP.
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The capacity of today’s storage systems is increasing at an astonishing rate. But the truth is: the more storage you have, the more you use. So, how do you create an efficient data storage system? And how much space can it really save you? Advanced single instance storage (A-SIS) deduplication can reduce storage consumption up to 95 percent—helping you conserve disk space, while keeping your system overhead low.
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Implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system—even for small to medium businesses (SMBs)—is a smart move. But depending on the type of business, there can be many different processes to integrate—making it difficult to know what type of system to choose. For growing project-based companies faced with the challenge of managing many complex projects, the ideal ERP system should be customizable yet scalable.
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It’s no longer acceptable for salespeople to respond to customers’ inquiries with “I’ll get back to you.” In the time it takes to respond, a competitor with stronger product knowledge, customized proposals, or better pricing will win your business. Find out how to provide your salespeople with the ability to explain complex manufacturing processes and other key factors—before you lose your sales to your competitors.
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Superior Quality Foods was growing, but poor inventory control was impacting its profitability. To ensure there was enough stock to meet production needs, it always ordered extra raw materials—just in case. To reduce costs and improve inventory control, Superior chose an enterprise resource planning (ERP) and mobile wireless inventory system—and since its implementation has realized 98 percent accuracy in inventory.
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Many business owners and managers wonder how to maintain visibility and control in order to keep ahead of the competition, focus on customers, and adapt to market changes. Are you worried your company will lose its competitive edge as it grows, because of an outmoded IT landscape? Keep your IT requirements simple and meet your company goals, with an on-demand solution that integrates support for all business activities.
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If you’ve ever been involved in an enterprise software implementation, you already know how challenging it can be to get it done on time and under budget. With literally thousands of technical details to keep track of, there are plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong. In the case of product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions, enterprise implementations can be even tougher. Find out how to get it done right.
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With the increasing complexity of the data center and its dependent systems, data center automation (DCA) is becoming a necessity. To replace the costly and inefficient human aspect of managing the data center, IT departments must adopt DCA solutions. Combined with utility-based computing architectures, these solutions can provide greater dynamics in the environment and facilitate speed of response to market demands.
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Manufacturers’ business needs have changed significantly over the past few years, evolving the roles that technology plays within the manufacturing process. Two key technologies—enterprise resource planning (ERP) and product lifecycle management (PLM)—have developed into key success factors for manufacturers and when combined, provide a collaborative environment that adds value and helps in maintaining a competitive edge.
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Because products ultimately define a manufacturing company’s success, product development is mission-critical by definition. It’s also expensive—in most manufacturing sectors, companies annually reinvest between 3 and 8 percent of their total revenues back into product development. Find out how to leverage global product development to gain a dramatic increase in productivity within your product development operation.
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As one of the world’s leading manufacturers of construction and mining equipment, Komatsu has enjoyed significant growth. In fact, 2004 marked the best business performance in the company’s history. Now the company is focused on accelerating product development by making better, faster decisions throughout the product lifecycle. The solution: PTC’s ProductView.
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When it comes to product lifecycle management (PLM), unreachable information is as expensive as excess inventory lying in a warehouse. That’s why ITT Industries, a multibillion-dollar manufacturing enterprise, needed desperately to reach its goal of a single source of data for everyone, everywhere. Unfortunately, the transition would require overcoming serious resistance and cultural issues. Find out how they did it.
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After adopting two-dimensional computer-aided design (2D CAD) in the 1990s, Dalian Shipyard discovered that 2D technology didn’t meet the real-world challenges facing ship designers. For example, 2D CAD could not graphically reproduce real ship design challenges, such as collisions. Dalian Shipyard needed better product lifecycle management (PLM) tools. The solution: CADDS 5i—a complete 3D CAD tool for shipbuilding.
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Asyst Technologies develops and delivers factory automation solutions for the protection, transport, handling, and management of semiconductor wafers and flat panel display glass plates. Not only did Asyst want to automate product data and document management, but it also wanted a true paperless process for tracking information and facilitating design team collaboration. Find out how Windchill PDMLink got the job done.
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Medical device manufacturers face the usual manufacturing challenges, with the added burden of having to plan, develop, test, and produce in an environment controlled by strict regulatory requirements. With paper-based systems, product lifecycle documentation adds a huge burden to an already colossal task. Find out how you can “hardwire” compliance into product development—without short-circuiting your business processes.
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Improving the content of technical publications is possible with a product development system (PDS). A PDS solution can automate and optimize the technical publishing process and can end publication bottlenecks caused by launch delays due to poor process. A PDS solution allows for concurrent development of products and publications—keeping your engineering and publishing departments in sync.
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What would you do if a critical error occurred during production—all because the wrong data was input into your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system? You’d probably be asking “how could this happen?” The ability to communicate information between teams can mean the difference between production success and failure. Avoid these snafus with a system that can integrate the data of both the design and ERP systems.
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Development and problem solving happens too often at the testing stage, once product prototypes have been built. This can be costly, both in terms of the time and the resources expended. Computer-aided design (CAD) and exercises (CAE) can address your concerns about product safety and performance, as well as augment your return on investment (ROI). Shift your product development paradigm with digital engineering tools.
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Industries involved in outsourcing and collaboration know that accurate data translation is fundamental to a project’s successful completion. Valuable engineering and manufacturing product data must be exchanged quickly and efficiently while protecting corporate assets—but with older technology, this is not always possible. Learn more about a number of integration solutions that can help you reengineer your supply chain.
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With 3-D computer-aided design (CAD) models taking on a broader and more significant role in the development of new products, CAD files must flow smoothly into downstream applications. Sometimes, however, errors do occur. An off-the-shelf software tool can detect problems in the design stage so they aren’t discovered at a crucial moment in the manufacturing process, when it may be costly—or even too late—to correct them.
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Registry cleanup is inarguably an integral component of PC maintenance. However, many PC users may be wasting time and effort cleaning their registries more often than necessary, depending on the age of their computers, as well as how often software and other utilities are installed. In order to save time and get the most out of your PC, there are a number of myths about registry cleanup you ought to dispel.
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In the life sciences industry, marketing operations (in particular the packaging, labeling, and final steps of new product development) remain virtually untouched by the computerized systems integration pervading the rest of the sector. However, cost-effective approaches do exist for digital workflow and asset management software and services, and can provide you with a wealth of cost savings and operations efficiencies.
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Reducing inventory and satisfying customer demand are high priorities in manufacturing and distribution. Being able to fill orders on time and satisfy every customer is an integral part of order commitment—and a very attainable goal. Advanced planning and scheduling (APS) can help your company become responsive and accurate—and that’s what counts in today’s “demand and supply” environment.
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For dried fruit producer Sunsweet, a spreadsheet-based planning system just wasn’t working. After reviewing several solutions, Sunsweet selected the Zemeter supply chain planning suite to eliminate the repetitive work involved in spreadsheet management. Zemeter’s accurate forecasting and planning process ended up saving Sunsweet money by increasing production line efficiency and reducing overruns by 18 percent.
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Industry today demands more quality of manufacturers, and as such, ISO 9001—the yardstick by which quality products and services are measured—is forcing more and more companies to become ISO-certified. However, companies can use a browser-based tool to help bridge any information gaps they may encounter during the process—and to give them the head start they need to intelligently manage their ISO certification.
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To play any popular online computer game, all a user needs is a computer and an Internet connection. But there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes than this gamer may realize. In order to interact in a shared virtual environment, the system the user connects to requires technology capable of creating, operating, and modifying persistent, distributed, three-dimensional virtual worlds.
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For a lot of companies, making the decision to replace an existing business software system can be a difficult one. The process can be so unpleasant that many organizations may be reluctant to even get started, coming up with a number of reasons why they could probably get by with the systems they already have. If your company is struggling with this tough decision, you may want to ask yourself these ten basic questions.
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Carefully tracking components and assemblies throughout the manufacturing process can prevent costly production and sequencing errors, but executing these procedures can be difficult. While bar codes provide accurate, efficient product identification, they are not viable in many common industrial processes. Specialized RFID tags, however, are optimized for use on or around metal, and are an effective and viable alternative.
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Radio frequency identification (RFID) has been around for more than thirty years, and today’s manufacturers are using this technology to help connect trading partners and align supply chains. But just as businesses need to look beyond the manufacturing supply chain to see the benefits of investing in RFID, they need to look beyond the tag to understand how RFID will create value and provide a return on investment (ROI).
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Technology has fundamentally changed the way industrial and manufacturing companies manage their businesses. Sophisticated solutions like warehouse management and enterprise relationship management (ERP) systems—with their advanced data capture and wireless networking tools—enable companies to squeeze more efficiency out of their operations by providing real-time data to all interdependent parts of the supply chain.
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In today’s global market, providing quality products and services is essential for any manufacturer’s continued growth—but maintaining a competitive edge is not always easy. For success, quality awareness must begin at the conception of the product and continue throughout the various stages of its development. To improve in this area, many manufacturers are now adopting the total quality management (TQM) approach.
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Any organization that deploys multiple same-application servers with regularity could benefit from virtual appliances. Virtualization solutions eliminate the need to copy an operating system (OS) and application into each virtual environment, by creating a single, centrally installed master copy instead. It saves time on installation and enables greater levels of efficiency, manageability, flexibility, and resource use.
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To be certain its materials management functions were up to par with industry best practices, a South African fertilizer plant obtained the services of an inventory optimization firm. In doing so, it was able to identify weak links in its inventory control processes, and achieved a savings of over $2 million (USD)—an impressive return on investment (ROI) considering it had invested less than 4 percent of that amount.
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In 2004, Microsoft offered a midwestern-US-based financial services corporation a range of options to renew and replace its existing enterprise agreement. But without the right negotiating skills, how could it be certain Microsoft’s offer was the most cost-saving approach? The company engaged an independent consulting firm, and in less than three weeks recognized savings of 28 percent on a $3 million (USD) agreement.
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Traditional business intelligence (BI) solutions are becoming a thing of the past. Companies today are moving toward business solutions that can help maintain a competitive edge while empowering business executives across the enterprise. Operational BI is an approach that incorporates traditional BI best practices with the benefits of real-time information flow, resulting in more user-directed initiatives.
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Point of sale (POS) software was designed to speed up sales checkout processes. However, it has evolved to include many more features, and is now more commonly referred to as retail management systems (RMS). The benefits of implementing RMS are clear—they can help increase profits, improve marketing strategies, automate manual processes, manage inventory, and—most importantly—make the customer experience more memorable.
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Small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) encounter many of the same challenges as larger companies in unlocking information from the data they collect, yet they lack cost-effective solutions. Many must choose between expensive business intelligence solutions or complicated homegrown solutions. With many hosted reporting solutions now available, SMBs have an option that may meet their requirements—at a fraction of the cost.
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We’ve all heard the same story time and again: the project that started with such high expectations has turned out to be—like many others—mediocre at best. The product development team is asking questions—"Where did the project go wrong? Why didn’t we see the problems earlier?" Many companies are turning to product lifecycle management (PLM) for help.
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Research shows that companies implementing product portfolio management (PPM) solutions achieve greater success in profitability because of their ability to monitor product value throughout the product selection and development processes. With the ability to evaluate this information through PPM capabilities, companies can take corrective action to maximize product value during new development—or kill projects that won’t deliver sufficient returns.
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Products may fail to meet expectations for many reasons—most of which are self-inflicted wounds (such as unclear product definitions) by the company bringing them to market. What’s more, politics and inertia all too often win the day when it comes to making difficult product portfolio decisions. What actions can you take to rank among those companies which realize margin advantages of over 50 percent for new products?
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Today, shipping complex products without documentation is not an option! As products become increasingly complex, product documentation has become a critical, constantly changing corporate asset. Content delivery processes must yield accurate, up-to-date information in more formats and languages. As such, organizations are adopting automated technologies that enable the dynamic creation and publishing of product content.
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Since 1985, TrailTech Inc. has provided the agriculture, construction, and transportation industries with state-of-the-art trailer equipment. However, inaccurate bills of materials (BOMs) were causing bottlenecks, missed delivery dates, and substandard productivity. After TrailTech implemented an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that created real-time BOMs and eliminated bottlenecks, customer complaints of delinquent deliveries reduced dramatically, improving stress levels throughout the plant.
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The US Bioterrorism Act aims to counter terrorist attacks on the nation’s food supply. But what does it mean for your company? Can your company access and present documentation within twenty-four hours of the FDA’s request for any set of records? If not, a fully integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is mandatory unless you are the smallest of businesses.
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Unfortunately, the portfolio management processes that experts have advocated for years—and that many organizations have implemented—often take the form of semi-annual or even annual meetings. However, this often raises balance or alignment issues only after millions of dollars have been spent. What’s needed is real-time information that can be used to conduct continuous, automated assessment of portfolio status.
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In general, the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires publicly traded companies to be financially accountable. SOX compliance requires cooperation among many business units—particularly IT, as IT supports SOX compliance by securing and protecting financial data on the network. IT is also required to consistently document this effort. In fact, without IT support, a corporation simply cannot be SOX-compliant.
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What manufacturers must realize is that through efforts to comply with regulatory standards, they can make their manufacturing operations more competitive. Indeed, compliance is transforming the companies that have taken the time to re-architect the many processes used for managing suppliers, channel partners, resellers, and customers. For manufacturers that ignore compliance, on the other hand, the costs can be steep.
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New product development and introduction (NPDI) is probably the most important process for many companies, but also one of the least understood. While NPDI is responsible for revenues, few companies assign an owner for the whole process. Instead, it is usually driven through a series of functional “silos,” causing delay—and the loss of the original market requirements.
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All companies use some form of sales and operations planning (S&OP) to synchronize market data with production output. But most practice a planning process based on logistics rather than strategy. Taking a more strategic approach, however, the S&OP process can be designed to bring together a company’s marketing, finance, sales, and operations departments to continuously monitor—and meet—customer demand.
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High tech is the most brutally competitive of any manufacturing sector—which is why complacency can mean death for your company. How to secure lasting advantage without letting technology constrain your business processes? And how to prevail despite your partners’ legacy applications, the IT landscape of your recently acquired company, or the heterogeneous mix of your own IT landscape?
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Banks face many challenges in today’s dynamic financial services marketplace. Banks must continuously enhance capabilities for risk and financial management to address market, credit, and regulatory environments that are increasingly complex. Thus, process support for your business strategies is crucial—which is why integrated tools are a must-have for financial accounting, cost controlling, risk management, asset-liability management, and profitability analysis.
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Despite many system and business process improvements in the past several years, companies are realizing that they haven’t adequately addressed the most critical aspect of new product development—their people. Companies should carefully consider various approaches to leveraging these resources and executing all phases of the innovation life cycle, in order to launch innovative products faster and more profitably.
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Product roadmaps can mean the difference between success and failure in product delivery. Done correctly, they can help win large customers, and guide strategic planning efforts. Unfortunately, most product roadmaps are created under pressure when company management makes a last-minute request. As a result, they don’t have the impact they should, and can be a source of product management misery.
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Customer beta programs are critical in product success. Yet many times, they are poorly planned, and executed at the last minute with a lack of resources and focus. Effective beta programs can provide vital information, such as whether your product is truly ready to ship, which features should be in the next release, and how satisfied your customers will be.
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“Process.” From entrepreneurs to corporate managers, the word brings up associations with running in sand, pouring molasses, or enduring water torture. But product process needn’t be a torture. In fact, if done right, it is the key to better teamwork, and less friction in your company. It is actually a tool that will help your company deliver better products—faster.
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As competitive pressures on consumer products (CP) companies rise, the industry is reaching the limits of business as usual. CP companies must look to increased collaboration with retailers, partners, and suppliers as a way to build and improve on the core cycles of planning and forecasting. And the blueprint for expanded collaboration and increased automation? The adaptive business network.
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Inadequacies at the front end of the product development process is one of the leading causes of product failure for consumer products companies. Many companies thus make ill-informed decisions that turn into costly mistakes. The challenge is to establish a front-end process that nurtures profitable innovation and maximizes portfolio value in light of resource constraints, portfolio balance, and strategic alignment.
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The odds against successful product innovation are long. New products need to win over consumers and convince retailers—a challenging task for many reasons, including saturated markets, a growing variety of products and brands, and shorter product life cycles. To shorten time to market, companies need to integrate all development-related areas, within a single sphere of visibility and influence.
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Gen-Probe Incorporated is a global leader in the development, manufacture, and marketing of nucleic acid tests, used primarily to diagnose diseases and screen donated blood. In 2004, thanks to rapid growth, it needed applications to support its customers’ ever-rising performance demands. In addition, it required advanced business applications for continued focus on product innovation and expansion into new geographic markets.
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After receiving US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its ground-breaking product, medical technology startup Thermage, Inc., was looking to install manufacturing software that would fit a limited budget and meet its long-term needs. By going with Expandable ERP, Thermage was able to implement a full-featured manufacturing system that helped it ramp up production and maintain FDA compliance.
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Whether you’re a niche-market start-up developing a single compound or a well-established global company with dozens of projects in the pipeline, the pressure to innovate in the life
sciences industry is unrelenting. That’s why you need a solution that can help monitor resources, prioritize projects, optimize the clinical trial supply chain, and maximize the overall value of your product portfolio.
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Intuit recently identified a need to better serve larger and growing users within and outside the QuickBooks base. Thus, Enterprise Solutions 7.0 was designed with growing businesses in mind. For current users, Enterprise Solutions offers a way to support growth with a familiar interface. For those not currently using QuickBooks, it may be a viable alternative to their current solution.
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The multitude of messages and media in this interactive age contributes to a fragmented consumer goods market. Shorter product life cycles, mass product customization, and increasing supply chain complexity are all symptoms of the new project economy. The arrival of this new age must be recognized by business leaders, and the systems supporting business must change to accommodate this reality.
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Executives in the life sciences industry work under tremendous competitive pressures. At the same time, they must meet regulatory guidelines and ensure that product safety remains a priority. Information must be meticulously tracked through all phases of a production cycle, which can slow production significantly. That’s why solutions for the industry must help streamline and simplify the regulatory compliance process.
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Industrial equipment manufacturers have historically embraced shop floor improvements as a way of increasing efficiency and maintaining profitability. But in today’s radically altered industrial environment, there is a clear imperative to look beyond the shop floor. To hold down costs and compete against other low-cost companies, manufacturers must find areas of improvement in all aspects of business.
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Companies spend staggering investments to make and keep their offerings competitive. By providing a centralized location to store account history and detailed contact information for every buyer and automating what had been manual tasks, sales force automation (SFA) and customer relationship management (CRM) have begun to positively impact sales efforts.
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Countless customers are engaging in self-service, in the process helping companies save millions by deflecting service interactions to cheaper channels. At many organizations, just the cost savings make the investment in self-service worthwhile. But the self-service business case isn’t built on cost savings alone. There’s a bigger, more customer-focused picture to consider, where the customer experience plays the key role.
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Customer churn rates are higher than ever: although businesses say they are devoted to loyalty, their management systems and budgets do not support that claim. But in a landscape of similar products, cutting down on defection—or churn—is vital. There are in fact four steps to improving loyalty and retention which, if focused on the appropriate customers, will improve profitability.
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In today’s world, current and future customers are interested to know whether or not you have implemented a quality control system. Some customers will demand International Organization for Standards (ISO) certification, and others may just ask about it. Whatever their requirements, having a quality control system assures your customers that the products and services you offer are of high quality.
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Webcom Limited is a Canadian book manufacturer specializing in custom book production. Its heterogeneous IT infrastructure was resulting in discontinuous information flow, which impeded staffers’ abilities to collaborate throughout the steps of a book’s production. But when Webcom Limited migrated to an integrated Microsoft business management system, it saw a 33 percent improvement in the automation of job production workflow.
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When IT projects are completed and systems are delivered, they don’t just disappear. Completed projects can be described in various ways: investments, assets, operational applications, and so on. Whatever they’re called, they typically require continuing investments of resource time, effort, and dollars to maintain, fix, and upgrade. In fact, the post-project delivery lifecycle effort is critical to an IT organization.
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In order to achieve success, all business software projects have to surmount requirements risk, technical risk, and planning risk. Many software developers have thus adopted an iterative delivery methodology, finishing first the essential features, and then those additional features which deliver the most value. Some fundamental insights will provide a better understanding of how to set up iterative delivery projects.
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It may come as a surprise to you, but every organization that brings a product to market already has a product lifecycle management (PLM) system in place. And the choices as to which software tools or system an organization should employ in its initiatives should be entirely based on the review and assessment of its current PLM system.
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Product lifecycle management (PLM) implementation strategies are in many cases unique from company to company. However, it is not uncommon for companies to encounter some of the same obstacles or pitfalls along the way. Understanding where these nasty little pitfalls lie will hopefully help you steer clear of them, and improve your chances for PLM success.
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Imperfect product data can erode your gross margin, frustrate both your customers and your employees, and slow new sales opportunities. The proven safeguards are automated data cleansing, systematic management of data processes, and margin optimization. Real dollars can be reclaimed in the supply chain by making certain that every byte of product information is accurate and synchronized, internally and externally.
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Technology and process upgrades at forward-thinking companies confirm supply chain excellence as a more widely accepted element of overall business strategy. To remain successful, companies need organization-wide buy-in to supply chain excellence, with key trends in mind: demand planning as an imperative; globalization; increased competition and price pressures; outsourcing; shortened and more complex product life cycles; and collaboration between stakeholders.
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Universal Instruments Corporation, a leading capital equipment manufacturer, needed a flexible business solution to meet the challenges of globalization, and had to replace its legacy system. It used SAP for Industrial Machinery and Component, which is an integrated scalable solution and was able to enable global processes consistently throughout its geographical locations.
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This Business Engine white paper provides a technical account on the process behind scoring, selecting, and scheduling the technology portfolio. The document offers additional insight into weighting criteria that should be considered as part of the portfolio management and optimization process. The document further provides insight into considerations for alignment, and how to know if the portfolio is in fact properly aligned with business objectives.
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Companies are turning toward product innovation to achieve revenue growth, but to generate return on an innovation idea, the idea must be fully developed. When the concept has been fully defined, validated, and transformed into a product, it is then ready for commercial launch and execution from a sales, marketing, manufacturing, and logistics perspective.
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Quality data in the supply chain is essential in when information is automated and shared with internal and external customers. Dirty data is a huge impediment to businesses. In this article, learn about the four critical success factors to clean data: 1- scope, 2- team, 3- process, and 4- technology.
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Aberdeen research shows that developing innovative products is a top priority for manufacturers today. Such manufacturers must understand how enterprise resource planning (ERP) and product lifecycle management (PLM) systems, like Arena Solutions, support innovation.
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Rapid market fluctuations; changing customer and channel requirements; pressures from shareholders, executives, and partners; and continued competition are forcing high-tech companies to re-examine not only what products and services they sell, but also their processes and tools for developing, deploying, monitoring, and managing products and services. To deal with these challenges, product managers need to leverage product management processes and tools. This white paper introduces the concept of enterprise product management and the process of requirements gathering automation; the product management continuum; and the creation of a collaborative environment.
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Today, entrepreneurs running small-to-medium sized businesses face daunting tasks that just a few years ago were not existent. The complexities of the business world have created new risks, a myriad of regulations, and complex reporting requirements that can overwhelm any organization. Owners and managers of all enterprises, even smaller private businesses, need to be cognizant of both the spirit and the letter of the law. How does a smaller organization, with limited resources, cope with all of this? How do they stay abreast of the additional changes that are on the way? In this guide, Pete Russo of the Entrepreneurial Management Institute at the Boston University School of Management outlines the pitfalls and steps, but also looks at effective solutions for private companies.
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GNX ProductVine is an enterprise software suite that enables retailers with private brand food programs to seamlessly integrate and manage all elements of brand integrity, regulatory and food safety compliance, and new product development and introduction, with an automated, web-based process.
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Since our research-driven beginnings, Johnson & Johnson Advanced Sterilization Products (ASP) has continually improved the new product development (NPD) process. Detailed process mapping has revealed three tiers of business metrics, starting with drivers and moving up through execution metrics to business performance metrics. When driver metrics improves, so does business performance. Six Sigma tools helps identify specific metrics at all tiers and the causality linkages among them. Each NPD process step at ASP results in a deliverable, and each deliverable relates to a trade-off triangle (cost-time-resources) and, ultimately, to investment dollars. To track performance, ASP calculates how actual NPD decisions and what-if scenarios affect deliverables, alter investment triangles, and thereby influence business results. ASP uses similar process and tools, including the investment triangles and Six Sigma QFD, to make idea management decisions. The IDweb real-time software environment enables both the NPD and idea management processes at ASP. By deploying the strategic planning, idea management, portfolio and pipeline management, process management, and resource management modules of IDweb, ASP has increased throughput by 20 percent and reduced cycle time by 40 percent.
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Component event management promises an answer. Component event management is a methodology to systematically detect and resolve component events in the most timely and efficient manner possible. This paper will introduce the philosophy of component event management and introduce a new category of software that is being developed to help implement this concept and improve business performance.
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This case study shows how Cephalon, a biopharmaceutical company, adopted the QAD MFG/PRO enterprise solution to address the management problems for their global spread manufacturing sites, packaging site, and workers. Read how it improved visibility and synchronization across global operations, improved inventory tracking, and better leveraged knowledge of enterprise assets.
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Today's cost conscious automotive environment requires that information technology (IT) projects be implemented rapidly, be delivered on time and on budget, and meet or exceed expected return on investment (ROI) projections. Learn how Cascade Engineering increased its efficiency and eliminated waste in virtually every aspect of its business, and saw cost savings of $500,000 per year as a result of business process improvement.
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When a global high tech manufacturer of desktop and portable PCs sought to reduce their inbound supply chain lead-time and costs, they came to Optum for help improving their visibility to, and coordination with, inbound suppliers, and contract manufacturers. Learn how it integrated partners and its system into the supply chain to achieve its competitive advantage.
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In the mid-1990s Heinz was managing their product specifications, formulas, and quality information in the same manner as most companies. Their product information was stored in a variety of disparate systems, spreadsheets, text documents, and paper forms. Learn how it was able to continually leverage product information across the entire life cycle.
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Cash Converters was utilizing an earlier version of Maximizer to track contact details, basic phone notes and other communications. With its small team of sales, marketing, accounting and operations managers that managed the day-to-day operations of the business and its franchisees, the team began working out of the office more and more often. To assist them with this, they needed a solution that worked seamlessly with their business structure and processes, allowing them to work with updated information whether they were working at the office, at home or on the road.
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