CMS to Develop Electronic Kanban System for Lean Ohio Manufacturer . . . Paxar Partners with Cybra for
OS/400-based RFID Middleware . . . Aspen Pet Picks Logility for OS/400 Supply Chain Planning . . .
Lakeview's Data Replication Software Now Supports DB2 UDB on Unix, Windows . . . PeopleSoft Signs
OEM Agreement with Ascential for Integration Software . . . Mixed Signals: Invensys Marcam Unit's
Commitment to OS/400 . . .
<b>CMS to Develop Electronic Kanban System for Lean Ohio Manufacturer</b>
<a target="new" href="http://www.cms400.com">CMS Manufacturing Systems</a> has committed to
developing an electronic version of the paper-based "kanban" manufacturing process, which was pioneered
by the Japanese carmaker Toyota, for a new client in Ohio, the company announced last week.
Thetford/Norcold, a manufacturer of refrigeration and sanitation products for boats and RVs based in
Sidney, Ohio, chose the integrated CMS/400 ERP package in large part due to CMS's willingness to work
with Thetford/Norcold to adapt the software to meet its needs, officials with the manufacturer said. As part
of the software and service engagement, CMS and Thetford/Norcold will work to develop new electronic
versions of the paper kanban cards the company uses as part of its Toyota Production System (kanban
refers to a production methodology developed by Toyota that uses just-in-time principles at all stages of
manufacturing). Thetford/Norcold has a highly evolved kanban implementation, according to William
Neeve, president of the manufacturing consultant Cycle Time Management. "Few companies have
embraced the Toyota Production System as comprehensively and effectively as Thetford/Norcold," he says.
After developing the e-kanban system, CMS says, it will make it available as part of its CMS/400 package.
CMS will also develop a new customer service processing capability that will enable Thetford/Norcold to
more efficiently find information.
<b>Paxar Partners with Cybra for OS/400-based RFID Middleware</b>
<a target="new" href="http://www.cybra.com">Cybra</a>, the developer of OS/400 barcode software, and
<a target="new" href="http://www.paxar.com">Paxar</a>, a provider of hardware, software, and services
for tracking products in the apparel supply chain, have teamed up to help manufacturers and distributors
comply with retail behemoth Wal-Mart's radio frequency identification (RFID) initiative. The partnership,
which was announced last week, calls for the two companies to integrate Paxar's new Monarch 9855 RFID
label printer with OS/400 applications using Cybra's barcode and RFID middleware, called MarkMagic/400
Barcode Label and SM@RT Forms. According to Paxar's announcement, the Version 5.1 release of Cybra's
software has the capability to write to an RFID tag using data from an OS/400 application. Meanwhile,
Paxar plans to offer the capability to read and write to the type of RFID tag (Class 1, Gen 2) that Wal-Mart
has indicated it will require its suppliers to use. The Monarch 9855 printer will be available mid-year, Paxar
says. The partnership with Cybra is the first of many RFID-related partnerships that Paxar, which brings in
about $600 million in revenue per year, will be announcing.
<b>Aspen Pet Picks Logility for OS/400 Supply Chain Planning</b>
Aspen Pet Products, manufacturer of Booda Bone dog chewables, has picked <a target="new"
href="http://www.logility.com">Logility</a>'s supply chain planning software, the software company
announced last week. The Denver, Colorado, manufacturer will install certain components of the Logility
Voyager Solutions suite to improve its inventory management, increase forecast accuracy, and enable
collaboration between sales and marketing. "We supply thousands of pet stores throughout North America,
including very large channel masters," says Aspen Pet's vice president of operations, Rhett Butler. "We
need a robust supply chain planning solution that can help reduce stock-outs and obsolete inventory, and
increase inventory turns." The software will run on an iSeries server.
<b>Lakeview's Data Replication Software Now Supports DB2 UDB on Unix, Windows</b>
<a target="new" href="http://www.lakeviewtech.com">Lakeview Technology</a>'s OmniReplicator
database replication software now supports <a target="new" href="http://www.ibm.com">IBM</a>'s DB2
UDB on Unix, Linux, and Windows servers, the Chicago software maker announced last week. With
OmniReplicator Version 4.0.1, users can now replicate databases among DB2 UDB, DB2/400, Informix
(owned by IBM), <a target="new" href="http://www.oracle.com">Oracle</a>, <a target="new"
href="http://www.microsoft.com">Microsoft</a>, and <a target="new"
href="http://www.sybase.com">Sybase</a> relational database management systems. Version 4.0.1 also
has a new incremental commit feature, designed to minimize downtime by reducing the number of affected
tables to only those that have had a change since the last commit, thereby saving time, effort, and money,
Lakeview says.
<b>PeopleSoft Signs OEM Agreement with Ascential for Integration Software</b>
<a target="new" href="http://www.peoplesoft.com">PeopleSoft</a> will be reselling <a target="new"
href="http://www.ascential.com">Ascential Software</a>'s data integration solutions for its EnterpriseOne
(formerly J.D. Edwards OneWorld) ERP suite, the companies recently announced. The agreement calls for
PeopleSoft to resell Ascential's DataStage Server and Ascential PACKs software for its PeopleSoft
Enterprise and EnterpriseOne ERP suites. There is also an OEM component of the agreement that calls for
Ascential's DataStage extract, transformation, and load (ETL) tool to be embedded into PeopleSoft's
enterprise performance management (EPM) software immediately, and for embedding Ascential's
MetaStage data integration software into the PeopleSoft EPM later this year. PeopleSoft also has plans to
resell Ascential PACKs for <a target="new" href="http://www.sap.com">SAP</a>, <a target="new"
href="http://www.siebel.com">Siebel</a>, and <a target="new"
href="http://www.oracle.com">Oracle</a> enterprise applications.
<b>Mixed Signals: Invensys Marcam Unit's Commitment to OS/400</b>
<a target="new" href="http://www.invensys.com">Invensys</a>, which sold its struggling <a
target="new" href="http://www.baan.com">Baan</a> ERP software unit to <a target="new"
href="http://www.ssaglobal.com">SSA Global</a> last year, reaffirmed its commitment to its OS/400
installed base last week through its <a target="new" href="http://www.avantis.com">Avantis</a> business
unit (formerly Marcam). The Foxboro, Massachusetts, subsidiary of the English industrial giant says the
new 3.2 release of its Avantis.XA asset management application contains a number of new features that
will enhance productivity for users of "<a target="new" href="http://www.ibm.com">IBM</a>'s solid
AS/400 hardware." While Avantis didn't explain the new enhancements, Bill Clark, an Avantis.XA user
and president of the product's user group, had this to say of the new release: "Rather than trying to tell us
what product enhancements they thought we needed, Avantis made the extra effort to find out what
additional features were most important to us, the long-time users of Avantis.XA." While the company
highlighted its continued support for its 20-year-old Avantis.XA line, the Avantis Web site also welcomes
inquiries from Avantis.XA customers on how to migrate to Avantis.PRO, the company's flagship 32-bit
client/server enterprise asset management (EAM) suite for Windows and Unix servers; there is no such
invitation for moving from Avantis.PRO to Avantis.XA on its Web site. The company formed a technology
alliance with <a target="new" href="http://www.microsoft.com">Microsoft</a> concerning the .NET
framework last spring.