FOCUS

— September 13, 2006

Execution Technology

Pacer Distribution Services Scraps Legacy Systems in Favor of New Warehouse Management App
Pacer Distribution Services, Inc., the warehousing and distribution arm of Pacer International, Inc. has implemented an advanced warehouse management system (WMS) at its facilities in the Los Angeles area. The company operates more than 800,000 square feet of warehousing and cross-dock capacity at that location. Services include consolidation, deconsolidation, transloading and cross-docking, order fulfillment, sorting and labeling, product manipulation and local trucking. The new WMS, from software vendor LogiMax, was customized to support Pacer's Southern California operations. It features 24-hour, Web-based customer reporting and full inventory-management capabilities, according to Pacer president Kent Prokop. The technology supports radio-frequency and barcoding operations. It also positions the company to offer radio frequency identification services “with minimal additional cost and effort.” Virtually all of Pacer's existing warehouse customers have been transitioned to the new WMS. Pacer said it is handling record volumes of Asian imports through the Los Angeles/Long Beach region. Inbound container flows through the Los Angeles gateway were up by 11.3 percent during the first half of the year. “Importers and distributors are already benefiting from improved functionality and inventory visibility,” Prokop said. The new WMS has made it easier for Pacer to serve large, big-box retailers in such areas as electronic data interchange, systems integration and UCC labeling. The LogiMax WMS was developed by ICS, which specializes in systems for third-party logistics providers.
http://www.icsfl.com/
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/

Coty Enhances System for Handling Daily Replenishment and Order Fulfillment
Coty Inc., the world's largest producer of fragrances, has acquired new software for improving daily replenishment and order fulfillment in the company's distribution channel serving Wal-Mart Stores in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Retail Channel Execution, provided by Blue Agave Software, will continuously evaluate Coty's Wal-Mart Retail Link data in order to predict problems such as stockouts, excess inventory, late orders and forecast variances. The system will pinpoint route causes and guide the company toward timely resolution in partnership with the retailer. “With Blue Agave, we will have all of this information at our fingertips, without spending tedious hours logging into multiple systems or scouring reports to find and understand store-level issues,” said Michael Ferrara, Coty's senior vice president of marketing. Retail Channel Execution is part of a family of integrated applications from Blue Agave; they apply business rules to the evaluation of point-of-sale data provided by retailers. The newest release of the Blue Agave application includes enhanced root-cause capabilities, giving users a better understanding of why certain retail execution issues are occurring, the vendor said. The software first determines whether an issue has an internal supply-chain cause, such as a missed “must-arrive-by” date or low fill rate. If no internal cause is found, it looks for store-related demand causes, such as incorrect replenishment settings, forecast variances, or on-hand adjustments.
http://www.blueagavesoft.com/

Retailer of Aftermarket Auto Parts Adopts Voice-Driven System for Logistics
Advance Auto Parts, Inc. claims to be the nation's second-largest retailer of automotive aftermarket parts, batteries, accessories and maintenance items. It has nearly 3,000 stores in 40 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, serving both the do-it-yourself and professional installer markets. Now the company has moved into the world of voice-driven logistics. Recently it implemented the VoiceLogistics Express application from Voxware. Roy Martin, senior vice president of logistics and replenishment with Advance Auto Parts, said the new technology improves the accuracy of orders, “further enhancing the like likelihood that when Advance Auto Parts customers visit their local stores, they will find the auto parts they need.” The system also improves productivity of logistics personnel, Martin said. Because Voxware's product is built around open standards, it was easily adapted to the company's warehousing operation. Voxware suppliers voice-driven logistics systems to two of the top five auto-parts retailers in the country.
http://www.voxware.com/

Seton Medical Center to Implement System for Asset Tracking in Hospital
Seton Medical Center will install a new system for tracking healthcare resources at its 400-bed facility in Austin, TX. The technology consists of the DLx Mobile Resource Solution from RedPrairie and UltraSonic indoor-positioning hardware from Sonitor. Together they will provide Seton with universal coverage of hospital equipment and patients at room level. Seton will be able to track all assets automatically, resulting in less time spent by staff searching for equipment. RedPrairie provides visibility of assets, patients and other mobile resources across an entire network of facilities. Sonitor's Ultrasonic hardware does not interfere with other radio technology or instruments utilized in hospitals. Seton chose RadiantWave, a provider of asset-tracking products for multiple industries, to implement the system at the Austin medical facility. It will carry out the project in the fall of this year. Once in place, the Mobile Resource Solution can also be utilized for other purposes, such as security and business-process optimization. RadiantWave's services include radio frequency identification, ultrasonic and barcode-based technology for mobile resource management.
http://www.radiantwave.com/

Elite Paloume Forwarders Accelerates Bill-of-Lading Process for Ocean Freight
Elite Paloume Forwarders, a provider of logistics services to the petrochemical, chemical and food industries, has sped up its bill-of-lading process with ocean carriers. The company recently called on Inttra, a provider of electronic commerce systems to ocean carriers and shippers, to streamline the transmission of bills of lading. It can now send electronic instructions with the push of a button to all carriers in Inttra's carrier network. Previously, the company had generated bill-of-lading instructions from its system, then sent them by courier, according to managing director Patrick Frederickx. Now, with the Inttra-Link technology in place, all relevant information is sent in the form of an electronic data interchange message to the carriers. “This means that the information does not have to be rekeyed, so we can ensure greater accuracy,” said Frederickx. Inttra also offers the ability to consult and modify a draft bill of lading online. Inttra claims to represent through its network more than 61 percent of the container capacity among the world's top ocean carriers.
http://www.inttra.com/

P&O Ports Adopts New Container Terminal Management Software in Tampa
The Tampa, Fla. operations of P&O Ports North America have a new terminal-management system. The suite of applications was provided by Tideworks Technology, Inc., which sells management and planning software to marine-terminal operators. The deployment includes several Tideworks products, including the Mainsail Terminal Management System, Mainsail Online and Spinnaker Planning Management System. They support such processes as real-time inventory management, workflow and integration with other business systems and port partners. Operators get complete visibility and control of cargo at the gate, in the yard, and on vessels and railcars, Tideworks claimed. The Spinnaker software provides integrated vessel, berth, yard and rail-planning tools in one workspace. Mainsail and Mainsail Online have been implemented in an application service provider (ASP) environment, and are hosted on remote servers located at Tideworks' data center. A local, on-site server hosts the Spinnaker application. P&O Ports assumed operation of the Tampa terminal in early June. The software implementation was Tideworks' first at a facility solely operated by P&O.
http://www.tideworks.com/

Geomagic, Z Corporation Team Up to Market Digital Modeling Software
Geomagic, a vendor of software for product design, has entered into an exclusive worldwide agreement with Z Corporation, a maker of equipment to manage 3D design data. Geomagic will bundle its Geomagic Studio software with the new ZScanner 700 from Z Corporation. The latter is a self-positioning 3D laser scanner. The lightweight, handheld device is free of traditional mechanical arms, making it suitable for scanning hard-to-reach places. It offers real-time surfacing, captures 3D data in one continuous process to reduce post-processing, and allows objects to be moved during scanning. Geomagic Studio creates accurate models from any physical part. The Geomagic Qualify module allows users to compare designs with actual units and simplify inspection analysis. The combination of the ZScanner 700 with Geomagic Studio and Qualify “brings a highly sophisticated level of digital shape sampling for rapid prototyping, design and quality assurance at the lowest price point available today in the market,” the companies said.
http://www.geomagic.com/

Vendor of Field-Service Technology Offers On-Demand Product for Small Business
MyServiceForce.com has introduced on-demand software for small businesses, integrating with Windows Mobile 5.0. The hosted application gives on-the-road service teams real-time access to sales and customer information. Using low-cost PDAs and smartphones supporting Mobile 5.0, myServiceForce.com offers customers access to the kinds of back-office systems that are typically affordable only by large companies, the vendor said. By integrating with the Windows Mobile 5.0 platform, the system ties mobile systems to central applications, including QuickBooks accounting programs, scheduling software and inventory management. The mobile devices continue to work when out of range of a wireless network, then re-synchronize as soon as they are back in range. Devices print invoices immediately upon service. According to the provider, linking up with scheduling software optimizes routes, while ensuring that dispatched trucks have the required equipment. The system can be up and running within three days, according to myServiceForce.com. Initial devices to be supported include smart phones from Verizon, Cingular or Sprint, PDAs, and the ruggedized handheld Symbol MC70.
http://www.myserviceforce.com/

Supply-Chain Management Applications Register Slight Growth in 2005
According to a new report from AMR Research, Inc., the market for supply-chain management (SCM) applications saw growth of just 3 percent in 2005. The total value of the sector was $5.6bn. Factors influencing SCM vendors included globalization, leaner supply networks, increased customer expectations, mass customization and increased demand variability. “New business focuses and pressures are driving pockets of vendor information and renewed corporate spending in supply-chain initiatives,” said AMR senior research analyst Mark Hillman. “However, spending is tempered by the fact that corporate supply-chain organizational maturity is still relatively low, limiting adoption. In addition, consolidation will continue to play a significant role in 2006.” AMR's latest ranking of SCM applications vendors shows SAP leading the pack for the third straight year, with a revenue share of 12 percent. It was followed by Oracle Corp. with 10 percent, i2 Technologies with 5 percent, Manhattan Associates with 4 percent, and Infor with 3 percent. AMR predicts that SAP and Oracle will hang on to their existing market shares for 2006, while i2, Manhattan and Infor will each have a 4-percent share. “Supply chains are becoming increasingly global, complex and interdependent,” AMR said.
http://www.amrresearch.com

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