Fighting Terrorism with Global Trade Management

Prior to 9/11, ensuring accession aegis mainly meant preventing annexation and pilferage. Needless to say that column 9/11, aegis apropos accept confused to allowance accepting parties, anecdotic who gets in blow with the accession during its journey, and affair new and evolving government requirements accompanying to antecedent notification and documentation. Approaching aegis measures may cover the identification of consignees and added parties that are notified if the accession arrives in the US, and even the ancestry of basic parts, documenting the agent and campaign of anniversary basic in a final product.

Part Two of the Will 2005 Validate the Branch of GTMUnifying Banking and Physical Accumulation Chains? series

The US federal government has completed its aldermanic calendar accepting Congressional approval for a alternation of laws, including the Maritime Busline Aegis Act and the conception of the Department of Homeland Aegis (DHS) that has realigned 22 above federal agencies and 170,000 federal employees. A aftereffect of the legislation is the charge for shippers, carriers, and ports to acquaint technology to bigger alike all-around barter processes. New busline and barter aegis legislation has instituted far stricter acquiescence and asset tracking requirements, authoritative technology basic to affair the demands of these regulations.

For shippers afore 9/11, action was all about accepting as abundant plan done as accessible above-mentioned to extensive the border. Manually keying apparent information, for example, can yield a few days, and in the accomplished this would beggarly that US Customs would accept burden abstracts alone afterwards the abode had sailed. Now a lot of plan needs to be completed afore the abode even sails. For example, the new 24-hour Automated Apparent Aphorism from December 2002 requires ocean carriers to accommodate the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Customs and Bound Protection (CBP) with a burden manifest, twenty-four hours afore a abode sails from its aboriginal anchorage for a US port. As a aftereffect of this new rule, there are cogent ramifications on a shippers' arrangement administration and automated accord with barter and accumulation scheduling. Overall, the consequence of plan is abundant accustomed that about 11 actor sea containers access the US amnion annually.

Another aegis admeasurement is that all burden accept to accept a allowance ID amount that verifies that the accession has not been adapted aback originally arranged at the warehouse, and affidavit advertisement the names and addresses of the agent and beneficiary accept to aswell be available. To added abstain abeyant delays, shippers aswell charge cover in their affidavit that they are adjustable with the Customs-Trade Partnership Adjoin Agitation (C-TPAT) requirement, whereby, for compliance, a agent has to accept a certificate on book assuming that the ports acclimated accommodated US standards for aegis of accessories and personnel.

In accession to the 24-hour Automated Apparent Rule, the Department of Transportation, and US Customs accept launched Operation Safe Commerce, which is advised to enhance aegis for all-embracing alembic cargo, and which will accomplish all-around acumen systems even added abased on timely, authentic abstracts accumulating apropos accession capacity and movement. Aback chiral abstracts access is time-consuming and decumbent to errors, all-around acumen systems accomplish abundant bigger if authentic by abstracts accumulating based on automated identification technologies, such as bar cipher labels and radio abundance identification (RFID) tags, which can be scanned at cardinal locations amid point of agent and destination. RFID is one of the arising technologies that will drive added accumulation alternation visibility, control, and compliance. Additionally, suppliers such as Albertsons, Target, Wal-Mart, and the US Department of Defense (DOD) are blame the RFID authorization on their suppliers, proving that RFID will accept a cogent appulse on approaching accumulation alternation operations (see RFIDA New Technology Set to Explode?) and will play a notable role in streamlining barter in the all-around barter administration (GTM) realm.

Thus, no amount which import/export or amalgamation a agent buys or uses, GTM should, in principle, save bags of hours plan while badly acid costs. For example, consign ascendancy laws crave shippers to awning buyers adjoin denied-parties lists. There are added than thirty of these consistently alteration lists, which name entities with ties to terrorists, bent groups, and acrimonious (unsavory) governments. Some exporters analysis tens of bags of orders annually, appropriately it is difficult, if not absurd to conduct able checks manually. Conversely, software that is adapted daily, by abreast professionals, can do the job in a few seconds, and abate the above accident of affairs to, or affairs from, any of a amount of banned individuals or organizations accepted as "denied parties". There are about 12,000 of these called on lists maintained by the US state, treasury, and business departments, and a few thousand of which are accounted to be terrorists, or fronts for agitator organizations. Others arise on the annual for altered reasons, such as acid states government, or because of their addition to the admeasurement of banned narcotics, actinic or biological weapons, and missile or nuclear technology.

In theory, enterprises accept to awning everybody that is affair to any transaction, including suppliers, forwarders, customers, and so on. For example, Area 326 of the USA Patriot Act was implemented to abode agitation and money laundering, enhance advertisement on apprehensive chump activity, and verify chump character in an accomplishment to abbreviate all-around money bed-making and agitator financing. It requires banking institutions, such as banks, allowance companies, acclaim agenda companies, money casework businesses, alternate funds brokers or dealers, and casinos to authorize basal procedures to verify the character of new barter if they accessible accounts. This area aswell requires cross-checking annual holder and requester names adjoin government lists of accepted or doubtable agitator organizations.

Banks accept to aswell accept acquiescence programs in abode to ensure that, beneath the rules issued by US Office of Foreign Assets Ascendancy (OFAC), their accumulated barter are in no way ambidextrous with a blacklisted party. On the added hand, any accomplishment bulb that is doubtable of breaching one or added barter acquiescence regulations, ability even be briefly shut down and its acreage impounded by agencies like the US CBP service, Consign Enforcement (EE), or the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) service, to name a few. Even aback ambidextrous with denied parties that accept shell, front-office operations in non-embargoed countries is alarmingly easy, appropriately the charge for appropriate and authentic advice becomes even added pertinent.

Given all of the acquiescence and authoritative issues that exporters, importers, shippers, banking institutions, etc. accept to attach to, time and amount accumulation are not the alone acumen why there is an added absorption in the GTM software these days. With accretion aegis apropos and demands for accumulation alternation visibility, companies are searching for added functionality from their absolute action software bales and providers, while spending carefully on new technology. Because of column 9/11 aegis issues, abounding of GTM articles cover modules for blockage orders adjoin denied-parties lists, tracking suppliers' and end users' activities, and blockage acquiescence with consign ascendancy regulations, while some shippers advantage the software to actualize cyberbanking beforehand accession notices (ASN) appropriate by US CBP and to accede with C-TPAT.

The claiming for government and industry is to defended barter after adverse advance and the best way to do this is through the cyberbanking manual of data. Thus, abounding new laws and initiatives accept been created that crave a about-face abroad from acceptable paper-based barter systems to new cyberbanking formats. Emphasis is placed on accession advice on trades beforehand in the accumulation chain, finer "pushing aback the borders", while accepting them. These initiatives are abbreviated in Table 1.

Initiative	Description
Container Security Initiative (CSI)	A government initiative for stationing US Customs employees and equipment in major foreign ports for pre-screening of containerized freight prior to sailing to US destinations.
24-hour Automated Manifest Rule	A mandatory requirement that all shipping manifests must be filed with US twenty-four hours prior to departure from the foreign port of origin for containerized ocean freight
Free and Secure Trade (FAST)	A security certification for all truck traffic entering the US from Canada. Carriers with FAST certification will be granted expedited border clearance
Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT)	A voluntary certification program for US importers whereby they can obtain expedited customs clearance by documenting and submitting a self-audit of international supply chain partners, physical security procedures and escalation procedures to US Customs.
Sarbanes-Oxley	US congress requires corporations to provide ongoing reports and visibility into the flow of information and funds pertaining to financial processes.
Bioterrorism Act 2002	Initiated under the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), this policy is under review and discussion and may require importers of food products into the US to disclose product level detail. It requires registration of foreign and domestic "food facilities"; record retention to be made to FDA within four hours; and prior notice of food import shipments before allowed entry to the US
Patriot Act of 2002	This Act, signed into law by the US president, requires that financial institutions know their customers and, to the greatest extent possible, their customers' customers.

Will 2005 Validate Global Trade Management and Unify Financial and Physical Supply Chains

The Internet has enabled a networked apple creating a advice basement and after action applications, all which accept opened the aperture for all-around trade. This, in turn, demands multi-enterprise casework and software to automate the busline and Internet-based acumen administration needs of a all-around trading network. As the all-around barter administration (GTM) amplitude continues consolidating, it is acceptable bright that bazaar administration belongs to companies that accept that, to absolutely beforehand all-around trade, one accept to be able to administer both the concrete and cyberbanking accumulation chains.

Communications and busline networks accept bigger so badly over the endure few decades, that even the a lot of absent regions and nations are aural the ability through a simple Internet connection. As a result, abounding companies accept jumped into all-embracing markets, and accept outsourced their accomplishment or accretion operations to cheaper beyond manufacturers and suppliers, while some accept accustomed subsidiaries about the world. E-business promises to added compress the apple into a "global village" as people, collaboratively or not, research, offer, source, and annex articles globally via the all-over Web. They buy and advertise through altered e-commerce sites, storefronts, and marketplaces and administer all-embracing accumulation chains with alternate software and trading exchanges.

Logistics managers accept continued approved technology solutions that action a defended Internet arrangement for scheduling and planning and accommodate the best annual for multi-carrier, multimode, and multi-leg shipments in an cardinal business action system—one which can aswell handle calm and all-embracing affairs aural the acumen trading community. The Internet by itself acts as the agency of advice amid traders and customers, and they wish these systems to bear about real-time advice in a cost-effective manner, about anywhere in the world.

However, this affectionate of e-business has yet to best the claiming of all-around barter acquiescence and the altered needs of all-embracing barter and trading partners. Simply put, a lot of accumulation alternation administration (SCM), let abandoned action ability planning (ERP) vendors still about abridgement able all-embracing barter acumen (ITL) and all-around barter administration (GTM) capabilities. Simply put, while technology may cede a apple that appears a lot smaller, in reality, the apple is a lot added complicated. There are abounding barriers that abide to administering all-embracing business over the Internet, of which a lot of businesses are ill-prepared.

Few applications absolutely action multi-enterprise casework and software to automate the complex, multimodal busline and Internet-based acumen administration needs of a all-around trading network. A lot of modern, Web-based, buy- and sell-side applications abatement able-bodied abbreviate of accouterment automatic all-around barter management, and acceptable all-embracing barter logistics.

As declared in the article, All-embracing Barter or ITL Adoption, ITL and GTM are beheading systems advised to automate the import/export business process. Their basal anatomic apparatus are barter certificate bearing and transmission, and authoritative acquiescence validation, and includes a circuitous barter of advice amid altered entities, including suppliers, carriers, bales forwarders, community brokers, cyberbanking institutions, and added third-party busline and accumulator providers. A accurate ITL/GTM arrangement is an interenterprise ability administration system, and requires a abstracts archetypal that can annual for the beyond and abyss of advice that is exchanged amid this complication of commutual entities. Thus, ITL and GTM systems should abutment consign and acceptation borders-crossing processes; affidavit and acquiescence (which are incomprehensible to accustomed mortals); and accounting, and cyberbanking advertisement in a multicurrency, multilingual and multi-units of admeasurement (UOM) environment.

While abounding accept able and disconnected opinions about globalization and outsourcing articles and services, anybody will accede that these modes of business are actuality to stay. Some letters affirmation that about 30 percent of the world's gross calm artefact currently crosses borders, appropriately all-around barter is acceptable an basic and growing allotment of about every business. Yet, exporters and importers abide to attempt to alike old-fashioned, all-embracing freight, financial, and authoritative processes, and although they ability abstract assembly from entering acumen to abate this conundrum, accretion bazaar pressures abide to force bigger coordination. Help may appear from adopting a new crop of Web-based applications aimed at convalescent and automating intricate multiparty coordination. As a result, businesses accept created GTM to ascertain the challenges and opportunities altered to the new, awful all-around business environment. There are some acute trends that accept fabricated GTM (which has afresh amorphous accumulation ITL) a affair of absorption to beat businesses, including the actuality that all-around barter is substantial, and will alone access with time.

Nonetheless, while abounding may see the annual for sourcing appurtenances from extensive locations with cheaper activity and costs, not abounding acutely apprehend the intricacies and costs associated with such trading activities—a bulk which generally may abate the antecedent allowances of cheaper, nominal prices of alien items. Although abounding enterprises accept fabricated beforehand in convalescent aspects of their cyberbanking accumulation chains by implementing ERP or cyberbanking applications such as accounts receivable (AR), accepted balance (GL), and accounts payable (AP), all-around barter requires a bulk of additional, acute functions that are frequently absent from calm trade, including functions like letter of acclaim (LC) management, all-around barter financing, country and affair accident assessment, and transaction adaptation (settlement), to name a few. Proper administration of these specialized functions crave GTM-oriented cyberbanking administration solutions that should accord organizations greater afterimage and ascendancy over their all-embracing business partners, receivables, payables, alive basic needs, and all-embracing cyberbanking position.

Importing and exporting accept to be a part of the a lot of labor-intensive, paper-heavy business activities, and the alertness of export, import, and border/duty approval abstracts is no baby accomplishment for shippers and carriers. If one adds up all of the affidavit that accept to be complied, including addition and transaction documents, beforehand addition notices (ASN), licenses, certifications, and includes the inspections appropriate by the exporter, importer, bales forwarder, community broker, bounded and all-embracing carriers, banks, community authorities (at both the agent and destination) and altered government agencies, it is not hasty to see why a archetypal all-embracing barter transaction may absorb several dozens or added steps. On the added hand, taxes, tariffs, regulations, and acquiescence issues can bound construe into addition delays, bearding products, and cher acknowledgment if the assigned processes are not followed to the letter.

It is appropriately no abruptness that about 10 percent of apple barter is spent on authoritative costs, with a lot of of that money directed adjoin certificate preparation, handling, and transmission. A archetypal air-freight addition takes eight to twelve days. Of this, the accountability is en avenue alone 5 percent of the time. The blow is spent sitting in warehouses cat-and-mouse for the appropriate abstracts and acquiescence checks.

To administer such complexity, added and added shippers await on import/export software, which has acquired into a added absolute GTM category. If this software aboriginal came on the scene, vendors focused on automating the repetitive conception of barter documents, and after broadcast their products' capabilities to cover assessment classification, landed-cost calculations, community regulations, denied-party screening, and adjustment tracking, etc. Today, exporters and importers still accept a best to acquirement from bargain solutions that handle a alone task, such as certificate creation, to added expensive, about all-embracing GTM solutions that ascendancy and clue barter affairs from acquirement adjustment to final delivery.

Importers, exporters, forwarders, banks, and agnate institutions added see the address of GTM solutions. Assets from the top- and bottom-lines, acquired from a accumulated basement that takes advantage of globalization, ability far beat any domestic-focused projects, (except in the case of new artefact development for those who do not outsource). Allowances cover added revenues through new all-around sales markets; decreased operating costs through lower bulk abstracts sourcing, business action outsourcing (BPO), and globally broadcast organizations; lower costs through bigger alive basic management; new business strategies, such as accessible annual mechanisms affiliated to barter financing; and greater afterimage and ascendancy of all-embracing receivables and payables.

Further, clashing several years ago, if the alone advantage for deploying action software was with multimillion dollar, multiyear customized accomplishing projects, the current, added complete software bazaar gives companies a bulk of deployment options (for added information, see Trends in Accumulation and Pricing Models for Action Applications). Enterprises can now accompany pilot projects, arrange point solutions afore accretion to broad-based solutions, and accept amid hosted or behind-the-firewall, on-premise solutions.

However, while there are affecting operational and banknote breeze allowances to be acquired from implementing and calmly active all-around trade, as will be explained after in this series, all-around barter is a decidedly added circuitous and chancy business than calm trade, . Further, admitting the abeyant gains, there are authoritative obstacles preventing abounding companies from demography advantage of GTM solutions. Namely, companies are still structured in anatomic silos, which appulse decision-making, accustomed that alone a few companies accept their accumulated organization, technology, and processes appropriately accumbent for all-around business.

Most ample companies still run their businesses internationally rather than globally. In added words, ample companies usually accept an array of adopted subsidiaries that are independent businesses active their own systems that are out of accompany with anniversary other. Throughout the enterprise, anatomic silos added aggravate a seamless access to all-around acumen management. For instance, acquiescence departments address to legal, admitting purchasing drives import; consign is apprenticed by sales, while busline departments focus on accepting the best rates. No one absolutely questions whether or not the aggregation is addition calmly throughout the system, accustomed that the these silos often, aback accomplish assets or losses adjoin anniversary other.

Supply alternation planning (SCP), barter compliance, cardinal sourcing, and added cardinal tasks cannot be managed on a all-around calibration if key abstracts is inconsistent and is not calmly shared. Goods, in every footfall from raw actual until delivery, ability run acumen costs abutting to bisected of the absolute cost, and accounting can hardly accredit these to the alone items. An archetype is a aggregation that had seemingly, based alone on the assemblage price, adored dozens of actor by accretion its all-around supplier abject alone to after apprehend it had added absolute acumen costs by alert the bulk of their accumulation due to abounding non-economical less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments.

Successful accomplishing of GTM solutions requires companies to accommodate their concrete and cyberbanking accumulation chains in capricious degrees and elements. To do this, companies accept to allotment abstracts and coact beyond their anatomic silos and alien business partners. Of coursee, authoritative altered solutions plan seamlessly is a claiming for every aspect of SCM. All-around acumen is conceivably the a lot of difficult conduct to administer through one platform, because the cosmos of users is ample and advance about the world, whereby systems- and user-capabilities alter widely. On the added hand, mandates for added functionality abide to grow, such as the contempo barter aegis regulations from US Customs, as will be explained after in this series.

To advance in a awful aggressive all-around economy, area antagonism can appear from Arkansas or Argentina, enterprises accept to yield advantage of the bulk advantages afforded by the all-around availability of appurtenances and services. At least, if one does not demography advantage of the all-embracing availability of analytic high-quality goods, bargain activity ante and efficient, reliable transportation, again the antagonism acceptable will.

When we allocution about the risks of globalization, abounding are usually apropos to the blackmail of calm jobs affective overseas. All-around barter acquiescence is rarely discussed, even admitting it poses a accident that may affect about every architect that either imports or exports. Namely, accepting these appurtenances and locations alien from one country to addition is a alarming assignment and needs the abutment of GTM software and a annual provider with a aggregate of all-around barter area knowledge, accurate processes and all-embracing barter best practices.

All of the about 200 countries in the apple accept alone authoritative requirements for importing and exporting goods, area one has to annual for factors like tariffs and duties, country-to-country preferences, and anti-dumping laws, with the crisis of incurring hidden costs at every step. If that is not circuitous enough, the contest of September 11, 2001 accept added the analysis countries abode on all-around trade, which aswell impacts costs adversely. According to the Brookings Institution, the bulk of slowing the accumulation of alien appurtenances by just one day because of added aegis checks may bulk to $7 billion (USD) per year. Stringent new affidavit and citizenry aegis requirements are agreement austere acknowledged and cyberbanking after-effects on importers and exporters for actionable these consistently alteration barter regulations. The accountability is on the importer/exporter to apperceive absolutely what the regulations are and how to accede with them.

Mainstream Enterprise Vendors Begin to Grasp Content Management Part Three: Challenges

With buyers agog on seeing aftereffect for their investments in e-procurement and PTX, suppliers on the added duke getting apprenticed to participate in on-line sales channels in a abundant allotment by distributors and aggregators (which repackage the artefact abstracts with catalogs from abounding like suppliers, and resell the agreeable to companies adventure e-procurement initiatives) that accept complete their e-commerce and accord platforms, PCM vendors accept by itself abounded from abounding sides.

Yet, the all-embracing agreeable administration band-aid is still in the ever-evolving architecture stage, as vendors try to section calm absolute systems. Therefore, as mentioned beforehand on, there seems to be a admeasurement (and consecutive abashing about) of the pertinent agreement like action agreeable administration (ECM), artefact agreeable administration (PCM), archive management, artefact advice administration (PIM), annal administration (RM), artefact abstracts administration (PDM), action abstracts repositories (EDR), certificate administration (DM), adeptness administration (KM), web agreeable administration (WCM), agenda asset administration (DAM), action advice administration (EIM), agenda rights administration (DRM), certificate imaging, workflow administration (WM) or business action administration (BPM) and more.

As aswell said beforehand on, about speaking, PCM or PIM refers to a arrangement for managing all types of advice about accomplished products, and it is a added evolutionary footfall of archive agreeable administration backed up with a workflow management. This is about altered from ECM, which focuses added on certificate administration and baggy beat and web content, admitting PCM is added diminutive about alone abstracts elements and focuses on awful structured artefact content. ECM encompasses abounding of the above-cited technologies acclimated to capture, manage, store, preserve, and bear agreeable and abstracts accompanying to authoritative processes. In added words, it allows the administration of an organization's baggy advice (e.g., e-mails, photos, spreadsheets, documents, etc.), wherever that advice existsstored in repositories, shuttled beyond networks, and managed over the advance of its actuality or activity cycle.

However, behindhand of the name and purpose, all the aloft software categories aim at the aforementioned ambition of getting the sole trustworthy, adept antecedent of artefact advice for the enterprise. Still, business purposes for such systems could abatement almost into the afterward three groups:

1. The artefact advice accompanying to the design, development, and addition of the products, which belongs to PLM and PDM, as its subset, that captures and manages artefact abstracts generated during the artefact architecture and development process.

2. The advice accompanying to the affairs (procurement) or affairs ancillary of e-commerce of the products, area PIM systems appear into play afterwards in the artefact activity cycle, afterwards a artefact is bogus and alien to the market. PIM vendors aim at allowance manufacturers and distributors actualize centralized artefact advice repositories that can be acclimated for assorted purposes by humans in assorted roles throughout the accession and the accumulation chain.

3. The advice about already endemic products, equipment, and facilities, that is, assets.

Yet, to conduct collaborative processes, businesses charge anchored intelligence, and business intelligence (BI) or analytics applications, focused on structured abstracts action alone a allotment of the absolute solution. In added words, businesses aswell charge agreeable administration for the baggy abstracts and content, which can board a majority of business information, accustomed that abounding decisions makers coact via e-mail or voicemail, which are examples of all-inclusive baggy advice that currently resides alfresco of business processes and of the adeptness of ERP and BI systems. Also, while PIM addresses abstracts synchronization, ECM, arranged with able accumulator administration systems has been bolstered by abounding almanac assimilation regulations like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), or Department of Defense Requirements for Annal Administration Applications (DoD 5015.2). Owing to well-publicized accounting and certificate shredding scandals at the brand of Enron, enterprises accept to be able to retrieve baggy abstracts quickly, at atomic in case of a cloister appearance.

Therefore, ideally, one unified arrangement of almanac should be able to abutment all the aloft purposes, as it would thereby vouch for efficiency, accuracy, control, and agility. For example, while there are some acute affidavit to arrange PIM in isolation, the absolute allowances would appear if PIM would accompaniment PLM in an chip appearance during the product's attributes and blueprint absolution (introduction) to the market, which is generally advised alone as an addition and handled by business or sales association alive with abandoned spreadsheets or custom databases. In added words, the majority of accepted UCCnet abstracts synchronization solutions focus on processes such as accumulation artefact abstracts in a artefact archive advised to accommodated UCCnet's specifications, encapsulating the abstracts in the actual bulletin format, and establishing connectivity for the abstracts synchronization with the banker through UCCnet or via a third affair e-commerce arrangement casework providers (e.g., Transora or Worldwide Retail Exchange [WWRE]).

While these solutions may abode the basal requirements for UCCnet compliance, they abort to abode the axiological business affair that all parties accomplish application authentic accepted data, rather than the aforementioned (but possibly outdated) data. Hence, enterprises should aggrandize their UCCnet acquiescence efforts to awning artefact abstracts candor processes, enabled by PLM accoutrement that ensure that there is a individual adaptation of the accuracy throughout the continued action and that changes are reflected in all systems immediately, convalescent abstracts superior and the adequacy of centralized and alien business processes. Alone afresh the abstracts aggregate with business ally will be accurate, which is the authentic value, accustomed that synchronizing bad abstracts will still aftereffect in fines by the brand of Wal-Mart.

Because of these aforementioned initiatives, PLM vendors are aswell getting added asked by their barter to awning added commercially-oriented artefact advice in their PLM systems. A few top contour case studies accept apparent how the abstracts in a PLM arrangement can serve as the antecedent of valid, constant and abreast artefact advice for synchronization and alliance to accumulation alternation partners. However, a lot of PLM systems abridgement a PIM system's adeptness for secure, trusted synchronization of advice to abstracts pools like UCCnet. For added information.

While the angle of a individual antecedent for all the artefact content, accustomed a awful distributed, multi-application, amalgamate environment, charcoal a alpine adjustment at this stage, it aswell charcoal a alive eyes to pursue. Namely, the admiration to adeptness baggy sources too (e.g., cardboard records, faxes, cyberbanking document, web pages, e-mails, multimedia objects, etc.) and cull them afterpiece to collaborative business processes will acceptable drive ERP vendors to cull ECM into their domain, in a address agnate to their assailment into the acreage of BI and PLM (see BI Approaches of Action Software Vendors and PLM Advancing of Age: ERP Vendors Yield Notice).

True, such single-source PCM or ECM arrangement would claiming abounding notions about what is structured and what is baggy information, accustomed it would accept to awning a advanced array of advice formats and types, whereby the advice has to be diminutive and systematically ascribed to serve assorted audiences and board or accord with added systems. Further, not alone does the allocation alter in vertical industries, so do the anatomy and agreement standards that acquiesce companies to do business with others. For that reason, a lot of pure-play PCM vendors accept been actual industry-specific, managing to survive on a ample allotment of consulting casework acquirement against software authorization fees. Afresh though, some of the providers accept been accretion into alms versatile, scalable systems with the adeptness to plan beyond industries, vertical markets, and business functions.

On the added hand, the ECM vendors, the brand of Documentum (now a allotment of EMC), FileNet, Stellent, Vignette, and Accessible Text to name some, are acclimated finer as repositories for PCM, a lot of generally in design, engineering, or added PLM roles. But athenaeum functions of agreeable administration are bound getting commoditized, back the accepted DBMS from Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft will anon action abutment for functions like storing, versioning, and tracking a lot of kinds of content, although the ECM vendors will acknowledge by abacus amount on top their repositories by afresh alms vertical solutions and abutment for key business processes. The authentic crisis adeptness be advancing from IBM, who has not been ambuscade its absorption in the ECM bazaar either with a bulk of contempo acquisitions, including Tarian in 2002 for annal management, Aptrix and Green Pastures in 2003 for WCM and collaborative assembly and adaptation ascendancy respectively, and a lot of afresh Venetica for agreeable integration. The abeyant for new business and broadened alms (e.g., accumulation aperture frameworks, ECM components, accumulator systems, etc.) has prompted several intra-market acquisitions, the a lot of notable getting Documentum's accretion of aloft askOnce's seek technology (before it was acquired by EMC), Vignette's accretion of TOWER Software, and Accessible Text's accretion of IXOS Software.

Therefore, as abounding companies are already acumen amount from contempo BI or ERP and PLM or ERP accession and alliance (see Has Alliance Made the PLM Bazaar Added Agile? and BI Bazaar Alliance Compared to ERP Bazaar Consolidation), the closing ECM and PCM accession with ERP should aswell aftereffect with allowances of acceptance companies to yield advantage of adeptness and agreeable hidden aural astronomic beginning pools of baggy content.

The brand of SAP will acquiescently serve as a accession point that would accompany ECM aural collaborative business processes. Even now the SAP Annal Administration (SAP RM) basal of SAP NetWeaver offers added than tools, as it has predefined industry specific annal administration layouts and scenarios, such as SAP Public Sector Annal Management, mySAP Financials Dispute Management, and mySAP CRM Case Management. Also, SAP's business processes (or even processes alfresco SAP applications) can allotment agreeable aggregate at any SAP NetWeaver band through accessible standards. For example, participants can broadcast BI agreeable in the SAP Adeptness Administration (SAP KM) repository, which afresh enables KM altar to accomplishment all SAP KM services, like subscriptions, discussions, collaboration, advice aggregation, etc., and the abstracts associated with BI, business processes, and artefact models. Also, through the accord engine, cFolders, users can accomplish the analytic archetypal accessible to accommodating teams after acute them to accessible a SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW) developer board or accept to abstraction the metadata or databases.

On the added hand, a adjustable workflow administration facility, which is active to acquiesce users to body collaborative processes that reflect their altered artefact development issues, is addition analytical PLM basal technology aspect that Oracle has continued baffled and offered as a stand-alone advantage to Oracle applications users. BI or analytics too goes after saying, accustomed Oracle has continued awash stand-alone OLAP accoutrement for years. Oracle has aswell been authoritative strides in certificate administration and ECM, with a activity code-called Tsunami that is slated for the end of 2004, which will board a aloft advancement for Oracle Accord Suite and will aswell appear in accessible for managing baggy abstracts aural PLM systems. Oracle has already helped some barter with basal certificate administration functions of Oracle Application Server 10g that appearance Oracle Agreeable Administration SDK (software development kit). Formerly accepted as Internet File Arrangement (iFS), the SDK is a accumulating of accoutrement that handles tasks such as managing assorted versions of a document, check-in and analysis out capabilities, etc. Thus, Oracle's moves assume to annul the Microsoft ones of Microsoft SharePoint document-sharing and accord technology that the vendors has arranged aural contempo server versions of its Windows operation system, and which will eventually morph into WinFS (Windows File System) aural the next adaptation of Windows cipher called Longhorn.

From the angle of manufacturers, abstracts synchronization is an important allotment of befitting up acceptable relationships with retailers like Wal-Mart, and one band-aid is centralized abstracts affiliation via a archive artefact such as xCat offered by aloft A2i (now allotment of SAP MDM), with the GDS adequacy accepted in backward 2004. However, for the aloft ECM or PCM "bigger picture" discussion, SAP is absorbed not alone in GDS, but aswell in the greater amount of PCM, with tie-ins for barter promotions management, business adeptness management, banking applications, CRM applications, solutions ambidextrous with artefact design, and even sourcing and procurement. None of these can be dealt with auspiciously after alive what and from whom one is buying. However, after PCM functionality delivered in accord with PLM solutions, changes to artefact advice alfresco of the archive do not automatically amend the catalog, back PLM should ascendancy artefact agreeable throughout its activity cycle, ensuring that all artefact agreeable is accepted and authentic wherever it exists aural the alignment and its accumulation chain.

As said beforehand on, one of the affidavit why e-commerce was apathetic in demography off was that companies did not accept the artefact agreeable and the publishing accoutrement to accomplish it advantageous on an advancing base (i.e., through the adeptness to always change offerings, adapt offerings, board alterations to altered markets). Accession agreeable is difficult, and expensive, accustomed that not alone do enterprises charge a action for accession content, but they aswell charge the accoutrement in which to abode and anatomy the agreeable properly. Poorly structured agreeable cannot be appear to paper, and cannot be web-enabled either. That has been A2i's focuscreating a arrangement that allows users to anatomy agreeable in a way that it can be acclimated repeatedly. Further, back it is such an big-ticket process, users charge to be able to advantage that investment beyond assorted media and to be able to broadcast to the web in a fast, rich, and searchable wayin agreement of not just transactional data, but aswell parametric advice that makes it accessible to seek by artefact relationship.

Mainstream Enterprise Vendors Begin to Grasp Content Management Part Two: Background & Lessons Learned

For years, customer packaged appurtenances (CPG) firms accept beatific inaccurate (inadvertently or not) artefact abstracts to retailers, but now they are beneath apprehension to fix the botheration or pay penalties and even lose out at the end of the day. Nowadays, therefore, they will accept to assay their priorities and advance a artefact advice administration (PIM) or all-around abstracts synchronization (GDS) activity plan that delivers semantically accommodated abstracts acquiescence with the aloft boss retailers' demands. Moreover, these suppliers could even action their barter new relationship-enhancing value-added casework already they accept implemented apple-pie and synchronized artefact advice repositories.

As a help, the Compatible Cipher Council (UCC) has accustomed standards for artefact advice and affairs accepted as UCCnet to which suppliers are allowable to subscribe. With this befalling resonating, abounding archive administration and publishing providers like aloft A2i accept afresh jumped into added advantageous PIM/GDS space. Further, depending on the bazaar and cartography segments, the all-around barter account amount (GTIN), compatible artefact cipher (UPC) and European article amount (EAN) abstracts formats acquiesce for the constant identification of article throughout the accumulation alternation process, from artefact architecture to the point of auction (POS). The use of GTIN, UPC, and EAN abstracts promises to abundantly access the adeptness with which retailers and manufacturers can mark, track, and barter abundant artefact information. As a aftereffect of these standards and technologies, abounding retailers, vendors, suppliers, and cast manufacturers accept been able to abate the amount of banking operations, mismatches amid acquirement orders and invoices, inaccurate artefact shipments, and stock-outs.

From hindsight, the abstraction abaft a business-to-business (B2B) barter and marketplace—to accompany calm (aggregate) assorted buyers and sellers via the Internet to save money, aggrandize markets, advance accumulation alternation efficiency, and what not to all the parties—had seemed acutely aboveboard and too acceptable to be true. However, it has angry out to be abundant added aching to achieve. The affected promises accept far outweighed the in fact provided allowances so far. Namely, creating the technology to accomplish such a barter has angry out to be far added difficult than originally envisioned, while suppliers remained afraid if not even affronted to attempt for business on-line and watch their margins abrade aural the bloodthirsty behest process.

Hence, with the abortion of a lot of accessible exchanges and the annoyance of abounding accumulated e-procurement or clandestine barter (PTX) projects attributed to a abridgement of supplier participation, PCM has appear to the beginning as a acute action for e-commerce. Initially, it had seemed a simple amount of accepting suppliers to abridge and abide their artefact information. But buyers and vendors accept grossly underestimated the suppliers' banking and abstruse accountability of creating, managing, and advancement artefact content, as able-bodied as their abhorrence to duke over the content. In appearance of that, they accept abstract the suppliers' alacrity to participate.

Joining an Internet-based trading barter requires affiliation not alone amid a company's own systems and applications, but amid those of its trading ally and association members, which has abundantly fabricated arrangement integrators (SI) the alone bartering benefactors from B2B exchanges so far. Abounding aboriginal enthusiasts accept aswell initially bootless to apprehend the complication of the aloft undertaking, which was maybe affordable to a Fortune 500 company, but acutely big-ticket for baby and midsize companies and their suppliers. On the added hand, the antecedent abstraction of extenuative buyers money by enabling them to accumulated their purchasing and baddest the atomic big-ticket supplier at a accustomed moment has hardly afflicted anyone—while suppliers hated to be formed aloft with abundant discounts expectations during their behest rat races, buyers accept aswell appear to a cessation that the buzz and fax accept been still as acceptable business enablers as these ambiguous exchanges, if not even bigger for their inexpensiveness.

It had, at some stage, dawned on abounding that these Internet exchanges had to move not alone from accretion aberrant abstracts to cover absolute ones, but aswell to move from simple article accretion into artefact design, banking settlement, fulfillment, resellers and approach management, logistics, and abounding added value-adding collaborative trading functions, and to accommodate all that functionality into a corporation's back-office systems, which could be the a lot of value-adding proposition.

Indeed, PCM was missing from the dot-com bearing of action and web platforms, which has in a abundant allotment hindered their success and prevented them from carrying promised benefits. For example, agreeable and appliance alliance was missing (i.e., the seller's website accept to be able to absorb artefact archive advice with pictures and descriptions, while the barter accept to be able to syndicate archive agreeable from assorted suppliers, administer the able argumentation for formatting and pricing, and present the advice in a circumscribed appearance to buyers). For added information.

Consequently, it has become bright that suppliers charge a absolute arrangement that lets them administer artefact agreeable as calmly as they administer products. Thus, the claim for able-bodied PCM is assuredly getting accustomed a allotment of arch advice admiral (CIO) and IT managers, who are searching to actualize and administer a centralized athenaeum of affluent artefact content, and aswell by abounding action vendors of late. The still accepted manual, paper-based account approval procedures at some sites abide to actualize accidental addition lag times and aswell impede the approaching growth. This is decidedly accurate if on boilerplate a grocery banker may be appropriate the accumulating and access of hundreds of pieces of abstracts to acquaint one new artefact from one supplier into the arrangement of bags of trading partners.

Thus, some software vendors targeting the retail sector, such as QRS (soon to be alloyed with Inovis, afterwards abolishment the alliance with JDA Software, see Not All Acquisitions Happen: JDA and QRS) or General Barter Casework (GXS) (see GXS Acquires HAHT Commerce for Added Synchronized Retail B2B Data) abide focused on enabling retail industry participants to affix with anniversary added and transact business through the use of these automatic communications and artefact identification standards. There are a amount of added best-of-breed PIM players on the market, including FullTilt Solutions, Blue Martini, Cardonet, SAQQARA, Sterling Commerce, Comergent Technologies, CommercialWare, Flow Systems, Stibo, Liaison Technologies, and Velosel. Anniversary has a amount of barter application its solutions, but the PIM bazaar is just now heating up and the bobcat allotment of the bazaar is still up for grabs.

Nevertheless, duke in duke with the trend to conduct business affairs electronically via the Internet is an accomplishment to apple-pie up those affairs and abate the accident of errors. Often enough, as already mentioned abounding times, the agitation with artefact attributes is that they do not bout from one database to the next in the amount chain. For every artefact beneath its cast umbrella, there are several artefact attributes, including definitions, blueprint (product weights, measurements, calorie counts, etc.), images, allotment conventions, business messages, and prices. As a result, something as banal as a can of aliment comes with arrays of abstracts apropos to pricing, description, promotion, and so on.

To accomplish things worse, companies may accept hundreds or bags of articles and assorted individuals may advance anniversary bit of artefact information, so the assignment of acclimation and advancement all this advice is analytical to the company, back bad abstracts costs companies billions of dollars in incorrect acquirement orders, consecutive returns, and the chiral accomplishment appropriate to fix them (see $40 Billion Is Getting Wasted by Companies after Artefact Advice Administration Strategies—How Is Yours Coming Along?).

Accordingly, PIM and GDS applications accumulated automate the action by which suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers allotment advice accordant to issues like account cachet and artefact specifications. This technology adeptness aswell be an important basement and enabler for arising affairs about the RFID technology, which is aswell top on these banker giants' agenda. But, as mentioned beforehand on, abstracts synchronization would be a almost simple assignment if the abstracts were normalized, complete, and error-free.

Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, accustomed artefact advice is not created by a individual administration aural the aggregation and is usually not overseen by any individual group. It is this abridgement of action aural a manufacturer's business and about managing artefact advice that facilitates errors. Yet, accompanying systems such as logistics, balance reconciliation, and POS aswell charge the aforementioned artefact information. The retail sector, decidedly aliment and grocery industry, would appropriately abundantly account from some on-line industry allocation if it comes to managing catalogs and B2B trading communities, area UCC seems to be arena its part.

Like a lot of software solutions, PIM has acquired forth a aisle on which the a lot of acute needs are met first. For CPG companies, the highest-priority charge is GDS, and if faced with mandates from their better retail ally to accord artefact advice via EAN/UCCnet, abounding CPG companies accept appropriately bound implemented solutions to upload advice to the registry. However, they accept aswell anon afterwards apparent that they did not accept all the requested advice or a action for befitting the anthology advice up-to-date. Therefore, a abiding PIM action requires affiliation with added systems, workflow, an advice repository, and the adeptness to accord and syndicate advice to a array of destinations in assorted formats.

Mainstream Enterprise Vendors Begin to Grasp Content Management

SAP's contempo accretion of the aloft archive administration bell-ringer A2i and IBM's accretion of the aloft artefact advice administration (PIM) bell-ringer Trigo adeptness announce some enterprise-wide artefact agreeable administration (PCM) approaches of the boilerplate action belvedere and action applications or action adeptness planning (ERP) vendors, as their responses to the charge for an able adept abstracts administration (MDM) arrangement to the boundless challenges of brindled abstracts affiliation from assorted systems, concrete locations, and assorted trading partners. Thus, PCM and PIM would be the amount locations of MDM solutions that will administer any affectionate of adept abstracts and be seamlessly chip into a customer's absolute action architecture, alluringly eliminating all abstracts duplication and authoritative centralized customer, supplier, or artefact advice accessible to added applications beyond the organization.

SAP, IBM, and like boilerplate action vendors charge to break the problems inherent to abstracts residing in disparate systems, as enterprises are acceptable acutely acquainted of the charge to apple-pie up their structured abstracts and baggy agreeable acts to capitalize on added important efforts like authoritative compliance, globalization, appeal aggregation, and accumulation alternation streamlining, to name some. To that end, these action vendors accept to accommodate the adeptness to aswell accommodate arising radio abundance identification (RFID) abstracts into their software, as able-bodied as abounding abutment for web services-based accessories and burning of abstracts and processes.

Yet, the all-embracing agreeable administration band-aid is still in the ever-evolving architectonics stage, as vendors try to section calm absolute systems. Therefore, there seems to be a admeasurement (and consecutive abashing about) of the pertinent agreement and acronyms like action agreeable administration (ECM), artefact agreeable administration (PCM), archive management, artefact advice administration (PIM), annal administration (RM), artefact abstracts administration (PDM), action abstracts repositories (EDR), certificate administration (DM), adeptness administration (KM), web agreeable administration (WCM), agenda asset administration (DAM), action advice administration (EIM), agenda rights administration (DRM), certificate imaging, workflow administration (WM) or business action administration (BPM), and abounding more.

Generally speaking, PCM (sometimes aswell alleged PIM) refers to a arrangement for managing all types of advice about accomplished products, and it is a added evolutionary footfall of archive agreeable administration backed up with a workflow management. This is about altered from ECM, which focuses added on certificate administration and added baggy beat and web content, admitting PCM is added diminutive about alone abstracts elements and focuses on awful structured artefact content. ECM encompasses abounding of the above-cited technologies acclimated to capture, manage, store, preserve, and bear agreeable and abstracts accompanying to authoritative processes. In added words, it allows the administration of an organization's baggy advice (e.g., e-mails, photos, spreadsheets, documents, etc.), wherever that advice existsstored in repositories, shuttled beyond networks, and managed over the advance of its actuality or activity cycle.

Coming aback to managing structured, alphanumeric information, a PIM or PCM band-aid would cover the adeptness to adapt a company's artefact information, behindhand of location, into a circumscribed arrangement of record, and be able to accord or deliver that advice to any business ally that crave it. Yet, accurate PCM should beggarly added than just the centralized athenaeum to annihilate abstracts duplication with a bound asset of functionality; rather, this athenaeum accept to be able of autumn all artefact information, while the arrangement accept to be added than a point band-aid or an island, back it accept to aswell action high-performance admission to that information, and it accept to cover deeply chip functionality that can be acclimated to drive all acute action initiatives.

First and foremost, the PCM should circumduct about a individual centralized athenaeum of artefact information. It should be the "system of record" for all non-transactional artefact advice and authoritative intelligence about products, and annihilate abstracts duplication and arrangement back-up beyond the enterprise. In effect, it should be the "ERP for artefact information" absolute not alone "rich artefact content", but aswell added types of accompanying information, such as supplier information, as able-bodied as one or added supplier-specific sub-records of sourcing advice for anniversary artefact that allows the PCM to accompanying drive both sell-side and buy-side initiatives. In added words, the affluent artefact agreeable managed by the PCM accept to be abundant added than artlessly transactional abstracts about anniversary artefact from the ERP or artefact adept book (e.g., a allotment number, a description, and a price).

This brings us to the angle of action publishing (where some PCM systems will overlap with ECM), which aims at abbreviation costs to actualize and dispatch deployment of all the product-related information, including user manuals, sales collateral, and web sites, that accomplish up the complete artefact offering. In fact, affluent artefact agreeable accept to comprise all of the non-transactional artefact advice aural an organization, such as abundant parametric abstracts on artefact specifications; affairs text, top resolution images, drawings, diagrams, and carriageable abstracts formats (PDF) for assorted business and publishing requirements; a allocation arrangement for acclimation the articles into a searchable anatomy of categories and subcategories with category-specific attributes; artefact relationships to represent affairs relationships (such as up-sells, cross-sells, and accessories) and structural relationships (such as assemblies, kits, and bundles); locations acceptance information; and finally, assorted product-specific casework for leveraging the affluent artefact agreeable such as hotspots advice for illustrated locations catalogs after the charge for a abstracted system.

The appellation PIM has appeared added frequently afresh in the altercation of all-around abstracts synchronization (GDS) and alliance because of a amount of bazaar initiatives that act as catalysts for change. For example, abounding ample retailers, including Wal-Mart, Office Depot, The Home Depot, Target, Albertsons, and Safeway accept allowable their suppliers to accord artefact abstracts via European commodity amount (EAN)/UCCnet anthology and abstracts synchronization services. Added catalysts would cover the Sunrise 2005 action that seeks to assimilate on a architectonics for all-around artefact identification via a new 14-digit code, and the RFID initiatives in abode to accompany about the accelerated acceptance of new radio abundance tags on all products, so that they may be added calmly tracked through accomplishment and retail environments.

A full-fledged PCM arrangement should additionally accept no agreed angle of the athenaeum anatomy itself, but rather action a absolutely adjustable action that can be tailored to accommodated the specific requirements of anniversary action and anniversary vertical industry, and that can change over time. The PCM accept to be added than just a simple database appliance or end-user application, and added than just a standalone point band-aid that addresses a individual anatomic claim (such as UCCnet synchronization, cardboard book or web-based publishing, or illustrated locations catalogs). Rather, it accept to be a absolutely accessible arrangement with both graphical user interface (GUI) accoutrement for end users and multi-platform appliance programming interfaces (API) for programmatic admission (e.g., Java 2 Action Edition [J2EE], Microsoft .NET, eXtensible Markup Accent [XML], web services, and simple article admission agreement [SOAP]), acknowledging both agreeable assembly and runtime searching, and accouterment a accumbent belvedere for architectonics best-of-breed vertical solutions.

The like PCM arrangement accept to aswell abutment all the arch middleware appliance endless so that it can advantage and accommodate with web appliance servers (WAS), action appliance affiliation (EAI) and aperture servers. Also, rather than a anchored web-based user interface, it should accommodate a adjustable presentation band that can be absolutely customized and tailored to accurate authoritative requirements and assorted vertical markets needs.

Finally, the PCM should be able to arrange and accord artefact advice stored aural repositories beyond the enterprise, creating "a individual archetype of the truth" behindhand of area the abstracts resides. That is to say, the PCM accept to act as a centralized "hub" that plugs PCM functionality and high-performance admission to highly-structured artefact advice into all action initiatives, not alone at the user akin but aswell at the action affiliation level, for plug-and-play allocation with added extended-ERP solutions, such as chump accord administration (CRM), artefact lifecycle administration (PLM), supplier accord administration (SRM) and accumulation alternation administration (SCM), area the vendors with ample alms like SAP or Oracle should be animated to bind their users.

Based on the aloft discussion, a able PCM system, such as the one acquired by SAP, should accept the afterward attributes:

* Able artefact agreeable accession and cleansing, administration and alteration of artefact information, back the able PCM arrangement should do added than abundance abstracts that acclimated to abide in addition system. Instead, it accept to cover able and all-encompassing capabilities for loading, restructuring, cleansing, normalizing, and transforming antecedent abstracts from a array of cyberbanking sources, including text, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, structured concern accent (SQL), and XML for both collapsed files and relational data.

* Allocation into a anatomy with category-specific attributes, back not alone accept to the able PCM systems accept a absolutely adjustable schema, it accept to aswell abutment assorted allocation schemes, user-defined anatomy hierarchies of approximate abyss with category-specific attributes, assorted accompanying taxonomies, and drag-and-drop anatomy alteration capabilities that acquiesce the anatomy of the absolutely busy athenaeum to be absolutely restructured and aesthetic over time.

* Able angel management, back abounding systems can calmly abundance an angel as a bifold ample article (BLOB). By contrast, the able PCM arrangement accept to abutment able angel administration with an compassionate of all of the arch angel formats, the adeptness to automatically transform images for altered publishing purposes, and optimized high-performance angel admission and able angel caching.

* Chip high-performance artefact seek engine, back seek mechanisms offered by acceptable systems are not absolute abundant for analytic artefact information. The full-fledged PCM arrangement accept to appropriately cover a absolutely chip multidimensional seek engine that is optimized for artefact search, with abutment not alone for drill-down, parametric, and keyword search, but aswell units or altitude search, fractional or contains search, and added types of search. To that end, there should be the adeptness to let barter seek for appurtenances after alive artefact codes, that is, in a "No allotment number, no problem" manner.

* Achievement acceleration, with scalability up to millions of products, back acceptable action applications, such as ERP or CRM, are not optimized for abundant seek and admission loads. Similarly, a acceptable relational database administration arrangement (DBMS) is apathetic on archetypal searches adjoin ample repositories, so relying on the "naked" DBMS is aswell a problem. Not to acknowledgment that databases accept not been architected able-bodied to administer large, bifold objects, back rows, columns, and SQL admission are not ill-fitted for managing article like frames of a video or pages of a document. Therefore, a able PCM arrangement accept to accept a self-optimizing achievement dispatch band that is able to bound serve up artefact advice to users and added action applications.

Most archive solutions are simple database applications that band a attenuate appearance of functionality over SQL and they await on SQL for all admission to the data, wherebyy SQL works able-bodied with retrieving a individual almanac from a part of bags or even millions. Yet, to retrieve, for example, several thousand annal from a part of a few million, and to absolute beyond all of the altered ambit of the seek for users to alone see accurate selections and accurate values, that requires a multi-table join.

Also, to interactively browse and array seek results, it requires the use of cursors and acting files, which is addition affair that cripples the achievement of a SQL-based DBMS. One such archetype would be accepting thirty thousand bearings and actual intricate relationships of which bearings can be awash with which added bearings, which requires a arrangement to administer and automate those relationships.

* Cross-media publishing (web and cardboard or CD-ROM print), back the adapted PCM arrangement accept to drive all artefact agreeable initiatives, including deeply chip functionality not alone for centralized PCM, but aswell multichannel syndication, deployment of searchable web catalogs, and book solutions for catalogs and added printed publications. The things that humans apprehend in a cardboard archive in agreement of layout, structure, and collapsed acclimatization of artefact records, should aswell be deliverable to the web. Additionally, the adeptness to allotment and dice a individual adept archive that may accommodate several actor articles into as abounding customized basic private, personalized, subset catalogs as necessary, whereby anniversary allotment looks like a complete catalog, either to the user on the web or if appear to paper.

* Database-driven book catalogs, back a full-fledged PCM arrangement that supports book archive publishing accept to do so in a way that is absolutely database-driven, acceptation it "pushes" artefact advice into the page layouts, rather than artlessly appliance the athenaeum to abundance artefact advice that was aboriginal entered anon into the page blueprint application.

* The arrangement accept to abutment UCCnet synchronization, and aswell be able to syndicate artefact advice to assorted audiences, transforming it into a array of industry-standard and user-defined XML and belted argument formats, on an ad hoc and appointed basis.

* The arrangement accept to accept an chip workflow engine that can accommodate a framework for managing artefact advice in a collaborative environment, and can action standalone or in affiliation with alien workflow applications and systems.

* The above-elaborated cross-platform compatibility; and action scalability, back the adapted PCM arrangement accept to action an n-tier architecture, able of calmly amalgam with assorted deployment architectures, including a abounding apartment of aegis and encryption casework as able-bodied as the adeptness to accommodate with arch user directories, such as failing agenda admission agreement (LDAP). Finally, the PCM arrangement accept to accommodate adept and bondservant capabilities to accredit a all-around 24-7 deployment consisting of both staging and publishing servers.

Mainstream Enterprise Vendors Begin to Grasp Content Management

Coming back to managing structured, alphanumeric information, a PIM or PCM solution would include the ability to organize a company's product information, regardless of location, into a consolidated system of record, and be able to synchronize or distribute that information to any business partners that require it. Yet, true PCM should mean more than just the centralized repository to eliminate data duplication with a limited nugget of functionality; rather, this repository must be capable of storing all product information, while the system must be more than a point solution or an island, since it must also offer high-performance access to that information, and it must include tightly integrated functionality that can be used to drive all crucial enterprise initiatives.

First and foremost, the PCM should revolve around a single centralized repository of product information. It should be the "system of record" for all non-transactional product information and organizational intelligence about products, and eliminate data duplication and system redundancy across the enterprise. In effect, it should be the "ERP for product information" containing not only "rich product content", but also other types of related information, such as supplier information, as well as one or more supplier-specific sub-records of sourcing information for each product that allows the PCM to simultaneously drive both sell-side and buy-side initiatives. In other words, the rich product content managed by the PCM must be much more than simply transactional data about each product from the ERP or product master file (e.g., a part number, a description, and a price).

This brings us to the notion of enterprise publishing (where some PCM systems will overlap with ECM), which aims at reducing costs to create and speed deployment of all the product-related information, including user manuals, sales collateral, and web sites, that make up the complete product offering. In fact, rich product content must comprise all of the non-transactional product information within an organization, such as detailed parametric data on product specifications; merchandising text, high resolution images, drawings, diagrams, and portable data formats (PDF) for various marketing and publishing requirements; a classification scheme for organizing the products into a searchable taxonomy of categories and subcategories with category-specific attributes; product relationships to represent selling relationships (such as up-sells, cross-sells, and accessories) and structural relationships (such as assemblies, kits, and bundles); parts usage information; and finally, various product-specific services for leveraging the rich product content such as hotspots information for illustrated parts catalogs without the need for a separate system.

The term PIM has appeared more frequently lately in the discussion of global data synchronization (GDS) and syndication because of a number of market initiatives that act as catalysts for change. For example, many large retailers, including Wal-Mart, Office Depot, The Home Depot, Target, Albertsons, and Safeway have mandated their suppliers to synchronize product data via European article number (EAN)/UCCnet registry and data synchronization services. Other catalysts would include the Sunrise 2005 initiative that seeks to standardize on a format for global product identification via a new 14-digit code, and the RFID initiatives in place to bring about the rapid adoption of new radio frequency tags on all products, so that they may be more easily tracked through manufacturing and retail environments.

A full-fledged PCM system should additionally have no predetermined notion of the repository structure itself, but rather offer a fully flexible schema that can be tailored to meet the specific requirements of each enterprise and each vertical industry, and that can change over time. The PCM must be more than just a simple database application or end-user application, and more than just a standalone point solution that addresses a single functional requirement (such as UCCnet synchronization, paper print or web-based publishing, or illustrated parts catalogs). Rather, it must be a completely open system with both graphical user interface (GUI) tools for end users and multi-platform application programming interfaces (API) for programmatic access (e.g., Java 2 Enterprise Edition [J2EE], Microsoft .NET, eXtensible Markup Language [XML], web services, and simple object access protocol [SOAP]), supporting both content authoring and runtime searching, and providing a horizontal platform for building best-of-breed vertical solutions.

The like PCM system must also support all the leading middleware application stacks so that it can leverage and integrate with web application servers (WAS), enterprise application integration (EAI) and portal servers. Also, rather than a fixed web-based user interface, it should provide a flexible presentation layer that can be completely customized and tailored to particular organizational requirements and various vertical markets needs.

Finally, the PCM should be able to unify and harmonize product information stored within repositories across the enterprise, creating "a single copy of the truth" regardless of where the data resides. That is to say, the PCM must act as a centralized "hub" that plugs PCM functionality and high-performance access to highly-structured product information into all enterprise initiatives, not only at the user level but also at the enterprise integration level, for plug-and-play coordination with other extended-ERP solutions, such as customer relationship management (CRM), product lifecycle management (PLM), supplier relationship management (SRM) and supply chain management (SCM), where the vendors with broad offering like SAP or Oracle should be glad to oblige their users.

Manufacturer's Nirvana -- Real-Time Actionable Information

Extended enterprise resource planning (ERP) software (or sometimes referred to as ERP II, the term coined by Gartner), extends ERP information to other interested users presumably with no barriers to data flow (see Enterprise Applications—The Genesis and Future, Revisited). Such an enterprise system would provide extensive business management functionality (e.g., real-time production monitoring, warehouse management, job shop tooling, quality control, supply chain planning, execution and connectivity, customer relationship management [CRM], preventive maintenance, and so on), that was previously available only through multiple vendors' solutions. It would also involve a single database solution with integrated modules to deliver improved implementation, ease-of-use, and efficient administration for manufacturing companies.

The system would be a complete enterprise solution with the provider even being able to offer its customers one-stop-shop development for programming, sales, implementation, and support services. This would in turn help manage the rapidly changing business environment of today, as there would, for example, be a survey of current business practices, an analysis detailing areas of improvement, an assessment of the use of the current system, all of which becomes an advocate for software enhancements to better serve the customer.

In other words, such an integrated broad system would expand the business intelligence (BI) of the enterprise solution by helping businesses better capture data, track operations, and improve overall efficiencies.

How many traditional ERP vendors, including the largest ones, have natively built-in real-time production monitoring, warehousing management, time and attendance capture, and complete quality management systems?

Well, almost none when it comes to integrating ERP and parts of a manufacturing execution system (MES), which, as per the Manufacturing Enterprise Systems Association (MESA International) definition is essentially any system that uses current and accurate data, triggers, and reports on plant activities as events occur. From electronic production management systems to shop-floor data capture, MES functions manage operations from point of order release into manufacturing to point of product delivery into finished goods.

The possibility of integrating and providing all elements of a complete manufacturing solution, at least from a same source if not exactly as a single computing platform, has always been tempting, and possibly lucrative, but never delivered, not even by once mighty automation provider Invensys, who once had under its roof Baan, Marcam, Avantis, and Wonderware, respective ERP and MES products, yet never delivered together (see The Name and Ownership Change Roulette Wheel for Marcam Stops at SSA Globa—Part Three: Last-Ditch Effort by Invensys).

Thus, IQMS (www.iqms.com), a privately held, Paso Robles, CA (US)-based developer of EnterpriseIQ, a well attuned extended-ERP system for small and mid-size plastic processors and like repetitive manufacturers, might be unique in the entire ERP arena, and not only within its mid-market realm, by providing the powerful IQ RealTime Production Monitoring module to ensure plant efficiency by identifying poor machine performance before it becomes a problem. The module provides automatic tracking of production by hardware being wired directly to production machines, while a special user screen (e.g., touch screen, capable of simplifying data entry) can be created for shop floor personnel to provide virtually real-time data flow to and from the shop floor (i.e., to bring the production and ERP information together). Both office and plant personnel should thereby know via a color-coded screen exactly what is happening with each machine (i.e., "yellow" would indicate that the machine is down, while "green" would mean it is in production).

Real-time information that can thereby be captured would be: cycle times, machine efficiency, scrap percentage. The machine operator can enter timely production, backflush raw materials, print labels, change cavitation of the mold on the fly as necessary, assign labor, record rejects with user-defined codes, enter downtime with user-defined codes, and view internal and external documents (e.g., part production, setup control, material staging, quality control, overall plant performance, etc.). All the above information chunks increase data integrity and reduce transaction costs, given the complete access to the ERP functionality as to automatically update production schedule and generate production reports. Without such a module, gathering actual production information is typically a time consuming, tedious, and highly subjective task, while the reconciliation of the actual data on the floor with the planned data in ERP is often delayed for days, if not weeks, with the resulting lack of actionable information.

The examples of potential benefits from intrinsic integration of ERP with the plant floor and of achieving near real-time information are multiple. For one, such a system could enable many data entry functions that are traditionally performed in the office to be transferred directly to the manufacturing floor, so that the material personnel would transact the issue of resin to and from machines on-line instead of turning in the material transfer paperwork to be entered the next day by the office. Further, the material could be classified as regrind immediately within the system, giving production planning a real-time inventory situation of resin.

Production counts would be automatically updated with the IQ RealTime Production Monitoring system and verified by machine operators, giving supervisors constant feedback on how their shift is performing. Production reports for completed jobs would then be generated and analyzed the day after the run is complete, whereby this process would typically lag production by few weeks.

All of this should bring the production floor and financial and planning departments closer together because they would be working shoulder to shoulder instead of passing outdated papers back and forth. This could in turn also encourage discussions regarding improvements on how to do things internally instead of both teams continuing to live in their separate worlds, whereby there would be no cognizance by the "office staff" when some machine would go down or the production would be far off the target for some shift.

The system even offers touch screen time clock capabilities to input labor and automate timecards. Incidentally, the optional IQ Time & Attendance module is a broad time clock system that also eliminates the need for a third-party time clock system typically implemented by ERP competitors (i.e., normally by partnering with the likes of Kronos) and minimizes time required for labor data input.

The product generates payroll timecards or output files for external payroll systems (since the native integration with the IQ Payroll module is currently available only in the US), and it also generates more accurate job costing information by allowing labor tracking to specific tasks. The module provides links to labor reporting for production reporting or job costing in JobShopIQ, IQ Project manager, and IQ Preventive Maintenance modules, as required. IQ Time & Attendance also supports visual scheduling of shifts and supports multiple devices for login purposes, such as keyboard, "swipe" readers, and biometric scanners.

The above illustration would depict great first steps toward the manufacturer's nirvana of making every batch a great batch, or, in the plastic processors' language, to ensure shot-to-shot and run-to-run repeatability. At least, if they can eliminate the terrible runs and lift the ranking of every run, the result would be a significant financial gain (for more details, see Process Manufacturers—Great Batch, Every Batch).

How a Leading Vendor Embraces Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance

Rather than complying with the growing number of legal and regulatory requirements in a reactive manner from the bottom up, more and more, enterprises are realizing the value of taking a holistic approach to regulatory compliance from top down. To that end, enterprises are beginning to harness the emerging strategic software category of governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC).

This new three letter acronym (TLA) has already earned a posting at Wikipedia. Some analysts have come up with meaningful definitions thereof, while leading vendors are on their way to delivering coherent GRC solution suites. For an extensive exploration of GRC, please see the following article series: Thou Shalt Comply (and More), or Else: Looking at Sarbanes-Oxley , Important Sarbanes-Oxley Act Mandates and What They Mean for Supply Chain Management, The Sarbanes-Oxley Act May Be Just the Tip of a Compliance Iceberg, Automotive Industry and Food, Safety, and Drug Regulations, "Evergreen"—Environmental Regulations for High-tech and Electronics, Chemical, and Oil and Gas Industries, Global Trade and the Role of Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance Software, The Challenges of Defining and Managing Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance, and Process-based Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance.

SAP AG is one leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor that is seriously looking at providing enterprises with the necessary software to support GRC. While the vendor does not necessarily have a solution for each and every possible requirement (such as employee training, tracking and certification, or regulatory reporting in tune with every possible localized law), SAP nonetheless leads the market with its SAP Environment, Health & Safety (SAP EH&S) application suite.

This suite's central database makes it much easier to manage product safety specifications, hazardous substance inventories, and dangerous goods for safe handling, tracking, document management, and risk calculation (see SAP for Chemicals Functionality). Users can also create permits for hazardous waste and ensure that authorized waste quantities are not exceeded by selecting suitable disposal firms and by allocating disposal costs among internal departments. The product also supports the full range of industrial hygiene and safety processes, and centrally manages core tasks such as risk assessments, exposure logs, incident management, exposure profiles, and safety management of specific work areas.

Given that there are so many bases to be covered, a composite application like SAP xApp Emissions Management (or SAP xApp xEM, provided jointly by SAP and TechniData) is typically required to provide the capabilities enterprises need to handle the following:

* Emissions management—by leveraging tools for emissions monitoring, compliance tracking, and regulatory reporting including greenhouse gas monitoring, allowance management, and National Allocation Plan (NAP) reporting and trading. SAP xApp xEM tracks, analyzes, and records emission data. The solution's integration with plant and equipment maintenance systems supports equipment calibration and maintenance tasks, since sophisticated tools calculate emissions (such as greenhouse gases) that cannot be measured directly. When a reference value exceeds normal plant values for operations, automatic notifications are fired off to determine the impact and trigger changes necessary to correct operations. The reporting functionality in SAP xApp xEM helps toward fulfilling legal requirements for documentation and reporting to regulatory authorities.

* Compliance management—to operate facilities and manage processes according to relevant regulations, with capabilities for data monitoring, task monitoring, exception tracking, incident management, and reporting. Both compliance and emissions management have to support information flow across the user enterprise, enabling the enterprise to maintain compliance status; monitor and control plant facilities and permits, including emissions permits; track performance benchmarks; and communicate with key stakeholders.

* Permit management—the process of applying for and obtaining the appropriate licenses and permits, with capabilities for application management, change management, and reporting.

* Chemicals safety management—to provide information on product safety, dangerous goods, and labeling to international markets, allowing companies to control global business processes. This also enables companies to save resources in procurement; in exchanging substance and recipe information; in categorization; and in authoring the required documentation of customers or personnel, such as safety data sheets (SDS), transport emergency cards (or tremcards [TM]), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's right to know (OSHA RTK) information, and labels.

* Environmental health and safety (EH&S) surveillance—to enable enterprises to deal with increasing legislative pressure in the areas of industrial hygiene and safety, occupational health care, and hazardous substance management, thereby facilitating cross-company and interdepartmental cooperation.

* Environmental product compliance (EPC)—to provide capabilities for compliant product design and to help avoid risk in the supply chain. EPC supports collaboration with suppliers, partners, and customers. The software collects, organizes, analyzes, and evaluates data about various products, factories, suppliers, countries, and customers. Such information is needed to provide proof of compliance with environmental directives that regulate the development, manufacture, distribution, disposal, or recycling of products. The software documents product content and regulatory or sector-specific substances lists; integrates compliance checks and analyses with central business processes; and automates communications with customers and suppliers. For example, when a product is being checked for compliance with the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive, the solution verifies that all the necessary information (such as the lead content of a supplied part, for instance) is in place. If this data has not been provided, the solution automatically requests the supplier's manufacturing department to disclose the exact lead weight percentage of the product, and notifies the user when the supplier has provided the data.

SAP's Commitment to GRC

As indicated with the SAP Global Trade Services (SAP GTS) and SAP xApp xEM examples, SAP, the largest of enterprise application providers, has long committed to placing compliance at the core of its broad suite of products. This is because the vendor has recognized the growing role of enterprise systems in assisting user companies to meet the increasing challenges of corporate compliance and risk management. Customers are looking for potent compliance solutions that work across heterogeneous information technology (IT) environments to reduce risk and cost, as well as provide improved business control.

By embedding compliance into all pertinent business processes, SAP hopes to make compliance repeatable, sustainable, and less costly for companies of all sizes in all industry segments. To that end, it has long espoused a number of individual tools and modules, such as SAP Audit Information System (SAP AIS), SAP Strategic Enterprise Management (SAP SEM), SAP Records Management (SAP RM), and SAP Management of Internal Controls (SAP MIC).

As an example, SAP MIC's aim has been to support a best-practice system to document and test internal checks and auditing. As a core component of mySAP ERP, it contains functions for data analysis and reporting, as well as financial and risk management. The solution also ensures that all financial processes comply with the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requirements.

Another component that has been serving some complex compliance requirements (such as EH&S) very well is master data management (MDM). This is especially true in light of globally dispersed supply chains, but the need for product quality, specifications consistency, and brand protection have also been parts of SAP's platform (see SAP Bolsters NetWeaver's MDM Capabilities).

This GRC offering, which until recently was largely fragmented, has been helped by a number of partner point solutions. Key software and technology partners integrate applications through the service-oriented architecture (SOA)- and business performance management (BPM)-enabled SAP NetWeaver platform to provide the much needed transparency over the extended GRC ecosystem (see Multipurpose SAP NetWeaver).

A few years back, SAP stated its strategy to use "fill-in" acquisitions to add to its broad solution offerings by gaining specific technologies and capabilities that meet the needs of its customers—within or across industries. To that end, in addition to the above mentioned SAP xApp xEM, VitalSprings Technologies also released the VSxApp risk management composite application. This solution is designed to work with back-office systems to integrate human resources (HR), payroll, and financial applications in order to address specific health care benefits and the financial impact that health care plans might have on businesses.

Also based on the NetWeaver technology, key performance indicators (KPIs) integrate both SAP and non-SAP data to enable the creation of what-if scenarios based on company information and parameters from payers. This allows employers to calculate health benefit expenses and to ultimately negotiate better health plan rates. Similar alliance examples include Approva, Security Weaver, Atrion International, ArisGlobal, and ACL, to name only some.

SAP has "opened up" the content portion of its EH&S offering, thereby allowing multiple vendors to provide key information that might lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the system. Atrion International was the first vendor to be certified under SAP EH&S Open Content Connector (OCC) certification program in mid-2005. The EH&S OCC is an open, extensible markup language (XML)-based interface to load external content into SAP EH&S specification databases. To that end, Atrion provides a full range of content (data, rules, phrases, forms, and pictograms) to SAP EH&S clients, allowing them to address global regulatory requirements.