Keep it standard!

By Shawn P McCarthy -- Logistics Management, 11/1/1998

Sooner or later, most large logistics organizations face a situation where they need to build a highly customized business application with very limited development funds.

Here's one way to save some money: Find a business-minded systems integrator to foot the bill for most of the development, with the intention of creating a packaged product that can be sold to other logistics operations. For years, consultants have been repackaging systems they develop for one customer to sell to another. If you think ahead, you can avoid having to fund the first round of development.

The more customized the application is for your business processes, the tougher it can be to turn it into a generic product. Sticking with Internet technologies whenever possible and using existing commercial software as building blocks to construct the system are two ways to keep things standardized.

Proprietary, one-of-a-kind tracking, inventory, and warehousing systems remain popular in the logistics industries, but we're seeing more systems integrators taking the plug-and-play approach, to the point where they're now building systems that use only a Web browser to view databases and update business forms.

Even Oracle Corp. recently announced it was abandoning the highly customized realm of client-server architecture for a strictly Internet-based architecture, using a Web browser as the single interface into all data.

The trend is clear. Commercial off-the-shelf parts are the way to build your system and the Web is your interface. To recruit help in developing your system, you can figure out how other logistics operations might use your system, then use that as a selling point when you talk to developers. You'll have to create a detailed requirements document to outline your needs.

To save more money, try to stay in your same environment. For example, if you're a Unix shop, continue to develop for Unix unless there's a huge movement under way in your company to migrate away from that.

Pointers

+ The Coalition for Intelligent Manufacturing Systems, at http://www.sayer.com/CIMS/, offers information on standards-based systems development for the manufacturing process.

+ To extend your consultant search, visit expert market at http://www.expert-market.com/. More than 200,000 firms are listed.

+ The National Institute of Standards and Technology coordinates the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which includes consultant lists and programs for productivity enhancement. Visit http://www.mep.nist.gov/.

+ Many logistics companies trade information via electronic data interchange (EDI). To see how others are working to streamline new EDI applications, visit the EC Best Practices Syndicate at www.edigroup.com/research/bp.htm.

+ Microsoft Corp. maintains an online list of trained third-party consultants. Visit www.microsoft.com/isapi/referral/default.asp.

+ If you work with an Oracle database, visit alliance.oracle.com/ for details on some top partners/consultants who work on new applications.

+ See IBM's Business Intelligence solutions unit at direct.boulder.ibm.com/bi/. Look for the solutions section for pointers to logistics applications.

Tip of the Month

To find the best application developers in your area, contact the manufacturer of your current systems and ask for a list of certified consultants. Interview developers to get an idea of who might be willing to tackle a project for just the cost of selling and installing the system when it's completed. You can make the idea sound attractive by providing contact points in other companies who might need a similar system.