New Infor application offers shippers flexibility inside and outside of the warehouse

By Jeff Berman, Senior Editor -- Logistics Management, 3/15/2007

ATLANTA—Infor, a provider of supply chain management software technology, said today it has rolled out Infor SCM WM 9.0, a Web-based application, which provides business-specific capabilities for global manufacturing, distribution, logistics, and retail companies by extending warehouse management services outside the four walls of a warehouse, according to the company.

Andrew Kinder, product marketing manager for Infor’s Supply Chain Management Group, told Logistics Management WM 9.0 represents a major architecture change for the company, in that it adheres to all open standards in a J2EE (Java Platform Enterprise Edition), thin client environment and added that it is the first major product Infor’s SCM division has released since it acquired SSA Global last summer.

Kindred said WM 9.0 is focused on efficiency inside the warehouse, with support for things like task interleaving, RF, voice picking, cycle counting, wave planning, cross-docking, and labor reporting. He said these offerings are designed to improve the collection, storage, counting, accuracy, and pull out of inventory, as well as connect the warehouse to the rest of the supply chain.

Outside the warehouse, it is designed to add functionality for things like yard management, event management, real-time inventory visibility and control, performance management, transportation and logistics, and RFID.

“This is mainly geared for the third party-logistics market, the grocery sector [except for very high volume groceries], and ERP players that are looking for an advanced warehousing application that goes beyond the traditional and basic ERP-type warehouse applications,” noted Kinder.

Kinder also explained that WM 9.0 is Infor’s first SCM product that relies on a “services-based” or service oriented architecture (SOA) approach. He described this as a thin kernel for warehouse management that is used on open systems and services produced on top of the kernel are subsequently linked in.

“As far as the users are concerned, they are using an application that looks and feels like an application suite they have used before,” said Kinder, “but it has individual menu options that are referred to as services that can be used with the Infor application or outside ones for things like wave planning or transportation management.”

And as these services are developed over time, said Kinder, they will be interoperable with the WM 9.0 kernel. By taking a service-enabled approach, Kinder said more flexibility is made available for shippers since the total cost of ownership is lowered.

“You cannot stop customization in a warehouse management environment,” said Kinder. “It is a major part of what is done with these solutions and is wired into supply chains. The best thing you can do is enable it.”

Steve Banker, director of Supply Chain Management at ARC Advisory Group, said that while many supply chain management technology vendors are using an SOA approach, it is not the same thing as having a good architecture. He said it is a component of a good architecture.

“By putting SOA in and thinning down the core kernel, Infor is putting a lot more functionality into smaller components and adding business process management to tie things together,” said Banker. “Going forward, these components can start to be combined with TMS components and build what would have been labeled a ‘custom application’ in the old days. But it is not a custom application so much as it is upgradeable software that fits companies [needs] a lot better than it used to.”

In terms of how Infor’s WM 9.0 matches up compared to best of breed supply chain management technology players like Red Prairie and Manhattan Associates and ERP bellwethers SAP and Oracle, Banker said Infor is seen as an ERP company with best of breed WMS’s that it has acquired.

“Infor’s solutions really compete as best of breed,” said Banker. “They are very strong in Asia and eastern Europe, and in some ways are a very global WMS company.