IFS World - NA Edition Email Newsletter

Free White Paper: How Manufacturers Can Use Project ERP to Weather Tough Times

Survive poor economic conditions with strategic thinking and use of Project ERP. Learn to manage a downturn like a variance in a project, how to reduce the demand shock involved in the onset of a slowdown and the demand shock associated with the recovery, reducing negative repercussions on the enterprise.

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IFS Customer Satisfaction Up Three Years Straight

The IFS Customer Survey was completed on March 1, 2010. The results of the survey are still being analyzed and plans for continued improvement are underway. So far though, the overall satisfaction of our customers in North America has increased for the third straight year!

IFS North America Customer Satisfaction Average

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IFS Podcast: New BSI Standard for Asset Management in Demand Among Utilities, Asset-Intensive Industry

In this month's edition of the IFS Radio Network, IFS Global Industry Director for Utilities Michael Blalock discuss

es the fine points of PAS 55, the drivers behind rapid adoption in asset-intensive industry and the implications for enterprise software. According to Blalock, PAS 55 is already becoming an issue for stakeholders interested in seeing maximum return from capital assets.

"Even though it is not an ISO standard yet, I am already seeing PAS 55 referenced in people's RFP documents for the technology that we would potentially sell to them. So I think that you are going to see a lot of people that are driven by this. Another example is that industry consultants are already seeing incidents of interveners at utility companies asking
questions during rate cases for the utilities where the utility goes in and
they are looking at increasing their rates... Interveners are people that
don't want to see that happen necessarily, and they are raising questions about just how well are you executing against your fiduciary
responsibilities and management your assets? Do you support PA 55 guidelines? Do you have plans in place to effectively enable the organization to manage, in a best practices way, your assets infrastructure that you are rate payers have already been paying for? What are you doing to make sure that the investments that we have already made to the rates we are appropriate, why should we be giving you more money?"

- Michael Blalock, IFS Global Industry Director

Welcome IFS customer Sabreliner Corp., of St. Louis, Missouri! Sabreliner selected IFS Applications to support its aviation services organizat

ion, which is recognized worldwide for aircraft manufacturing support and for the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of existing aircraft.

As a diversified aviation services company, Sabreliner supplies other aviation organizations and the U.S. military with aircraft MRO services. Sabreliner also manufactures airframe assemblies, parts, components and tooling for use in new fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft production. Some of Sabreliner's customers include Airbus, BAE Systems, Boeing, Bombardier Aerospace, L-3 Communications, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Sikorsky Aircraft.

IFS commissioned a software study among manufacturing executives and professionals to better understand how manufacturers anticipate enterprise software like ERP, EAM and other company-wide software solutions, can help them in these three under-researched areas:

1. Developing greater communications internally and with customers and partners through the use of social computing applications.

2. Improving productivity and reducing costs by implementing enterprise software that facilitates "green" business processes.

3. Establishing processes to manage and safeguard intellectual capital as businesses experience workforce attrition due to the aging of the population.

View new study results to see how manufacturers plan to use ERP and EAM software together with social media, to improve "green" business processes, and to capture data from the aging workforce.

This article on AutomationWorld.com features quotes from IFS' Ulf Stern and explores the definition of the commonly-used term "overall equipment efficiency."

"OEE is the missing piece in benchmarking," says Ulf Stern, senior advisor for asset management solutions with enterprise software supplier IFS.

"OEE, or Overall Equipment Effectiveness, is a numeric index that represents actual revenue-generating production in terms of potential revenue-generating production. Applied to a machine or work cell, OEE analysis focuses attention on cost-reduction opportunities that will be realized by true process improvement rather than by subtracting value from the manufacturing process or from the product itself. "To optimize investments and operations budgets," Stern continues, "you cannot only look at the cost side, because everything you do in the plant also influences revenue. OEE analysis balances cost reduction, efficiency and revenue." Read this article in full below.

Free Web-Based Tool Simplifies CMMS/EAM Evaluation Process

Are you looking for a CMMS or EAM solution but don't know where to begin? Try the Plant Services CMMS/EAM Software Review tool, an industry-unique, web-based tool that simplifies the software evaluation process. David Berger, principal of Western Management Consultants and a well-known authority on CMMS and EAM, has teamed up with Paul Studebaker, Editor-in-Chief of Plant Services magazine, to create this sophisticated comparison tool.

Compare with 3 levels of complexity & up to 360 distinct data points.
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DESIGNED FOR AGILITY