Microstrategy Inc and Concept Information Systems got together yesterday to announce a packaged decision support solution (DSS) for manufacturing companies which they claim drastically cuts down on implementation time, and which can be used to analyze any type of ERP data. The application, Q-Manufacturing, was developed by Concept using Microstrategy’s analytical processing tools, DSS suite. Concept used the tools to develop a customized DSS solution for the manufacturing industry that can be implemented on any data warehouse and used to analyze all the major ERP and supply chain applications, including those of SAP, Baan and Manugistics. Antonia Hock, group product manager for infrastructure products said having a packaged solution would save companies man years of application development. In the past, organizations had to buy the DSS tools separately and integrate them into their datawarehouse in a process which was both time consuming and expensive. Hock said that as well a cutting down on time and money, the new solution contains 200 job-specific modules, which are pre-written sets of reports designed for specific job functions, each having its own customized user interface. A sales person would want to get a completely different set of information from the data warehouse than a stock control person for example, Hock said, so each module has been written bearing in mind exactly the type of ERP data individual job functions would be interested in. It’s that level of customization which would have taken companies years to plan and develop and implement, she added. The product is the first of its kind, but Hock said Microstrategy was also looking for other partners to develop similar solutions for a range of other verticals. Q-Manufacturing is available immediately, through Concept Information Systems. Pricing starts at $300,000.
