Enterprise software provider Infor today announced general availability of a new version of its SCM Network Design product, a modeling tool used to help manufacturers and other companies evaluate options for optimizing their supply chains for cost, revenue, and service while reducing their carbon footprints.
Infor’s SCM Network Design works by analyzing variables within manufacturing and distribution facilities as well as available transportation options across a supply network.
“Network Design helps users make decisions about which products to produce at which sites, which suppliers to use, and how to [transport] those products,” said Wilson Rothschild, Infor’s director of supply chain management, in an interview with Manufacturing Executive.
New functionality included in the “environmentally friendly” 9.1 release of SCM Network Design enables companies to measure carbon emissions related to supply chain nodes, such as plants, warehouses, and transportation systems, the company said. The new version also includes a 64-bit modeling solver designed to streamline what-if analyses, as well as wizards that enable users to easily add new information into their existing supply chain models, Rothschild said.
“Our customers’ supply chain models are getting bigger and more complex as they add more geographies and product families,” Rothschild said. “They need ways to figure out how to serve their customers better” as they work to minimize overall emissions while balancing cost constraints.
The Infor SCM Network Design product follows Infor’s March announcement of its EAM Asset Sustainability Edition application, used to gauge carbon emissions within manufacturing factories and other facilities. The Network Design offering can use data from the EAM product, Rothschild said, by taking an aggregate of consumption data gleaned daily from facilities and using it to remodel supply chains. Companies increasingly are performing more frequent network redesigns, he said — as often as once a year, compared to once every five years previously — as supply chains grow more complex following M&A activity and amid fluctuating fuel costs.
Several technology vendors have announced products in recent months meant to help manufacturers and other supply chain participants measure and monetize their products and processes in the context of green initiatives. In May, for example, IBM rolled out a supply chain modeling tool that extracts and analyzes data about shipments, orders, inventory, and other processes. In June, industrial conglomerate Siemens announced a broad, cross-industry initiative to ramp up sales of a variety of products offered by its industry, energy, and healthcare businesses, including products that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or help combat water or air pollution. And in January, Llamasoft released a new version of its supply network modeling software aimed at helping manufacturers measure greenhouse gas emissions and simulate the financial impact of green-minded decisions.
Although the United States does not have a nationwide carbon emission policy, a bill recently proposed in the Senate would limit companies’ carbon emissions and pave the way for a cap-and-trade system in which companies buy and sell carbon emissions credits. Regulations aside, companies increasingly are looking to energy-efficiency and sustainability programs to help combat rising costs in an age of soaring fuel prices that eat away at profits, according to analyst firms such as AMR Research. (See AMR’s recent report here.)