With the release of its latest FlexNet software package, Apriso Corp. has launched not just a revamped product, but a revitalized company, too.
Apriso's FlexNet Version 9.3, which arrived in December, positions itself in the slim and often murky space between a company's enterprise software and the execution system on its factory floor, and offers functionality across numerous segments of the manufacturing business.
The release is the product of a new management team at Apriso. Since the beginning of 2005, the company has welcomed a new CEO, a new Alliance Manager, and new vice presidents of marketing and sales.
Tom Comstock signed on with the company during the transition. Less than a year into the job, the senior vice president of marketing says the turning point for Apriso and its FlexNet offering has been the modularization of the product.
With FlexNet Version 9.3, users have six pre-configured modules through which to monitor and plan business activities: MES/production; quality management; warehouse management; maintenance management; global process management; and reporting.
Comstock says companies considering FlexNet "have two problems to solve: application reduction plus integration with ERP."
The recent management overhaul wasn't the first substantive change for the company. When it was founded in 1992, Apriso was a consultancy focused mainly on time/labor systems, and over the next decade reinvented itself as a product company. Comstock now sees Apriso's future in FlexNet's modularization -- the ability to author applications within the software. This capability derives from Process Builder, a tool that allows non-technical employees to update process flows regulated by the system, allowing shortened lead times in response to demand shifts.
With a solution that crosses so many functional areas, FlexNet finds itself vying with companies in various segments -- from those whose products serve traditional spaces such as warehouse management and factory floor systems to those whose solutions, like Apriso's, cross disciplines, such as Siemens and HighJump.
Comstock says FlexNet has traditionally been a tool of the big players in the manufacturing space -- global companies mainly concentrated in the medical device, aerospace, and automotive industries. But Apriso's latest effort aims to extend the product into the small and mid-sized spaces.
That initiative and Apriso's efforts to sell FlexNet globally have led the company to seek the assistance of deployment partners, a roster that includes Accenture, Deloitte, and Unisys.
Since its original release in 2003, FlexNet has been licensed to 25 customers, including International Paper, Lockheed Martin, and Textron. As for future growth, 2006 will be mainly devoted to building critical mass, according to Comstock.
Subsequent versions of FlexNet, he says, will feature modules specific to vertical markets, echoing the trend of greater pre-customization from software vendors.
This article originally appeared in the January 2006 issue of Managing Automation magazine.