Software Suite improves order and replenishment processes.
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Press Release Summary:
IMI Consumer Goods combines best-in-class order management with customer account management through all points of customer contact. IMI Order enables companies to capture and process orders in high-volume environments and handle complex pricing, promotions, and customer preferences. IMI Replenishment helps manufacturers eliminate consumer product stock-outs. IMI Warehouse automates warehouse processes for fast distribution with minimum handling of goods.
Original Press Release:
IMI Americas Unveils IMI Consumer Goods Solution
Mt. Laurel, N.J. (June 17, 2002) Industri-Matematik International Corp. (NASDAQ: IMIC) and IMI Americas today announced IMI Consumer Goods, a supply chain solution that helps manufacturers and suppliers achieve dramatic improvements in order and replenishment processes. The software enables companies to meet the increasing demands of retailers and consumers with profitable supply chain execution strategies that
fulfill orders just as the customer expects.
"IMI Consumer Goods is well positioned to meet the collaborative order management needs of consumer goods companies," said Evon Jones, CIO at Dial Corp. "The system effectively handles high order volumes and accurately applies pricing and promotions for every order which drives down costly invoice deductions. Dial continues to make quality a priority in whatever we do, from producing quality products for our consumers to effectively serving our customers. Technology is key enabler and contributor of quality and IMI continues to be our valued technology partner."
IMI Consumer Goods is the first industry-specific solution to deliver collaborative order management to the consumer goods industry. It combines best-in-class order management with customer account management through all points of customer contact from marketing and sales through fulfillment and after-sales service.
The software is also the first consumer industry-specific solution with integrated real-time event notification and resolution capabilities to conduct supply chain collaboration. These capabilities enable companies to overcome business process exceptions--such as product unavailability from primary suppliers--and achieve on-time product delivery.
"The order is where supply chain and customer relationship management meet," said Stephen D'Angelo, president, IMI Americas. "IMI Consumer Goods enables companies to focus business processes on actual demand? the order. It allows consumer goods companies to build closer, more profitable long-term customer relationships."
The software enables companies to execute the "perfect order" achieving a consolidated order process that meets customer service requirements and eliminates errors that result in costly deductions and product returns. It allows companies with large product lines and diverse sales channels to gain one operating view of all customer interactions across multiple business units to optimize order capture, pricing, promotions and fulfillment.
IMI Consumer Goods was designed to co-exist with ERP solutions like SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards, allowing companies to execute world-class customer fulfillment while preserving the investments already made in current financial and manufacturing systems.
According to Ann Grackin, vice president, supply chain service at AMR Research, "IMI has been and continues to be a leader in order management, especially in the consumer goods sector. Their domain extends to providing a customer-focused yet highly integratable capability to capture demand, propagate order complexities through a myriad of IT/back office systems and trading partner systems, and yet allow companies to offer a single face to the customer. Among the supply chain execution vendors, they offer the deft management of order complexity, dealing not only with distributed order fulfillment but
allocation, pricing and replenishment strategies as well as complex coordination with inbound delivery and transportation all capabilities important to today's consumer goods manufacturers an suppliers."
IMI Consumer Goods addresses the specific order and replenishment
processes of consumer packaged goods (CPG), food and beverage, and life sciences manufacturers and suppliers with distribution-intensive supply chain operations.
The IMI Consumer Goods suite has multiple components and each product is designed for incremental implementation to support order and replenishment business processes. This approach minimizes organizational impact and resources required as well as maximizes time to-benefit, producing results in months not years. The products are:
IMI Order enables companies to capture and process orders in high-volume environments and handle complex pricing, promotions and customer preferences. The software can manage multiple sales channels and integrate order fulfillment with front-end web sales. It enables a consumer goods company to commit to product availability, price and delivery date at the time of order capture. IMI Order enhances customer account management by supporting Internet-based Collaboration capabilities to coordinate interdependent fulfillment activities across
multiple business units and manage exception handling such as resolving problems on credit and pricing issues.
IMI Replenishment helps manufacturers eliminate consumer product stock-outs all the way from the manufacturers to the store shelf, supporting initiatives such as vendor managed inventory. The software combines collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment capabilities with real-time execution to support demand-driven replenishment requirements between manufacturers and their customers.
IMI Warehouse enables companies to provide value-added distribution services and deliver product on time. The software automates warehouse processes to enable fast distribution with minimum handling of goods. It optimizes the use of warehouse resources and maximizes the efficiency of day-to-day operations such as receiving, put-away, order processing, picking, packing and shipping. IMI Warehouse supports Collaboration capabilities to improve visibility of in-transit inventory and accelerate the physical movement of product across supply chains.
IMI Access provides portal and business process integration
capabilities. The portal software helps companies leverage the
Internet to share timely, relevant supply chain and service information with employees, customers and suppliers, improving supplier collaboration and customer relationships. With business process integration, companies can add IMI Consumer Goods to back-office applications like SAP, Oracle, i2 and others to provide easy access to more information and services, and make it simpler for trading partners to interact with the entire enterprise.
IMI Analytics provides an extensive set of performance management tools so companies can leverage supply chain information to make strategic business decisions. For example, consumer goods companies can access information about the productivity and profitability of sales channels, promotions, customers and even individual order lines. This information
is particularly valuable for companies with multiple product lines and distribution channels, allowing them to spot trends and analyze sales performance.
