Absolute Value Announces a Highly Successful Implementation

World –class demand forecasting and replenishment offering improved supply chain planning for the Chinese New Year shutdowns

Absolute Value, a Microsoft Gold-Certified Partner, today announced the successful implementation of its demand planning and replenishment solution at SIGMA Corporation.

SIGMA, an importer of specialized water products and accessories, recently implemented the SaaS or Cloud version of Absolute Value, enhancing the productivity and inventory management of their Sage MAS 200 ERP solution. With an implementation timeline of less than 30 days, SIGMA rolled out this software solution to help streamline their Supply Chain forecasting and replenishment process.

According to leading distribution industry consultant Jon Schreibfeder, President of Effective Inventory Management, Inc., “Absolute Value software features a comprehensive set of tools for forecasting the future demand of products, replenishing inventory and analyzing an organization’s inventory investment. It can help distributors, in a wide variety of industries, achieve the goal of effective inventory management.”

SIGMA imports much of their product from overseas, a good portion from China. As a result, they are presented with a quite a supply chain planning challenge every year related to the Chinese New Year. Many factories in China close for up to four weeks surrounding the New Year. This year, less than two hours of careful planning in Absolute Value remarkably enabled Sigma to avoid their normal product availability issues during the 2012 holiday.

SIGMA's Purchasing and Inventory Planning Manager, Andrew Podner says, “Today, we spent less than 2 hours generating and reviewing suggested orders for 8 locations, including regenerating one of the facilities a second time. This operation, if we could have even done it properly, would have taken us at least a week to do before Absolute Value. I cannot begin to express my happiness that we are so much more clearly informed and able to respond and act so quickly to what is normally a major undertaking. "

Mitchell Rona, the VP of Operations for SIGMA, deems Absolute Value an "excellent forecasting and inventory tool. It is yet another way that SIGMA demonstrates its commitment to efficiency, strategic planning, and excellent customer service.”

About Absolute Value, LLC
Absolute Value has roots in the distribution software industry that are extensive, with specific strength in Forecasting and Replenishment. Constructed of both end-user and software vendor experience, the Absolute Value team bridges a dual perspective on the complex needs of today’s distributors. Blending this depth of experience with knowledge of state-of-the-art technology and application solutions provides their clients a unique pathway to success. The Absolute Value team offers this key experience gained as an evolution of Lanham Associates, a Microsoft Gold-Certified partner. www.absolutevalue-us.com

About SIGMA Corporation
SIGMA is a New Jersey, USA Corporation, in business since 1985. SIGMA’s core products have been Waterworks pipe fittings and accessories. SIGMA pioneered production of these pipe fittings in China starting in 1985, and since then has steadily grown to be the second largest AWWA pipe fittings supplier in USA. Today SIGMA offers the widest range of pipe fittings in the industry and can satisfy every requirement on a job. Quality is ensured through proprietary quality systems that exceed the requirements of AWWA and other national standards. www.sigmaco.com

Infor Introduces Next Wave of Enterprise Software with Infor10

Consumer-Grade User Experience, Complete Industry Applications & Cloud Deployment Options Enabled by ION Technology

Infor, a leading provider of business application software with operations serving more than 75,000 customers, unveiled Infor10, which features a consumer-grade user experience, complete industry-specific software applications and Infor10 ION Suite, a lightweight, middleware technology that changes the way enterprise software is managed. 

"Our customers today already enjoy best-in-class applications with deep out-of-the-box functionality across a variety of highly specialized industries and micro-verticals. Infor10 sets a new standard for how work gets done. People at work have come to expect the same user experience they encounter in their everyday lives as users of Twitter, Facebook and Google. Infor10 and the Infor10 ION Suite bring that to the workplace," said Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor. "This unique combination provides our existing customers the opportunity to dramatically upgrade and extend their investments in Infor applications, and it gives new customers the next wave of enterprise software innovation they've been seeking."

ION Is the Foundation of Infor10
The Infor10 ION Suite is at the heart of Infor10. ION connects and integrates Infor and non-Infor applications, storing information in a common format and repository. ION allows information that flows among applications, analytics and social media streams to be accessed by users from their desktops, laptops and mobile devices.   

Unlike conventional middleware, the lightweight ION technology is not layered on top of existing applications, but infused into them. As a result, ION makes integrations quicker, simpler and more reliable. "ION creates the mobile, social and flexible enterprise," said Soma Somasundaram, senior vice president, Global Product Development, Infor. "Because it's lightweight and built using open standards, ION installs much faster than heavy middleware and allows customers to get up and running quickly and efficiently so they can focus on their core business." 

ION enables new and existing Infor and non-Infor applications to work as a holistic solution, helping to create streamlined workflows and end-to-end business processes, while improving system performance speed and upgrades.

"We say ION is unbreakable architecture because extensions don't break during upgrades," said Somasundaram. "Most of our customers don't want to be in the technology business. They would rather have IT be more agile and innovative, which is what ION allows them to do."

Infor10 Consumer-Grade Experience
Infor10 Workspace is the front end of Infor10 and designed to deliver a consumer-grade user experience and change the way work is done for the average enterprise user.

"Enterprise software users want to work the way they live," said Duncan Angove, president, Products and Support, Infor. "They can see what's going on in the consumer world, where social media, collaboration and mobile devices combined with beautiful design, ready-to-use applications and agile technology have substantially improved the speed, value and productivity of the consumer experience. With Infor10, we are delivering a consumer-grade user experience that begins with a beautiful user interface."

Infor10 ION Workspace unifies and presents all relevant information for each user on one screen, including role-based workflows, task and alerts, in-context business intelligence, event management, social media collaboration, consumer-like search capabilities, and business activity streams.

Infor10 Complete Industry Applications
ION also makes it possible to connect the rich functionality of leading ERP and best- in-class solutions from Infor and affiliate Lawson Software for specific industries.

Infor10 suites are targeted for Aerospace and Defense; Automotive; Chemicals; Distribution; Equipment Services, Maintenance & Rental; Fashion; Food and Beverage; General Manufacturing; Healthcare; High Tech; Hospitality; Industrial Equipment and  Machinery; and Public Sector.

"Generic one-size-fits-all software requires time-consuming configuration and doesn't address the specific needs of an industry," said Angove. "We believe that speed is the new basis for global competition, and we are building the functionality our customers need not only to address their industry issues right out of the box, but also to eliminate extensive customizations that lead to costly and risky implementations."

Infor10 Reimagines How Software is Managed
The Infor10 release also provides flexible deployment options, including Infor's CloudSuite Platform, to increase an organization's speed and agility.

Customers can run their entire solution on Infor10 CloudSuite or can keep core enterprise systems on premise, while running other applications or services in the Cloud. The Infor10 CloudSuite Platform features a unified user experience and security, and enables two-tiered, hybrid deployments.

Whether customers access functionality from a software-as-a-service (cloud) model or on-premise deployment, they get the same functionality and look-and-feel. The only difference is in how their users connect to core applications. Customers can even move from one deployment model to another, since the same application code is used for all deployment models.

About Infor
Infor is a leading provider of business software and services, helping more than 75,000 customers in 164 countries improve operations and drive growth.  To learn more about Infor10 or Infor, please visit www.infor.com.