Handling the supply chain. (WIP).

The people at PlanetCAD [Boulder, CO) are convinced that supply chain software will become core to businesses. The simple reason this is so: It can help reduce cost across the enterprise.

While there are plenty of solutions at the upper end from companies like i2, SAP and others, they are focusing their primary efforts at serving the mid-market--Tier 2 suppliers and below. A core of PlanetCAD's offerings has been its lineup of PrescientQA [QA as in "quality assurance"] tools, which are based on the premise that engineering change orders [ECOs] that occur after products have been designed are exceedingly expensive, so nipping ECOs in the bud makes a whole lot of sense. Not only do the various PrescientQA packages provide specific functionality [e.g., DriveQA helps ID cost issues and facilitates reporting], one key aspect across the line is the handling of engineering data in a standard, consistent manner.

Because of its experience dealing with engineering data through those packages as well as its IntraVision CAD markup product, and because of its recent acquisition of eCAS technology from CastaLink, PlanetCAD is preparing a new product to enhance what it is calling its "Cycle Time Reduction" solutions. Look for it to be rolling out a secure web-based supply chain system that is robust enough to deal with engineering data and which performs automatic functions [e.g., automatically translating file formats from various suppliers] so as to minimize the effects of human error on data input.