P
lanning Interview
Satisfying
demand
Manufacturing & Logistics IT spoke with
Bill Harrison, president of Demand Solutions,
about the company’s intensive R&D programme,
which has culminated in its recently launched
Advanced Planning & Scheduling application
and its keenly awaited DSX solution.
Bill Harrison: “Demand Solutions is a
100-per-cent customer-focused company.”
or the past quarter of a century, points out, for nearly two years Demand
F
Demand Solutions has been one Forward looking Solutions has been undertaking a complete
of the leading supply chain re-write of its product offering. “… and when
management, inventory planning As well as being one of the most firmly I say complete re-write it’s not a case of
and forecast management software established software providers in its chosen just putting in a new database or a new
providers. Worthy of note however is that, technology vertical, Demand Solutions is user interface, it’s actually involved starting
while the St. Louis, Missouri-headquartered also a highly forward-looking organisation. from a blank canvas,” he said. The
vendor is known primarily by the name of In this regard, it is not content to rest on the first manifestation of this development
its product software brand, its legal trading laurels of past successes in technological programme was the company’s June 2009
name is Demand Management, a wholly development and sales triumphs amounting to launch of its new Advanced Planning &
owned subsidiary of Logility; although it over 2500 customers in 74 countries. Indeed, Scheduling component. “This is a product
operates independently. as Demand Solutions’ president Bill Harrison that does rough-cut capacity planning as
well as finite capacity planning and infinite
capacity planning for both discrete and
process markets,” explained Harrison.
Functional enhancements
Demand Solutions has also been developing
a technology release named DSX, which will
feature many functional enhancements over
the company’s existing product offering.
However, Harrison is keen to emphesis that,
after DSX’s launch, the company’s existing
solutions suite will continue to be maintained,
marketed, sold and enhanced. “So, we are
essentially offering two separate products,”
said Harrison. “The existing product runs on
a proprietary database, it doesn’t require
SQL, and it’s proven to be a great product
for a lot of our customers. Many companies
require a simple-to-use, low cost of
ownership, value-added solution. On the
other hand, we have a lot of customers that
want SQL and .Net, etc. So, our new product
will be written in C#, will run on .Net 3.5 and
we’re already certified for Windows 7 and >>
14
MANUFACTURING
&LOGISTICSIT October 2009
www.logisticsit.com
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56