EDITORIAL
By Pierre Haren, ILOG CEO

Ordering in a way that saves the company both time and money is a goal of every purchasing manager. This is especially true in manufacturing, where ever-changing consumer demand makes maintaining large inventories both costly and risky.

Web-based B2B has emerged as the best solution. It enables the purchasing manager to go online to several suppliers and acquire the best deal for the company. Even when customization is needed, B2B systems powered with configuration software like ILOG Configurator greatly shorten the time needed to specify a design.

Furthermore, a B2B system does not have to stop with ordering. When production is required, the system can schedule operations, set delivery dates and assign transportation. A B2B system can be end-to-end, fully orchestrating activities to ensure accurate order fulfillment and timely delivery.

LOG is in the unique position of being the leading provider of the software components needed to make a complete B2B system. Our optimization, visualization and business rule technologies are already powering the most successful supply-chain and ERP solutions.

Make sure they power yours.

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FOCUS

Going B2B with ILOG
End-to-end support for powerful new intercompany ordering systems

The advent of the Internet has forever changed the structure of the supply chain. For decades manufacturers partnered with suppliers on a one-to-one basis. When a part was needed, it invariably came from the same source, leaving very little room for competition from other suppliers.

Today, the Internet enables several suppliers to chime in on an order, allowing them to compete for a contract in cyberspace. This new B2B environment is made possible by a marriage between proven supply-chain technology and the open, real-time communications of the World Wide Web.

Well executed, an e-supply chain can greatly improve business across the entire value chain, reducing costs, increasing profits and promoting competition among the participating suppliers. Implementing such a system, however, takes more than just linking supply-chain and Internet components.

"Successful e-supply chains require companies to tie their internal workings to the external view, integrating back-end applications such as ERP (enterprise resource planning) and advanced planning and scheduling (APS) to customer touch points such as the corporate web site and customer care operations," says Larry Lapide, vice president and service director of Supply Chain Strategies at AMR Research, Inc., the pre-eminent industry and market analysis firm providing independent advice on e-business strategy.

Full integration of key components ensures the exchange of information between the back-office applications that let companies control their operations and those that transmit data to and from external partners such as suppliers, distributors and even customers.

Ordering Online
With a few clicks of the mouse, a purchasing manager can post an order for bids or access a supplier’s web catalog and find exactly what is wanted. Then with a few more clicks and a little typing, the order can be made and the purchase destined for the buyer.

Backing this simplicity is extremely powerful software for presenting products, assisting the buyer in making the right decision and providing two-way graphical interaction between the buyer and the ordering system. Then postsale, there are order-fulfillment applications for producing and delivering the purchase.

With its years of experience in powering systems for graphical interaction, decision support, transport management, and supply and production optimization, ILOG is becoming the component software supplier of the B2B movement, as its top customers in ERP software, including SAP and Oracle, begin supporting web-based ordering.

Anatomy of a B2B Solution
Throughout the ordering process, a purchasing manager can work with ILOG software. In calling up a web site, the manager may be presented a web page built with ILOG JViews. The 100% Pure Java™ component provides animated business objects, graphics editors and map handlers for building fully interactive interfaces. It ensures the fastest human-Internet interface on the market.

In searching for a specific item, the manager may receive decision support from ILOG JRules. Another pure Java component, ILOG JRules enables the inclusion of business rules that turn input into action. It checks entered information and applies logic statements, or "rules," in assisting the buyer in narrowing the range of possibilities. ILOG JRules can help the manager quickly sift through a vast catalog of items, bringing up the best matches.

ILOG JRules can further simplify online ordering by setting up a personalized account for the buyer with a supplier’s web service. Such personalization ensures the buyer is only shown a specified set of items, shortening the search time for locating products. The criteria for filtering the information presented to the buyer can either be set by the buyer or the ordering service, using a profile submitted by the customer.

Some ordering involves product configuration. Here ILOG has introduced an optimization component devoted to defining the features of a product. ILOG Configurator taps the unmatched constraint programming of ILOG Solver in powering web-based configuration systems that let the buyer actually design online what is wanted.

Once finished, the buyer sends the order directly to the supplier. Here again ILOG software plays an important role. At the heart of most of the leading supply-chain optimization systems, members of the ILOG Optimization Suite quickly go to work planning and scheduling the activities involved in filling the order. When the order has been processed, a delivery time can be sent back to the buyer.

Beyond Ordering
ILOG software is used throughout the transportation industry in planning and scheduling operations. One component in particular, ILOG Dispatcher, is solely devoted to ensuring the on-time delivery of goods and services.

It assists in assigning vehicles to orders, determining delivery times and proposing the fastest routes to the customers. Delivery service has been a drawback to ordering online. A supplier can fill an order in a matter of hours, only to have the purchase spend weeks in transit because of delays and scheduling problems among transportation services.

Increasingly, transport services are adopting systems like those driven by ILOG Dispatcher. The component can take a vast amount of information into consideration in determining the optimal scheduling and routing of delivery vehicles. Already Tollpost Globe, a leading trucking company in Europe, has greatly reduced its costs while improving delivery time and customer service with ILOG Dispatcher.

Powering B2B
ILOG software holds the answer to producing the best B2B applications. Its full line of visualization, optimization and business rule components ensure accurate ordering, production and delivery. As this new paradigm for intercompany ordering becomes fully established, ILOG will serve as its leading provider of software components.

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