Infor Improves Business Performance for Discrete Manufacturers

April 08, 2009

Infor today announced general availability of Infor MyDay for Infor ERP LN, an enterprise resource planning solution for companies in the discrete project-based manufacturing industries. Much more than a portal or dashboard, Infor MyDay is a dynamic Web 2.0 user interface for Infor applications that provides central access to the critical information users need to excel in their daily work. Companies operating on Infor ERP LN with Feature Pack 5 or higher and active maintenance plans are able to take advantage of Infor MyDay at no additional charge.

Infor MyDay takes the vast amounts of business data captured and stored by ERP LN and delivers the pertinent information to employees based on their roles within the organization. Previously, ERP solutions did not allow for users to easily access and analyze data that was often trapped in information silos or documents in the system. Infor MyDay sets relevant data free and presents it so that the appropriate decision-makers in the company can respond quickly when necessary.

"Infor ERP LN has been instrumental in improving our business operations, significantly reducing administration costs and providing greater visibility into our data," said Frans Brackel, logistic manager, Dremefa, a leading manufacturer of bicycle safety seats based in the Netherlands. "We are in the process of adopting Infor MyDay and look forward to benefiting from the new, real-time data updates. The overview of metrics and online reports presented, along with the ability to drill deeper into the underlying source data, will be particularly valuable to our users. The deployment of Infor MyDay, along with future components and applications for ERP LN such as Infor Decisions, delivers excellent value for our investment and will provide us with greater insight into our business performance."

Infor MyDay Helps Manufacturers by Personalizing Information Delivery

Infor has identified more than 150 roles for which Infor MyDay will personalize information in functional areas such as operations, sales, manufacturing/production, and finance. The information presented to users in these roles can help manufacturers improve cash flow, boost profits, reduce operating expenses, improve product quality, increase revenue, and speed time to correct problems.

Companies in the discrete manufacturing industry must identify ways to reduce costs without sacrificing product quality. Infor MyDay provides information that helps users in production and operations analyze material usage, resource usage and other specific production-related metrics that give insight into trends like commodity price changes or quality issues. Acting on the information presented by Infor MyDay, users can make decisions that reduce unnecessary costs and improve product quality, bolstering operational effectiveness.

Manufacturers using Infor MyDay can strengthen customer service with insight into the true cost of serving individual customers, which enables them to prioritize their customer investments in a way that produces the greatest return. Through analyzing data on order processing, accounts receivable and inventory, Infor MyDay delivers metrics to employees in sales and finance, such as customer and product pricing, off-invoice discounts and post-invoice discounts, and helps users to effectively respond to mandates to reduce costs and add customized services. Such visibility enables users to maximize revenue and profits for the company.

In addition, Infor MyDay enables manufacturers to improve cash flow by providing metrics to users in the finance department, helping them to manage cash, reduce the consumption of working capital and minimize the time to address cash flow issues.

"For years, ERP solutions have been collecting and organizing huge amounts of data from all across the manufacturing enterprise, from the shop floor through the back-office," said Jeff Abbott, vice president, solutions marketing, Infor. "Infor MyDay brings ERP to the next level by taking that data, analyzing it and delivering key metrics to relevant users so that they can quickly make solid decisions and take action to improve business performance, rather than spending time collecting and analyzing data themselves."

Infor Open SOA

Infor MyDay utilizes Infor Open SOA, a unique, event-driven service-oriented architecture (SOA) that leverages an industry standard business language to distribute data between Infor solutions and other systems. Infor Open SOA provides a standards-based approach for integration of both Infor and non-Infor systems and data sources. Through Infor Open SOA, Infor customers can rapidly and economically add Infor, third-party and in-house software applications without the need to "rip-and-replace" software or interrupt other systems during operations, a key benefit to Infor Open SOA. Infor Open SOA allows future component-based enhancements to Infor solutions to be delivered in the same non-disruptive manner, easing the implementation process for future technology integrations.

Additional Resources

Datasheet for Infor MyDay for Manufacturing - http://sn.im/myday-ln
Infor ERP LN Product Summary Website - http://sn.im/erpln
Infor MyDay Launch Press Release - http://sn.im/myday_pressrelease
Infor Open SOA - http://www.infor.com/solutions/opensoa/
About Infor

Infor acquires and develops functionally rich software backed by thousands of domain experts
and then makes it better through continuous innovation, faster implementations, global
enablement, and flexible buying options. In a few short years, Infor has become one of the
largest providers of business software in the world. For additional information, visit
http://www.infor.com/.