Concept Information Systems and MicroStrategy Introduce Q-Manufacturing for Supply Chain Decision Support
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MicroStrategy Incorporated, a leading worldwide provider of mission-critical decision support systems, and Concept Information Systems ( http://www.conceptinfo.com ) announced the availability of Q-Manufacturing, a powerful data warehousing and decision support solution that extends the value and reach of information in enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain applications.

Developed by Concept using MicroStrategy's product line, DSS Suite, Q-Manufacturing merges information from various operational systems into a central data warehouse, enabling consumer goods and manufacturing companies to improve efficiency, control production costs, and anticipate customer demand.

In recent years, manufacturing companies around the world have been evaluating and implementing ERP and other supply chain management transactional systems to help optimize daily operations. While these systems are good for streamlining day-to-day activities, they do not allow users to analyze information from disparate information sources, view historical trends, pinpoint inefficiencies, or identify new opportunities.

Q-Manufacturing is the first product to pull data from all the major ERP and transaction management products--including SAP, Baan and Manugistics--into a common data warehouse. With a MicroStrategy-based interface that is tailored to meet the needs of manufacturers, business users can answer questions like, "How much revenue do we lose due to unfulfilled orders?" "Are we producing products in areas where there is no demand?" "What is our service level to our top 25 customers?"

Q-Manufacturing allows companies to easily view and analyze data across functional areas such as financials, product lines and geographic regions, enabling them to determine where to focus resources and how to optimize efficiency throughout the supply chain. Without Q-Manufacturing, a company must perform analysis in "departmental silos" and cannot view historical transactional information, severely limiting its perspective on the overall business.

"With the introduction of Q-Manufacturing, Concept Information Systems and MicroStrategy are pioneering a new class of technology that combines best-of-breed ERP and DSS technology, allowing companies to maximize the value they can gain from their operational systems," said Sanju K. Bansal, executive vice president and chief operating officer at MicroStrategy Incorporated. "With MicroStrategy's DSS Suite at the heart of the architecture, Q-Manufacturing has unparalleled analysis capabilities that will help manufacturers improve every aspect of their supply chain. Its flexibility and performance set a new standard in this burgeoning area of decision support."

"Through our extensive work with manufacturing companies, Concept Information Systems quickly recognized the need for a packaged solution that would help businesses better leverage the wealth of information they collect in their operational systems," said Bob Cooke, president of Concept Information Systems. "We turned to MicroStrategy to be the platform for Q-Manufacturing because its products incorporate all of the characteristics our customers are looking for in a solution: flexibility, power, ease-of-use, and a variety of deployment options."

Clairol Reaps Benefits of Q-Manufacturing

Clairol, the leading provider of hair care and hair coloring products, has a state-of-the-art supply chain management and ERP system that helps it manage the day-to-day production and supply of its products. The company quickly realized, however, that it needed a data warehousing solution that would give it more sophisticated analysis and ad hoc reporting capabilities. After a thorough evaluation of the market, Clairol turned to Concept's MicroStrategy-based solution, Q-Manufacturing, to help Clairol's business planners, executives and manufacturing management dissect every aspect of its business to improve process and run the business most effectivelypport platform enables users to query and analyze the most detaategy's products extend DSS beyond corporate boundaries to cus broad range of pull and push technology such as the Internet, e-mail, telephones, pagers and other wireless communications devices. MicroStrategy also offers a comprehensive set of consulting, training and support services for its customers and partners.

For more information, please visit MicroStrategy's Web site: http://www.strategy.com

About Concept Information Systems

Concept Information Systems is a privately held, Stamford, CT-based company, founded in 1994 that specializes in designing and implementing business intelligence solutions which are comprised of decision support, online analytical processing (OLAP) and data warehousing/data marting. It takes advantage of its in-depth knowledge and experience in specific industries to lead customers through their complex business processes to increase the business value of their corporate information. Concept's proven methodology has assisted in planning and managing the growth of its customers' first decision support solution into multiple strategic decision support solutions that ultimately span the enterprise. For more information about Concept Information Systems, visit its web site at http://www.conceptinfo.com