BUSINESS
E-BUSINESS NEWS UPDATES FOR THE WORLD OF BUSINESS ONLINE
Services
workflow and information sharing. Lextant brings expertise in human behavior engi neering, Entara offers consulting for tech nology deployment, and LabBook provides electronic laboratory technology
SciQuest has created new software to let pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms manage environmental, health, and safety information. The goal is to help researchSCO Logistics has signed contracts with focused organizations maintain safety and Baker Petrolite and Ashta Chemicals for regulatory compli ^ Web-bast logistics services. SCO will "Web-based m ^ ^ ance by monitoring :er Petrolite the ability to mon and controlling the ^ L l v ^ U C j L itor itorandr and manage inbound and outbound £Q|"|"i shipments and receive management re chemicals they use. ports to help track the performance of its The software covers chem carriers and business. Beyond improving its ical handling and tracking,* operations, the company wants to avoid the beginning with ordering and receiving and "need for cosdy consultants for implemen then following transfer, use, and disposal. tation and training," says Bruce W Nied, "Many times, companies are faced with sig Baker Petrolite's director of logistics. SCO nificant fines and other legal liabilities as will provide Ashta with request-for-quote sociated with the control and disposal of services for bulk tank truck transportation. their chemical inventories," says Terry Graber, SciQuest senior product director. The software automates chemical man agement processes, notifying health and safety staff of chemicals being ordered, en tering, and moving throughout a location. Nexant's Chem Systems consulting SciQuest also recently released version 4.4 business has relaunched ChemSystems On of its enterprise reagent manager software line with the help of e-marketing and con for organizing laboratory chemical report sulting firm theTurnaroundTeam. The new ing, purchasing, and inventory control. site includes a suite of trend analysis and forecasting tools, along with real-time in formation on capacity supply/demand, and LabBook, Lextant, and Entara Tech profitability in many chemical business ar nology will work together to create cus eas. Chem Systems and Turnaround devel tomizable knowledge management ap oped the online tools after assessing client plications for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The planned soft needs and what others were offering. The first two tools released are "Industry Re ware will help users to set up electronical searcher" and "Market Analyst," designed to ly enabled, collaborative scientific envi meet the information gathering needs of ronments. A customizable environment midlevel chemical industry managers. They would include document and process man will devise future additions to assist highagement tools while capturing scientists'
Consulting
MOBILITY Palm's m500 and m505 handheld computers are the first such per sonal digital assistants (PDAs) to be certified as free from the pos sibility of igniting flammables that may be present in petrochemi cal environments, the company reports. The certification—for class I, division II, groups A, B, C, D environments, which include most refineries, chemical plants, and other industrial facili ties—came from product safety testing firm Underwriters Lab oratories. With this certification, software providers offering mobile applications can extend them to users in these indus tries. For example, Palm cites LPG Central, which provides wire less oil, gas, and propane tank management systems. Delivery drivers can now enter these areas with PDAs that they use for optimizing delivery sequences and routes, recording deliveries, and generating invoices. In these applications, PDAs are ex pected to cut customer costs by 20 to 30%, LPG Central says. 22
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level industry managers with large-scale planning and decision-making. Turnaround is continuing to provide technical support.
Kamer Consulting Group is offering a collection of news coverage, industry in formation, and legislative updates con cerning terrorism and its effect on chemi cal producers and related companies at its new Emerging Risk Center website. The consulting firm says it sees renewed inter est in chemical plants, particularly in the potential risk they might pose in a terror ist threat. The firm believes "the challenge companies now face is twofold: dealing with the potential for terrorism and communi cating their actions to key audiences." The site is intended to help companies stay on top of the issues, while Kamer also is tout ing its services in issues management, cri sis communications, media relations, and community interaction.
Marketplaces GE Global exchange Services (GXS) says customers using its online reverse auc tion tools together have saved more than $200 million in the first quarter of 2002 through what it calls "price deflation"—or paying lower prices on materials and serv ices. About 17 companies reaped these cost savings, including IMC Global and many of GE's own businesses. Customers indi vidually had cost reductions ranging be tween 7 and 49%, compared with tradi tional procurement methods. GXS also supports request-for-quote and requestfor-proposal services, plus transactions and materials planning capabilities. Om n e x u s ρ the plastics industry online marketplace, has developed integration technology it dubs "UltraLite" in response to customer demand. Integration of com pany computer systems is desirable because it can automate the process of placing or ders and obtaining related invoices and information. A nonintegrated buyer can face the problem of "dual entry," which means having to input order information in to its own record-keeping system and then again into a supplier's system to place the order. The UltraLite technology avoids this problem, Omnexus says, but doesn't require the cost or time for full-scale integration. Buyers connect with plastics suppliers on the Omnexus site and have orders auto matically sent and received. E-Business is written by Ann Thayer, who can be reached at
[email protected]. HTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
