Supply Chain Management Software Market Study 2002/2003

Researchers:

Partners:

Academic:

Fraunhofer-Institut für Produktionstechnik und Automatisierung (IPA), Stuttgart
Fraunhofer-Institut für Materialfluss und Logistik (IML), Dortmund

Industrial:

33 leading Software Solution Providers

Financed by:

Own ressources of the professorship

Motivation:

The realisation of new SCM concepts as well as increasing linked logistics processes between many companies in the value chain is more popular than ever before. A new generation of planning software solutions, also know as Supply Chain Planning Software, is playing a leading role. The present market study analyses more than 30 leading SCM software solution providers that are mainly active on the European software market. This study updates the SCM software study published in 1999 that achieved a very broad distribution in the German speaking realm of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. It is the joint effort of three institutes: Fraunhofer-Institute IPA, Stuttgart; IML, Dortmund; and the Center for Enterprise Sciences (BWI) of ETH Zurich. The institutes have broad experience in the realisation and implementation of logistics and SCM concepts in various industry branches, which is the prerequisite baseline for a detailed SCM software market study. Together the institutes also form the SCM Competence and Transfer Center (scm-CTC), which offers additional services like workshops, consulting, and project support.

Objectives:

The main goals of the software market survey study can be summarized as follows:
Support the process of evaluating and selecting supply chain management software
Provide an overview of the current state-of-the-art SCM software planning market
Support the development of a methodology to implement SCM
Support the extension of already existing SCM solutions in industry
Develop a catalogue of criteria for detailed analysis of SCM software solutions
Determine criteria for evaluation of software vendors
Analyze current trends and developments on the SCM software market
Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of SCM software solutions

The following activities have already been completed:

After a pre-selection process, more than 30 leading software vendors that are mainly active on the European market were invited to participate in the survey. In a first step, a general questionnaire about the basic software solutions and functionalities, based on the SCM-CTC reference task model, was sent to the software vendors. In a second step, based on the received and verified answer sheets, the corresponding criteria catalogues were sent to vendors. The results of the study were published in a document that is over 1,000 pages long and is now available in German as well as in English. The publication can be purchased at the scm-CTC contact office in Stuttgart at the price of € 1500 for consultants and € 750 for industry partners.