News Briefs and Product Shorts

BNX Prescribes Biometrically Authenticated SSO for Password Problem

Secure single sign-on (SSO) is a reality at Prescription Solutions, a Carlsbad, California, company that manages the prescription drug benefits for corporate and government health plans. Earlier this year, Prescription Solutions successfully completed the first stage of a deployment of BNX Systems' Windows-based Authenticated Sign-ON software, along with Sony PUPPY FIU-600 fingerprint scanners, to streamline employees' access to a range of OS/400, Windows, and VMS applications. Prior to the BNX system, employees in Prescription Solutions call center had to manually logon to as many as 15 different applications on a daily basis to perform their jobs. The company conducted an ROI study and found that each application required about two minutes for an employee to complete the logon process, or 8.5 minutes wasted per employee per day, which corresponds with a potential savings of $200,000 across 300 users over a year. The company also expects to significantly reduce calls to the help desk, about half of which were for password resets. "With the BNX system, we're expecting significant savings in help desk costs and strengthened security around our member information," says Mike Wallace, the company's manager of technical services. The company expects to complete the second stage of the roll-out to a total of 1,200 employees by the end of June.

Tenneco Automotive Europe Assures Us It Will GETPAID

It's nice to get paid. To make sure it keeps getting paid, the European branch of automotive parts manufacturer Tenneco Automotive has contracted with GETPAID, a Parsippany, New Jersey, software developer, with plans to rev up its accounts receivable generation. Tenneco Automotive Europe will integrate the Java-based GETPAID 7i application with four existing systems, including a SAP ERP system and multiple OS/400 applications, which are used by Tenneco Automotive employees in nine European countries. "We selected GETPAID to increase productivity, proactively address past due receivables, and reduce bad debt expense," says Paul Vandermaesen, finance director for Tenneco Automotive's European aftermarket division. "Our U.S. counterpart has been using GETPAID for over eight years . . . [and] they have reported significant improvements in productivity," he says. GETPAID provides open APIs for major ERP and A/R systems, including J.D. Edwards, Oracle, and SAP, and counts more than 18,500 users in 35 countries, according to its CEO, Dianna Piumelli.

DMS Helps Slash Inventory Turns at Michigan Auto Parts Distributor

Star Sales & Service, a distributor of aftermarket auto parts in Bay City, Michigan, has made substantial improvements to its business as a result of a new iSeries-based computer system it recently implemented, DMS Systems and IBM announced last month. The companies say Star Sales & Service was able to cut more than $500,000 worth of inventory, improve its inventory turn rates by 95 percent, and achieve a 13 percent increase in order fill-rates in the first year since replacing its Triad ERP system from Activant with the DMS supply chain software running on an iSeries, alongside WebSphere Application Server-Express. What's more, the new system enables Star Sales & Service to do 25 percent of its business over the Web, which saves money compared to taking orders over the phone and fax machine. The new system has "revolutionized the way we conduct our business," says John Krieger, president and CEO of the auto parts company. "We are now able to better service ours customers, respond faster to the marketplace trends, and reduce excessive cost due to inventory inefficiencies."

Able-One to Resell Extol's OS/400 B2B Software

Able-One Systems, an iSeries business partner located near Toronto, has signed on to become a reseller of Extol's B2B integration software, the companies announced last week. Able-One plans to sell the range of Extol's native OS/400 software for EDI, XML, AS2, and UCCnet data synchronization initiatives to Canadian manufacturers in the automotive supply chain. "Many of our clients in Canada want to continue using their AS/400 operating systems due to the stability of the IBM iSeries product, its great security and ease of maintenance," says Peter Paleczny, president of Able-One Systems. "The Extol product is ideally suited for the Tier one and two automotive sector customer. The product is very robust, economically priced, and hosted on the iSeries DB2 database, which will certainly be appealing to our customers." The two companies will discuss the use of B2B technology during a Webinar called "Using Supply Chain Mandates to Your Own Personal Advantage," which starts at 10 a.m. ET today. You can register at the Extol Web site: www.extol.com.

The Impossible Is Possible with Global, Cantex Finds

When your construction job requires schedule 80 electrical conduit and NEMA TC-6 utility ducts, you know exactly who to call: Cantex of Mineral Wells, Texas. But where do you go when you need Microsoft Excel-based access to your J.D. Edwards financial data? If you're Cantex, you call Global Software of Raleigh, North Carolina, because Global understands the unique needs of the J.D. Edwards community, according to Spencer Kupferman, the company's vice president of corporate affairs. "That's why J.D. Edwards users turn to us to simplify their lives and streamline their financial reporting," he says. Last week, Global announced that Cantex has experienced stupendous results using its Spreadsheet Server for J.D. Edwards implementation. "The concept of direct real-time access to the J.D. Edwards general ledger, coupled with subsystem drill-downs, all within the comfy confines of Microsoft Excel, gives us a capacity to generate reports that we didn't think were possible," says Cantex CFO, Kevin Calcote.

Hackett Group to Probe Hidden Costs of SOX

The Hackett Group is embarking upon a benchmark study of the effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that may show what many of you already suspect: that implementing SOX compliance is riddled with hidden costs and creates inefficiencies. The Atlanta firm says its study will provide detailed information on the total cost of implementing SOX financial reporting controls, show its sundry effects across IT, finance, HR, procurement, and sales organizations, and identify SOX "best practices," or the best way to comply with the law at the lowest cost. "Not too long ago, faxing invoices was considered a best practice," said Richard Roth, the company's chief research officer. "Today, the Internet enables electronic bill presentment as a proven technique for distributing invoices. Similarly, this study will begin to uncover the fundamental shift that SOX has made on our very definition of a best practice, while capturing the correlating techniques that improve controls and compliance activities at the lowest cost." To send us your SOX horror stories, click here.