Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition

New software from Manhattan Associates should make it easier for companies in the third-party logistics (3PL) industry to more accurately handle billing for multiple clients. PkCost, announced last week, builds on Manhattan's popular OS/400-based warehouse management application, PkMS, by adding new storage billing and invoice management capabilities, giving 3PL companies a better way to track services and bill their clients for inventory handling, storage, fulfillment, and transportation activities.

PkCost is a component of MA Fulfill, the company's suite of supply chain software that includes PkMS, PkMS Pronto (the scaled-down version of PkMS that runs on Windows servers), and Logistics Pro WMS.

PkMS already allowed independent 3PL companies to support multiple clients with different product-handling requirements from a single distribution center. What was lacking in PkMS was a way to accurately capture and assign billing information for multi-client environments, which would enable 3PL companies to form more precise contracts with their clients.

Manhattan says PkCost uses XML to capture information from supply chain execution systems (such as PkMS). PkCost lets users apply rates to each transaction based on specific handling needs or storage requirements. For example, PkMS accurately measures and assigns values to the extra time associated with special handling requirements, allowing the user to bill the client for extra costs. Manhattan says PkCost supports four different methods of storage billing to improve the accuracy of billing for storage space within a warehouse.

PkCost also allows users to modify their billing based on variables such as product, order attributes, market focus, number of customers and customer locations. Using PkCost, 3PL companies can audit these charges and make adjustments before creating final invoices, Manhattan says.

Manhattan has more than 1,100 installs of PkMS, most of which are on AS/400 or iSeries servers (PkMS is also available for AIX, Solaris, and Windows). The Atlanta, Georgia, software company is one of the few software vendors in the supply chain execution space to make a profit in the last few years. The company, which had $155.6 million in revenues for fiscal year 2001, has seen its percentage of total revenue from its core product, PkMS, shrink, and license revenue from newer offerings, such as infolink, its collaborative B2B e-commerce offerings, and PkMS Pronto, increasing to account for 24 percent of the company's total revenues, according to company officials.

During a July conference call, Manhattan chief executive Richard Haddrill discussed his company's position in the market and described what he called a "perfect storm" of opportunity as companies in the distribution industry find their home-built systems can't cope with new demands. "We have emerged as the leader in the supply chain space," he said. "We continue to have successes in this very tough supply chain execution market, a space where no other vendor has been successful . . . [But] we have only begun to scratch the surface."