Collaborative commerce applications offered

Baan Process Solutions has announced the Customer Order Tracking module for its PRISM and Protean systems.

Baan Process Solutions, a business of Baan - the leading enterprise application provider for industrial enterprises and part of Invensys plc - today announced the Customer Order Tracking module for its PRISM and Protean systems.

The new functionality marks the beginning of a program by which Baan will offer a full suite of collaborative commerce (c-commerce) applications to PRISM and Protean users.

Baan Process Solutions is planning to introduce more than six c-commerce extensions as part of the new iBaan Collaboration for PRISM and iBaan Collaboration for Protean applications suites.

These applications will enable PRISM and Protean users to add advanced online buying and selling functionality.

PRISM is Baan Process Solution's enterprise software that runs on the IBM AS/400 platform.

Protean is its enterprise software solution based on client/server architecture.

Both are designed to help process manufacturers increase operational efficiency, shorten delivery cycles and bring new products to market more quickly.

"The iBaan collaboration suites for PRISM and Protean will enable customers to implement advanced iBaan collaboration technology, while maximizing their existing PRISM or Protean investment," said Jay Galasso, Vice President for Marketing, Baan Process Solutions.

The iBaan collaboration suites for PRISM and Protean are phased-in offerings of "out-of-the box" solution templates designed to eventually address all requirements for collaboration in the value chain - from customer ordering to delivery and after-sales.

All applications are planned to be ready for out-of-the box implementation, but are also designed for easy combination with existing business rules and scenarios stored in PRISM and Protean.

By adding c-commerce functionality to their existing information infrastructure, PRISM and Protean users can attain a cost-effective transition to online buying and selling, while increasing acceptance and usability.

And while protecting existing investment, they also receive the benefits of advanced Internet, integration and collaboration technology resulting from Baan's iBaan c-commerce development initiative.

Improving CSR productivity and customer satisfaction - the first module in the new collaboration suite is online Customer Order Tracking.

With it, PRISM and Protean users can enable their customers to track the status of orders online.

This means that customer service representatives can spend less time handling routine order status requests and more time handling exceptions.

And because customers will have 24X7 access to order status information, it will also result in greater customer satisfaction.

To implement Customer Order Tracking, Baan Process Solutions links existing PRISM or Protean installations with an XML-based Internet server, which in turn communicates with a collaboration server.

The servers manage controlled access to current transaction data housed in an Oracle or SQL database.

Toward complete collaboration - as part of this collaborative commerce initiative, Baan Process Solutions also plans to roll-out additional sales collaboration functionality including Availability To Promise (ATP), order entry, quote entry and pricing, order problem ticking, and sales order alerts and agents.

Planned functionality on the buy-side includes PO publishing, change management, problem ticketing, purchase order alerts and agents, invoice publishing, and RFQ posting.

Baan Process Solutions, a business unit of Baan and part of the Production Management division of Invensys PLC, is the world's largest enterprise software supplier focused entirely on the process and hybrid industries.

A unique combination of deep industry knowledge, patented production modeling, and the powerful new iBaan suite of Internet-enabled products makes it a natural fit for customers desiring to achieve effective cost management across the value chain.

Customers include world-class manufacturers from the chemicals, food and beverage, metals, pulp and paper, pharmaceuticals, wire and cable industries.

Baan Process Solutions provides the solutions that can help these companies to compete in the 'networked economy' with its ever-increasing demand for information, integration and collaboration.

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