Manufacturing and business software combined

Brooks Software and SAP have announced the availability of Brooks' Integration Gateway, now certified through SAP's 'Powered by SAP NetWeaver' program.

Brooks Software, a division of Brooks Automation, and a leading provider of real-time enterprise applications for discrete manufacturing environments, and SAP AG have announced the availability of Brooks' Integration Gateway, now certified through SAP's 'Powered by SAP NetWeaver' program.

The Integration Gateway will enable interoperability of Brooks' real-time manufacturing software with SAP's business solutions.

This increased interoperability improves a manufacturer's responsiveness to changes in customer order demand and other unplanned events that occur throughout their global supply chain.

"Based on our years of experience in the manufacturing industry, SAP is a leader in providing plant-to-business and business-to-business interoperability," said Raymond Homan, vice president, High Tech, SAP AG.

"Due to the dynamics in supply chain structures, including both offshoring and outsourcing, high-tech manufacturers are demanding top floor integration with 'any' shop floor".

"We view this partnership and the convergence of P2B and B2B as a key differentiator for SAP's distributed manufacturing solution." Joe Bellini, executive vice president and general manager of Brooks Software, said: "Even with all the investments in enterprise business applications, manufacturers are still struggling to match their resource allocation with customer order mix".

"As product lifecycles continue to get shorter and product mix increases, this problem becomes even more complex".

"The relationship between SAP and Brooks and the applications we are developing will finally give manufacturers a way to address these fundamental issues." Brooks' SAP-Certified Integration Gateway, available now, is the architectural framework of Brooks' Enterprise Interoperability Hub, which integrates Brooks' real-time manufacturing applications with SAP's business solutions.

The Integration Gateway provides a Web service integration solution that is aligned with Enterprise Service Architecture, SAP's blueprint for service-oriented architecture, and enabled through the use of ISA-95 Standards.

For example, now customer orders can flow seamlessly from mySAP ERP into the FACTORYworks Manufacturing Execution System (MES).

FACTORYworks Enterprise Integration Gateway 3.3.1 was certified for deployment on SAP WebAS 6.40 and for its integration to the SAP Enterprise Portal 6.0 via iView technology.

Brooks plans to release ISA-95-based process support for production performance, production schedule and production definition information later this year.

These Smart Adapters will enable real-time manufacturing visibility to allow manufacturers to fully realise the benefits of their ERP implementations.

Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Sumitomo Mitsubishi Silicon Corporation (SUMCO) is the world's second largest silicon wafer manufacturer and is a joint customer of both SAP and Brooks Software.

SUMCO has an extensive global supply chain operating 12 manufacturing facilities located in Asia, Europe and the United States".

""As a leading global manufacturer, SUMCO must react quickly to changes in market conditions by increasing visibility of those events and driving them back into manufacturing," said Chuck Wallace, VP CIO.

"As a customer of both SAP and Brooks Software, SUMCO is pleased that these two market leaders are working together".

"Their cooperation will facilitate the integration of our manufacturing applications and enterprise systems so that we can respond in real-time to changes in our supply chain." Manufacturers have long recognized that daily production plans have little visibility to real-time events occurring in the supply chain and real-time changes in customer demand.

As a result, the production schedule that drives the shop floor activity is obsolete shortly after it arrives.

This impacts the manufacturer's ability to deliver customer orders accurately and on-time.

The first step in addressing this problem is to provide an S95-enabled interoperable real-time link between the enterprise and the shop floor.

* About Brooks Software - Brooks Software, a division of Brooks Automation, provides real-time applications that support enterprise-wide initiatives for greater efficiency and productivity in collaborative, complex manufacturing.

Brooks' Sense Decide Respond manufacturing software solutions are the foundation for enterprise initiatives in supply chain execution, closed loop automation, lean manufacturing and enterprise performance management.

Installed in the majority of Fortune 500 manufacturers, Brooks Software delivers competitive advantage to aerospace and defense, automotive, high tech, life sciences and semiconductor manufacturers worldwide.

* About Brooks Automation - Brooks Automation (NASDAQ: BRKS), delivers automation solutions to the global semiconductor and related industries.

The company provides hardware, software, and professional services to help manage every wafer, reticle and data movement in the fab, improving throughput and yield while reducing cost and time to market.

Brooks' products and capabilities are used in virtually every semiconductor fab in the world.

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