Re: BPCS Conference

Charlie - I do not know if you can access BPCS_l ARCHIVES, you not yet 
probably being a member of BPCS_L, but you could try 
http://archive.midrange.com/bpcs-l/index.htm 
& see if it will let you SEARCH for things like BPCS User Groups & other 
topics.

There are in fact several BPCS Conferences - there will be two in April of 
this year that I know about - 

MABUG (Mid Atlantic BPCS User Group) in Princeton NJ 
>  April 11, 2001
>  Mid Atlantic Users Group Conference
>  Marriot Hotel
>  Princeton, New Jersey
>  Contact:  Julie Thompson at jthompson@ssax.com

& one at 
Notre Dame University April 30 - May 1
I believe it is sponsored through
Crowe Chizek 
http://www.crowechizek.com/

We subscribe to their BPCS newsletter & I probably can dig up e-mail address 
of who to contact on this ... we subscribe to EVERY bpcs newsletter that 
anyone is willing to send us - I think NEX GEN does the best quality 
newsletter while Bruce Barker's is perhaps the most constructive that I have 
seen (a list of stuff that CAN be done).

Both of these (Princeton & Notre Dame) are annual events in which several 
people have had a lot of nice things to say about them on BPCS_L.

there may be others - I will dig up more particulars & get them to you in a 
later e-mail

Some BPCS user groups have been canceled or ended.

Due to the SSA reorganization, their former affiliate in the SW USA, iWorks, 
has been SEVERELY CRIPPLED in its ability to serve the BPCS community, or so 
I am told from several informants.
I am not at liberty to divulge my sources of information on this.
Some of what I have been told is not nice, big time, & inappropriate to share 
anyway.

It is our understanding in the BPCS community, such as BPCS-L off of midrange 
dot com, that Version 8 of BPCS is to be announced REAL SOON, and several 
BPCS user groups, that do not often have major conferences, have been holding 
off on their plans for what to do this year until after this announcement 
details materialize.  The one in the Chicago / Wisconsin area falls into that 
category.

The statement someone made on MIDRANGE-L about no BPCS conference this year 
was an erroneous statement ... the truth was that the BPCS conference that is 
held in the South West, under the auspices of support from iWorks, went down 
the tubes thanks to their over-reliance on a vendor whose relationship with 
SSA went south.

Yes, I do believe that there might be a role for Common to play with respect 
to ERP in general.  It seems to me that there is a need for companies & users 
of various ERP to be able to find the user communities that exist for their 
respective ERP with a whole lot less effort than is the reality today.  There 
is a lot of 3rd party documentation & shareware, at least there was when I 
was on MAPICS, and even more so on BPCS.  This generally comes from people 
who are BPCS volunteers who have some other full time job, so their resources 
to advertise their products are extremely limited.

I had been contemplating doing an IMHO piece for midrange dot com sharing a 
bunch of URLs that I know with respect to these resources that it seems to me 
that a lot of newcomers to BPCS-L often seem to need.

Perhaps you should seek speakers from http://www.apics.org
or some kind of joint focus on ERP Education.

www.MidrangeEnterprise.com is another good resource
formerly Midrange ERP Magazine

> Subj:  BPCS Conference
>  Date:    02/20/2001 10:59:57 AM Central Standard Time
>  From:    Charlie_Massoglia@common.org
>  To:  MacWheel99@aol.com, info@bpcsmbug.com
>  
>  I have recently begun to work with BPCS, having previously worked 
> extensively with JBA and MAPICS.  
> In looking for a BPCS user group conference to attend, 
> I  noticed some discussion on MIDRANGE-L about 
> no BPCS conference being held this year.  

> As President of COMMON, I wonder if there might be any synergy in
>  exploring the possibility of cooperative efforts?
>  
>  As a nationwide midrange users group, COMMON is committed to providing 
> midrange education - and not just technical education.  
> If COMMON provided facilities at one or both of our annual conferences 
> for BPCS sessions at no cost other than the normal conference registration 
fee, 
> do you think there might be sufficient interest to justify several tracks?  
> If so, would we be able to secure a sufficient number of user, consultant, 
> or SSA speakers?  I personally could present 3 sessions - 
> BPCS Database File Structures, Using QUERY with BPCS, 
> and Using Journaling with BPCS.  
> Would you have any idea of who might be able to
>  coordinate this effort?
>  
>  I am not sure who I should be contacting.  
> Martha Bayer is no longer with Badger Mining and 
> Gary Gibler is no longer with Norwalk furniture.  So I have 
> addressed this memo to you specifically Mac and to the 
> generic email address for BPCSMUG
>  in hopes that someone might refer me to the appropriate person.
>  
>  If you would like to talk, please feel free to contact me on my cell phone 

< snip >

I decided to share Charlie's interest without giving out his cell phone #.

MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)
AS/400 Data Manager & Programmer for BPCS 405 CD Rel-02 mixed mode (twinax 
interactive & batch) @ http://www.cen-elec.com Central Industries of 
Indiana--->Quality manufacturer of wire harnesses and electrical 
sub-assemblies - fax # 812-424-6838

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