ORD500 inefficiencies - locating solutions via internet

Thoughts & Questions from Al Macintyre

We do not have As/Set & are on 405 CD mixed mode of AS/436 V4R3.

Some of what we label "ORD500 inefficiencies" may in reality be problems of 
our own making such as gaps in our BPCS continuing education, and end users 
developing "solutions" to problems without their "solutions" receiving 
thorough testing comparable to what the Y2K project team did via our 
conference room pilot.

Question

Are there existing 3rd party enhancements to ORD500 goals that do not 
experience the performance squealing we've recently been hearing about V6 ECM 
(ORD500 without the screens), or are the problems discussed on BPCS_L an 
exception to the general rule?

I would especially like to be appraised of any product mix where reports from 
our customers (90% of what I see are their computer print-outs to photo copy 
machine to their fax to our fax & sometimes becomes a bit unreadable in 
transit) could get electronically transferred to PC spread sheet tailored to 
customer report format & from there update / add corresponding BPCS 405 CD 
order lines conceptually like V6 ECM.

I have looked at the web sites of various BPCS 3rd parties & not seen any 
such offerings, which is not to say that they don't have any since more sites 
are rather vague than those that have specific lists of BPCS enhancements.  I 
figure that with 18,000 BPCS installed sites, according to the latest 
http://www.mfg-erp.com Midrange ERP Magazine, 12,000 of them being Midrange, 
enough have the same kinds of challenges to support multiple 3rd party 
packaged solutions.

Question

When it comes to BPCS enhancements & clean-up of SSA offerings that some 
clients are not entirely happy with, are there any major sources missing from 
my bookmarks, other than additional consultants that have no explicit add-on 
package offerings?

http://www.asapinc.org - ASAP - typical vague BPCS URL
http://www.crowechizek.com/ - the consultants we used
http://members.tripod.co.uk/BPCS/index.html = BPCS documentation
http://www.primesourcetech.com = George wonderful answers here 
http://www.johnson-schley.com = JSMG - very few explicit enhancements
http://www.nexgeninfo.com/ = NexGen - mixture of on-line aids
http://www.Precision.ie - BPCS/Y2K
http://www.e-systemsinc.com - Scruggs
http://www.ssax.com/ - SSA is the standard to beat
http://www.bpcsusers.com = SSA Canada
http://www.unbeatenpathintl.com/services.html = UPI - the biggest list of 
BPCS enhancements I have found, bigger in fact than all the other BPCS URLs 
combined, excluding SSA, but not what I am looking for in ORD500 land

I have visited all of these sites & have also jotted down, with intention of 
future visits, the URLs for ARC (Archiving BPCS trash) & i Work (BPCS Bar 
Coding & Data Collection).  I have been extremely pleased to see that there 
are multiple alternatives to SSA Help Support, especially BPCS versions 
outside SSA's official ones, and alternative methods of delivering BPCS tech 
support for those of us whose philosophies do not mesh well with SSA's 
approaches.    

But most important, where are there BPCS enhancements missing from my URL 
list?  Does anyone reccommend some other site I should be visiting?  I also 
plan to check out the AS/400 leads that George & Boris recently suggested.

Al Macintyre
http://www.cen-elec.com
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