Infor Announces Tethered Drone-Based Asset Management Solution and Next Generation Cloud-based Supply Chain Planning Suite

Infor Announces Innovative Tethered Drone-Based Asset Management Solution

Infor announced in partnership with Drone Aviation Corp. (DAC), the creation of Infor's new Drone Enterprise Asset Management Solution (DEAMS), designed to solve industry challenges by enabling safe, efficient asset management and maintenance.

Infor and DAC believe that applying tethered drone technology to even small Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) projects can yield a significant impact for the success of an asset. With a tethered drone's ability to perform functions like perch-and-stare, video capture, and laser scanning, the drone can replace many of the dull, dirty, and dangerous functions of inspection and compliance.

By combining the cutting-edge, patented tethered drone technologies of Drone Aviation Corp with the Infor Enterprise Asset Management system, private and public sector customers are now able to benefit from the flexible capability of drone technology to effectively and safely inspect buildings, oil rigs, power stations, railways, and other linear and non-linear assets.

Thanks to the flexible flying capability, drones or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are able to extend beyond the typical constraints of asset management to capture high-quality images and footage that provide stakeholders with a more complete level of visibility. By utilizing emerging technologies to manage infrastructure assets, organizations are able to achieve greater value in maximizing product lifecycles and instituting a preventative maintenance plan that can prevent costly downtime. Drone technology has quickly standardized and proven reliable since it was first introduced to the market, and today the technology is proving to be more affordable and effective than previously utilized techniques in capital-intensive public sector environments.

The partnership between Infor and Drone Aviation helps automate the core business processes that provide enterprise organizations with integrated asset and maintenance management solutions. DEAMS delivers an inspection and maintenance management approach that can produce actionable business insights and improve a business' decision-making processes. Drone Aviation's tethered drones have advanced imaging cameras including stabilized thermal, that can zoom in to show the smaller details of an item being inspected, and they can be safely operated for hours with power and data being securely transmitted through the tether to the operator on the ground.

Infor DEAMS utilizes Infor ION, a purpose-built middleware, that processes the data collected by the drones' onboard sensors and integrates it with Infor EAM and maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) applications. The data can also be analyzed with easy to use analytics to produce accurate information about the asset life, allowing for quicker and more effective decision-making.

Infor Delivers Next Generation Cloud-based Supply Chain Planning Suite

Infor also announced Infor Integrated Business Planning (IBP), v11.1, a comprehensive solution suite that delivers enterprise access to the information and tools needed to optimize supply chain processes. The release integrates core supply chain management (SCM) processes, such as sales & operations planning (S&OP), demand planning (DP), and supply planning (SP) processes into a single, holistic solution to provide enhanced visibility and control across the global supply chain. Infor IBP is designed to increase value for users through significant enhancements to the demand planning and supply planning processes and connects them to financial planning, and by delivering a robust application that can be deployed in the cloud or on-premise.

Infor IBP has been developed to tackle major challenges frequently encountered in a modern dynamic supply chain. Increased globalization has helped create access to new markets for suppliers, but in turn it results in disconnected and disjointed teams and data, whether by geographic distance or through silos. Infor IBP provides capabilities that unify data sets and allow users to collaborate globally to create plans that support business goals. This creates much needed reliability and repeatability of processes and outputs. By eliminating silos and bridging the gap between strategy and operations, companies are able to assess actual performance rates, which in turn facilitate better decision-making to help connect execution and strategy.

Infor IBP was developed to provide core analytics, visibility, collaboration and execution capabilities to help organizations across industries get closer to real orchestration of their supply chain and retain control of costs and services delivered.

Core Features

Improved Data Visualization & Analytics - The release of Infor IBP brings about a modern, user-friendly aesthetic to enhance the data visualization process. By adding gauge and trend chart types that are embedded within worksheets, users are able to plot values in relation to minimum and maximum ranges that are stylistically similar to a car's speedometer. New formatting options, such as color-coding, will ease the process for tracking analytics. This new function allows for a quick visual reference of acceptable or underperforming measurements.

Intelligent S&OP Module - Accurate and comprehensive S&OP forecasts are an essential component for aligning supply, demand, and financial objectives. By integrating a standalone S&OP module, Infor IBP allows for a more collaborative approach to planning and analysis with a unified model of demand, supply chain, and financial data at any level of granularity or dimension. The module is equipped with industry-specific templates and features enhancements, such as dynamic supply demand re-balance and profitable trade-offs. Through Infor Ming.le, multi-user collaboration is made possible both inside and outside the application to deliver tracking, alerts and drill-backs that monitor key metrics, such as supply chain costs, lead times and forecast variability.

Improved Demand+ - Infor IBP reportedly improves creation of baseline forecasts to enable users to simultaneously create and compare multiple statistical forecast models with automatic detection of key variables, such as seasonality, step changes, and obsolescence prediction. Users can also customize alerts to provide more flexible forecasting. The latest version also has an embedded workbench for market intelligence and features historical variability calculations to support inventory visibility. The secure web-based layout creates easy access for collaborative forecasting with sales, finance, production, customers, and trade partners.

Optimized Supply+ - Infor IBP features Supply+ to help optimize key supply chain variables such as capacity, material, inventory, and distribution constraints. By including the Supply+ functionality, users are able to plan across variable time horizons to forecast strategic, tactical, and operational scenarios. Users can evaluate 'what if' situations and compare viability across all areas including inventory, sales production, warehouse and purchase analysis. Users also gain the ability to import data from the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to IBP for reviewing scenarios to create models that factor in different business cycles and demand spikes.

Keywords: Drone Enterprise Asset Management Solution (DEAMS), Tethered Drone Technology, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP), Demand Planning (DP), Supply Planning (SP), ARC Advisory Group.