Infor Uses Inforum 2017 to Announce Coleman and Expansion of ERP into the Extended Supply Chain

Infor Announces Coleman AI Platform
Infor announced Coleman, an enterprise-grade, industry-specific AI platform for Infor CloudSuite applications.

A pervasive platform that operates below an application's surface, Coleman mines data and uses powerful machine learning to improve processes, such as inventory management, transportation routing, and predictive maintenance. Coleman also provides AI-driven recommendations and advice to enable users to make smarter business decisions more quickly.

In addition, Coleman acts as a smart AI partner, augmenting the user's work. Coleman uses natural language processing and image recognition to chat, hear, talk, and recognize images to help people use technology more efficiently.

Coleman develops a conversational relationship with the user, which can be rendered in Infor Ming.le, a social collaboration platform, or a synthetic conversational user interface. User efficiency is increased as studies show humans are able to speak and hear 3-4 times as many words per minute as they can type. Processing the vast data in Infor CloudSuite, Coleman automates search and gather functions, which can take up 20 percent of a user's workweek, significantly increasing productivity.

Coleman helps optimize human work potential in four ways:

• It's conversational - interactions are more efficient and natural, and offer a better user experience

• Augmentation - serves as a partner to amplify one's work

• Automation - manages low value tasks like repetitive tasks to enable the user to focus on more valuable work

• Advise - provides intelligent insights to help the user make decisions

   

Elements of Coleman are available today, such as predictive inventory management for healthcare, price optimization management for hospitality, and forecasting, assortment planning, and promotion management for retail. Over the next year, Infor is expected to introduce Coleman to Infor CloudSuite industry suites.

"Coleman" honors STEM pioneer
The name "Coleman" was chosen to honor Katherine Coleman Johnson, a physicist and mathematician whose critical calculations helped man reach the moon. Mrs. Johnson excelled at math and science from a young age, overcoming the obstacles of segregation to become an essential figure in the United States Space Program. Mrs. Johnson, whose story was depicted in the 2016 film Hidden Figures, is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She has a passion for STEM (science, technology, engineering, math), and is an inspiration for generations of engineers and scientists.

Infor Expands ERP into the Extended Supply Chain
Infor also announced Networked CloudSuites, an evolutionary step that extends mission-critical business applications beyond the four walls of the enterprise across the value chain. By delivering core functionality from the GT Nexus commerce network into Infor CloudSuite industry suites, Infor is able to connect the core applications of an enterprise with its logistics, supplier, and finance networks, reportedly increasing network-wide visibility, collaboration, efficiency, and responsiveness, making an enterprise more agile and competitive.

Networked CloudSuites are the next step for Infor CloudSuite, which in early 2014 was the first set of industry-specific application suites delivered on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. These suites unify multiple applications into a single suite for specific industries, such as healthcare, public sector, distribution, and various manufacturing industries, like aerospace & defense, automotive, food & beverage, and industrial manufacturing. With built-in functionality from Infor's 2015 acquisition of GT Nexus, Networked CloudSuites expand Infor CloudSuite beyond the four walls of the enterprise with functionality for:

• Logistics network - live shipment tracking, ocean booking, 3PL services, and ocean container tracking

• Supplier network - order issue and acknowledge, advanced shipping notices (ASN), and invoicing

• Finance network - receivables financing, payables financing

• Network platform - community benchmarks and collaborative issue management

   

Infor expects to begin delivering Networked CloudSuites during the second half of 2017.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Infor CloudSuite, Natural Language Processing, Image Recognition, Predictive Inventory Management, Amazon Web Services (AWS), ARC Advisory Group.