InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
August 9, 1999
Online Ordering
Hologix software helps industries use E-commerce for attribute-based products
The company's goal is to provide online catalog functionality for companies that make "attribute-based" products, in which customers order items based on properties such as the composition of steel. "We believe that the bulk of business-to-business commerce is attribute-based," says Hologix CEO Paul Rajski. "And more and more companies want to do it on the Internet."
Rajski says business-to-business online markets, such as MetalSite, E-Steel, PaperExchange and Chemdex, have raised E-commerce awareness in Hologix's target industries.
Attricom, a Java application that runs on Windows NT or Sun Solaris servers, works with Oracle or IBM DB2 databases and can be used with any browser that supports Java. The application is made up of four modules. Product Composition is used to specify attributes, such as dimensions, materials composition, and delivery dates. Order Management captures orders, processes them, and reports on their status. Customer Direct is the interface customers use to enter orders over the Internet or an extranet. Integration Framework lets Attricom send and receive Extensible Markup Language data from existing enterprise applications.
Algoma Steel Inc. in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, has installed the Product Composition module and plans to roll out Order Management next year. The steelmaker's goal is to automate a labor-intensive process involving paper manuals, 25-year-old manufacturing applications, and knowledge in the heads of the company's specification analysts.
"We'll be able to engineer the product once and after that just pull the attribute information from a knowledge database, so the person ordering just needs to specify quantity and dimensions," says Charlie Whitfield, Algoma's manager of IS and manufacturing technology. "As long as it's something we've built before, it will flow right into the system. We expect much more rapid response in filling orders and a lot fewer errors."
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ologix Inc., a provider of electronic-commerce software, this week will roll out Attricom, an online order-management application designed to boost online sales for companies in industries such as steel, chemicals, and textiles that don't use standard Stock-Keeping Unit numbers or Universal Product Codes.
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