SCIENCE

DENVER--J.D. Edwards, Deloitte & Touche and IBM Form Industry Consortium to Team with Customers to Deliver Extended Life Sciences Solutions -- J.D. Edwards & Company today detailed its activities for the life sciences industry at the Quest Global conference, demonstrating its continuing commitment to providing pharmaceutical, medical device, biotech and medical distribution companies with robust, integrated business software and services that deliver predictable value. Among J.D. Edwards' industry-specific activities is a roll out of a record-setting number of new product enhancements, and the creation of a life sciences industry consortium focused on targeted technology solutions to help life sciences manufacturers and distributors address complex business and process issues. Product Enhancements The new J.D. Edwards 5 enhancements will help life sciences companies serving global or local markets achieve economies of scale related to research and development, manufacturing and distribution, and selling and marketing. The enhancements cover areas such as sales order management, price management, profit management, Unicode and enhanced lot control. These and other J.D. Edwards 5 Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) enhancements are planned for release by the end of the third quarter 2003. "In life sciences, where speed-to-market, total quality, regulatory compliance and extreme levels of customer service make the difference between leadership and 'me-too' companies, our new functionality focuses on exploiting the competitive difference to make customers stronger," said George Thompson, life sciences industry marketing director at J.D. Edwards. "And, the establishment of the life sciences industry consortium proves our long-term commitment to enabling leadership in the life sciences industry." Among the enhancements in J.D. Edwards 5 for life sciences companies are: -- Sales Order Management enhancements, which will help companies accelerate the order-to-cash cycle by enabling companies to meet the unique needs of their customers and streamlining many processes, including order change management and product returns management -- More than 20 Pricing and Promotions enhancements within J.D. Edwards 5 that will allow life sciences companies to better control margins, as well as offer a wide array of pricing and promotion strategies while reducing errors that can be costly -- Profit management enhancements within the Advanced Cost Accounting module that will allow life sciences industry executives to track customer profitability, as well as product profitability to the SKU level. For example, with every manufacturing and actual shipping cost incorporated into the profitability calculations, companies can now base their decisions on which customers and products add value and which do not -- Unicode capability that will simplify multilingual operations, providing an opportunity to run an entire enterprise on a single instance of a database. This facilitates consolidated reporting and controls and leverages the supply chain across an enterprise. Through centralized IT, enterprises of all sizes are able to benefit from increased economies of scale associated with consolidated operations -- Enhanced Lot Control, which will enable manufacturers and distributors to comply with industry regulations by providing the ability to track and ship inventory based on 11 possible date types, including "Effective Date," "Lot Expiration Date," "Sell by Date," "Best Before Date" and user-definable dates. Improved lot control also helps companies to reduce product waste Life Sciences Consortium The life sciences consortium brings together three life sciences industry powerhouses, J.D. Edwards, Deloitte & Touche and IBM Business Consulting Services, to work in concert with life sciences customers in researching, developing and delivering innovative solutions to improve industry business processes through Supply Chain Management, ERP, CRM and Business Intelligence and Performance Management software. Carol Giannini, a Quest board member and J.D. Edwards life sciences customer, welcomes the consortium and its purpose. "This consortium with J.D. Edwards, Deloitte & Touch and IBM, represents an unprecedented level of collaboration and commitment of knowledge capital and resources to life sciences customers, and further solidifies the participants' commitment to addressing the needs of the marketplace. The consortium -- with life sciences customer input -- is dedicated to developing targeted technology solutions that will help life sciences companies respond to the pressures they are facing across their supply chains." "D&T is pleased to participate in the life sciences consortium. Our deep industry knowledge will complement J.D. Edwards robust technology being developed for the life sciences industry," said Lee Akay, Deloitte & Touche's life sciences industry leader. "J.D. Edwards provides comprehensive functionality that links all of the major functions of pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies from research and development through manufacturing and distribution. This consortium becomes the conduit for collaboration that reduces time to market, offsets the rising cost of drug development and increases compliance efficiency." "This consortium is a prime example of what IBM Business Consulting Services offers life sciences clients: the unique combination of industry insight and information technology," said Doug Willis, partner and J.D. Edwards practice leader at IBM Business Consulting Services. "We look forward to harnessing the power of the life sciences consortium to help our clients create efficiencies in their businesses and drive an enhanced level of productivity." J.D. Edwards has delivered enterprise solutions to nearly 600 life sciences industry customers in 50 countries, spanning global Fortune 500 companies to national and regional manufacturers and distributors. J.D. Edwards' life sciences industry clients include Blackmores Limited, Cardinal Health Inc., DeRoyal Industries Inc., Lexicon Genetics, Organon, Oxford Instruments PLC and Pharmanetics Inc. Leading life sciences companies improve their business processes using a number of products within the J.D. Edwards 5 family of software and services solutions, including: J.D. Edwards ERP, Supply Chain Management, Business Intelligence, Enterprise Asset Management, Workforce Management and CRM. In addition to the new functionality detailed today, J.D. Edwards has also announced other major enhancements in recent months including: -- Demand Consensus (http://www.jdedwards.com/public/0,1921,0%257E2216%257E8601,00.html) -- Supply Chain Event Management (http://www.jdedwards.com/public/0,1413,0%257E2216%257E9646,00.html) -- Demand Forecasting/Management (http://www.jdedwards.com/public/0,1921,0%257E2216%257E11442,00.html) -- Supply Chain Business Modeler (http://www.jdedwards.com/public/0,1921,0%257E2216%257E33030,00.html) and -- Supply Chain Planning and Scheduling (http://www.jdedwards.com/public/0,1921,0%257E2216%257E36747,00.html)