Palo Alto, CA March 7, 2002 The University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business Supply Chain Management Center (SCMC) is using integration software from TIBCO Software as the backbone of a supply chain integration pilot project that the center is running for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the solution provider has announced.
The DoD developed the Supply Chain Integration Center (SCIC) through a partnership with the Smith School SCMC Netcentricity Laboratory in order to understand the requirements for building a real-time supply chain within the department.
TIBCO Software provided TIBCO ActiveEnterprise to the Smith School SCMC, creating the messaging foundation upon which the DoD supply chain prototype is built. TIBCO ActiveEnterprise is a line of enterprise application integration (EAI) products that enables organizations to automate their business processes by creating an integrated network of applications and databases. By deploying TIBCO ActiveEnterprise, the Smith School SCMC was able to show robust and reliable integration of enterprise resource planning (ERP), advanced planning and scheduling and DoD legacy systems, enabling process integration and real-time event management.
"The DoD employs nearly one million people and operates one of the most complex and far-reaching supply chains in the world," said Dr. Sandor Boyson, co-director of the SCMC. "The prototype supply chain system that we have built for the DoD represents an expansive and comprehensive end-to-end coverage of supply chain processes. TIBCO ActiveEnterprise has successfully provided the foundation on which this system is built."
The purpose of the DoD SCIC is to provide a test-bed environment dedicated to furthering the application of technology to evaluate and monitor the real-time movement of transactions and supporting data throughout the department's mammoth and dynamic supply chain. The Smith School SCMC was awarded a multi-million dollar contract to develop a prototype for a solution and was entrusted to bring together the technology leadership necessary to build the system.
"Today, the 'warfighter' is dealing with changing threats taking place in condensed time periods, [and] to respond to this, it is imperative that we have a very responsive, very rapid, very agile supply chain," said James Eccleston, the former assistant deputy under secretary of defense for supply chain integration at the DoD. Eccleston helped develop the project before leaving in late February for a private sector position.
"The Smith School SCMC enabled us to prototype the system," Eccleston continued, "and through the center we teamed with the most technologically advanced companies, like TIBCO, to couple the latest business thought with the most innovative technology tools."
ASD Global is acting as the systems integrator for the DoD supply chain prototype project.
