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eBusiness Acronyms

# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  • 3PL
    3rd Party Logistics - using someone else's transport and distribution services (possibly also using 3PW).

  • 3PW
    3rd Party Warehousing - using someone else's warehouse facilities.
  • 4PL
    4th Party Logistics - a lead party organizing other 3PL partners - also called Lead Logistics Partners (LLP)

  • APC
    Advanced Process Control - is a broad term composed of different kinds of process control tools, often used for solving multi-variable control problems or discrete control problem.

  • APS
    Advanced Planning and Scheduling. The age of the Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) product has dawned because computing power has advanced to the stage that we can now economically mathematically model the real world where the supply of components and products is constrained by complex constraints such as supplier capacity, sequences, profiles and relationships. See SCP & Visual Manufacturing.

  • ATO
    Assemble To Order - for example, cars are mostly assembled to order, requirements for engine size, colour, trim, A/C and stereo are assembled to a specific sales order. This method is associated with MTF (see below) as a forecast would still be needed to ensure the assembly components were available.

  • BBP
    Business to Business Procurement (also B2B). Use of the Internet to support purchasing usually making use of portals and catalogues.

  • B2B
    Business to Business Procurement (also BBP). Use of the Internet to support purchasing usually making use of portals and catalogues. This differs from B2B in so far as it is transactions between 2 businesses as opposed to between a business and a consumer.

  • B2C
    Business to Consumer Procurement. Normally used as a front office "Store Front" on the internet to allow consumers to purchase goods on-line from an on-line catalogue using a credit card.

  • BPR
    Business Process Re-engineering is an approach aiming at improvements by means of elevating efficiency and effectiveness of the business process that exist within and across organizations. The key to BPR is for organizations to look at their business processes from a "clean slate" perspective and determine how they can best construct these processes to improve how they conduct business.

  • CEI
    Contract End Item - Finished Good / something that's sold.

  • CMMS
    Computerized Maintenance Management Systems.

  • CPC
    Collaborative Product Commerce - a new category of software and services, defined by Gartner Group and Aberdeen Group, that uses internet technologies to tie together product design, engineering, sourcing (including manufacturing and purchasing), sales, marketing (and other staff functions), field services, and customers in a global knowledge network. This is an extension beyond Enterprise Application Integration (EAI).

  • CPDM
    Collaborative Product Definition Management - solutions beyond the traditionally engineering focused Product Data Management (PDM) packages that facilitate collaborative work processes such as visualization and collaboration, enterprise application integration technologies, and web-based approaches.

  • CRM
    Customer Relationship Management , to accumulate, store and analyze customer data to understand buying habits and to personalize services and products. See VISUAL CRM

  • CRP
    Capacity Requirements Planning - A method of determining what capacity is required to meet the give demand. No attempt is made to smooth or level the capacity to fit into the capacity constraint.

    This is often mis-represented as Finite Capacity Planning (or Scheduling) which plans according to a limited supply of resources.

  • CSCP
    Collaborative Commerce and Supply Chain Planning; Gartner defined term.

  • CSM
    Component and Supplier Management - Web based component databases, searching, on-line ordering, procurement management, links to design engineering and the supply chain.

  • CSRP
    Customer Synchronized Resource Planning.

  • CTO
    Configure to Order - a more advanced form of ATO where the rules of which options can be assembled with which base product and whether they are, say, mutually exclusive are built into a rule based knowledge tree. Users can then configure deliverable products, such as cars, on-line with the certainty that they can be assembled.

  • DCF
    Discounted Cash Flow - cash in the future is worth less than cash now.

  • DFU
    Demand Forecasting Unit

  • DPM
    Dynamic Performance Management - a variant of MES.

  • DRP
    Distribution Requirements (or Resource) Planning, the distribution version of MRP and MRP II. Routings are replaced by distribution networks between say central warehouses and branches and bills of material can span across different sites.

  • EAI
    Enterprise Application Integration - linking ERP and other enterprise systems together. Linking systems is key for e-business. Gartner say 'firms implementing enterprise applications spend at least 30% on point-to-point interfaces'.

  • EAM
    Enterprise Asset Management

  • ECM
    Enterprise Commerce Management - term coined by AMR to distinguish ERP type products aimed at the Internet and customer facing technology demands.

  • EDI
    Electronic Data Interchange - The electronic interchange of business transactions without the need for paper documents.
  • ERM
    Enterprise Relationship Management - AMR term for the progression from CRM.

  • ERP
    Enterprise Resource Planning - same as MRP II but with all the 'multi's'; multi-currency, multi-warehouse, multi-company etc. Most companies with MRP and MRP II products now, in some cases incorrectly, call themselves ERP providers. See Visual Manufacturing.

  • ETO
    Engineer To Order - extreme form of MTO where a product is engineered specifically to a customers order / specification / contract. An oil rig is essentially engineered to order.

  • FCP/FCS
    Finite Capacity Planning / Finite Capacity Scheduling - A method of planning which generates schedules and plans resource processes by considering Finite constraints such as the qty of machines and their shift availabilities. Basically this is "Planning with what resources we have" as opposed to Infinite Scheduling which is "Planning assuming an unlimited supply of resources".

  • HMI
    Human Machine Interface - usually, the user interface that people use to communicate with computers. Microsoft Windows and NT are HMIs.

  • IRM
    Internet Relationship Management - a variant of CRM where all the functionality is delivered across the web. Probably created by Octane Software.

  • JIT
    Just In Time - a continuous improvement methodology. JIT is the spiritual home of "lean" techniques. It is important to note that kanban is only 5% of JIT. It is not the same thing.

    The cornerstones addressed by JIT are the Japanese terms:

    • miri - excess stock reduction
    • muda - waste, zero setup/defects
    • mura - unevenness, lead time reduction
  • LBPO
    Logistics Business Process Outsourcing - coined by IDC as a range of logistics services being ordering, fulfillment and transportation services necessary to optimize e-business logistics.

  • LLP
    Lead Logistics Partner - organizes other 3rd party logistics partners for outsourcing of logistics functions - see 4PL

  • MES
    Manufacturing Execution System - plant floor routing and process management, simulation and modeling. These systems, which can include finite scheduling functionality, ensure that parts, tools, resources, instructions etc. all arrive at the right place at the right time. See Visual Manufacturing

  • MRP
    Materials Requirements Planning -works out what to buy and make from what you need (sold or plan to sell). MRP basically balances supply and demand based on, in some cases, quite complex rules. A development from the days of Bills Of Material Processors (BOMP). The definition of MRP was made in the '60's by Orlicky.

    MRP only looks at material constraints, it does not look at capacity. Traditionally, this was done as a separate exercise through tools such as Rough Cut Capacity Planning (RCCP) and Capacity Requirements Planning (CRP) down to Finite Capacity Scheduling (FCS) systems. The age of the Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) product has dawned because computing power has advanced to the stage that we can now economically mathematically model the real world where the supply of components and products is constrained by complex constraints such as supplier capacity, sequences, profiles and relationships.

  • MRP II
    (pronounced 'MRP two') Manufacturing Resource Planning - same as MRP but with Financials, Sales and Purchasing and some Manufacturing around the outside. Also defined as closed loop MRP. It was with the development of MRP II that whole business processes could be linked into a single integrated business system.

  • MTF
    Make To Forecast - a more sophisticated combination method sitting somewhere between MTS and MTO. Usually associated with manufacturing environments where the sales order cycle time is faster than the production time but where an intermediate stocking point is used to keep part finished goods. A sales forecast can be used to predict the level of stocks at the intermediate point. Usually, some form of forecast consumption mechanism is used so that real sales orders eat up the forecast.

  • MTO
    Make To Order - a product is only made when an order is received. Usually low volume engineered goods. For many companies MTO is seen as the holy grail of manufacturing strategy; a scenario where there is minimal stock and cost only occurs when a sales order is received. In reality, a combination of strategies focusing on the particular process, product and market demands is usually best.

  • MTS
    Make To Stock - products are made and put into store according to safety stock or re-order point calculations. Usually where the sales order cycle time is faster than the production or assembly lead time. A MTS environment could be simply controlled by reorder points.

  • MRO
    Maintenance Repair Overhaul (or Operations) - specialized industry sector usually associated with service businesses repairing photocopiers say. This is very different from the manufacturing mechanisms described above. MRO is also used as shorthand to describe non-production purchased materials in eprocurement environments. In this case MRO would mean consumables (paper, ink cartridges) and spares (motor parts), say. Similar to term to NPR (Non-Production Related) goods.

  • NRP
    Network Resource Planning - recognition that planning isn't just linear structures but networks of resources, companies, partnerships and supply chains.

  • OPT
    Optimised Production Technology - method of planning based around bottleneck production resources. From the book 'The Goal' by Eli Goldratt.

    'The Goal is to make money' by managing throughput, inventory and operating expenses. Flow is balanced by using variable batch sizes. Source of the Theory Of Constraints (TOC).

  • PDM
    Product Data Management - recording, automating and sharing design and life-cycle data for products. cPDM - Collaborative Product Definition Management.

  • PLC
    Programmable Logic Controller. Control and sequencing systems for automation. Also

  • PMMS
    Plant Maintenance Management Systems

  • POP
    Purchase Order Processing.

  • RCCP
    Rough Cut Capacity Planning - a view or report of a production plan's capacity. No attempt is made to smooth or level the capacity to fit into the capacity constraint (a factory on single shifts, say).

  • ROI
    Return On Investment; a term used to describe how a company measures the gains from expenditures.

  • SCADA
    Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition - highly functional process control systems. These systems theoretically connect below MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) but above PLC (Programmable Logic Controllers) which control and sequence physical plant valves and actuators, for example.

  • SCE
    Supply Chain Execution - Warehousing and Transportation type functionality complimentary to SCP.

  • SCEM
    Supply Chain Event Management applications provide inventory visibility, product availability and order status across a corporate supply chain (EXE / AllPoints' 'Glass Pipeline' product is an example).

  • SCM
    Supply Chain Management - umbrella term for most ERP and SCP / APS products.

  • SCP
    Supply Chain Planning - optimizing the supply chain These are the kinds of products that can use TOC (Theory Of Constraints) and mixed integer linear programming techniques to simultaneously optimize materials and constraints. Advanced Available To Promise (ATP) and Capable To Promise (CTP) functionality is usually found within these packages.

  • SFA
    Sales Force Automation - precursor of CRM

  • SFDC
    Shop Floor Data Collection; equipment, including barcode readers used to record activities on the shop floor. Also MDC - Machine Data Capture and RDT - Radio Data Terminals bi-directional remote systems using RF - Radio Frequency communications.

  • SKU
    Stock Keeping Unit (pronounced 'skew') - generic term for products especially in retail and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) environments.

  • SOP
    Sales Order Processing.

  • SRM
    Supplier Relationship Management - the deployment of system to make the most of supply and purchase data.

  • UN/SPSC
    United Nations Standard Product and Service Code - developed jointly between the UN and Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). Has a five level coding structure (segment, family, class, commodity, business function) for nearly 9000 products.

  • USPSC
    Universal Standard Product and Services Classification - managed by the Electronic Commerce Code Management Association, ensures that product data is categorized and described uniformly - jointly developed by the UN and Bun & Bradstreet using the UCEC - Universal Content Extended Classification.

  • XML
    Extensible Markup Language - This is the universal format for defining structured documents and data on the Web. It is used to facilitate internet based EDI and is similar to HTML but is not intended to be read in a browser.

  • XPI
    Extended Process Integration.

  • XRP
    Extended Resource Planning - newly coined term to define ERP extended outside the company integrating the supply and demand chain, out to the suppliers and customers.

 

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