AMAZON.COM SELECTS MANUGISTICS FOR LOGISTICS E-BUSINESS SYSTEMS

AMAZON.COM SELECTS MANUGISTICS FOR LOGISTICS E-BUSINESS SYSTEMS    Amazon.com, the giant business-to-consumer online retailer, has selected e-commerce software firm Manugistics Group, Inc., to provide a range of logistics applications and systems.
   The software company’s NetWORKS application will provide Amazon.com with “critical visibility into its global fulfillment network, facilitating the company’s initiative to consolidate individual shipments across all shipping operations while designing and managing a global trading network,” Manugistics said. This will allow more efficient, cost-effective flow of goods from Amazon.com’s suppliers to its customers worldwide, it added.
   Manugistics’ NetWORKS Strategy application will “model Amazon.com’s fixed and variable costs, varying transportation and supplier lead times, and global constraints such as tariffs and taxes.” This model will help Amazon.com to create an optimal network design for capital investment planning, including identifying global locations for new distribution centers, the software firm said.
   NetWORKS Strategy will also support network design and policy decision-making, based on “time-phased demand and supply.” Furthermore, Manugistics’s NetWORKS Transport application will enable Amazon.com’s global control center to plan its inbound and interfacility shipments and to tender loads automatically on the Internet, track inbound shipments, pay carriers, allocate freight costs, and run historical reports for improved transportation planning.
   Manugistics said that automatic real-time notifications via facsimile, e-mail, or pager will also give Amazon.com and its trading partners the ability to proactively solve transportation issues.