K MANJULA DH News Service F OR those netizens who think that the internet is used Only for send- ing emails, or merely for surfing through colourful sites, here's interest- ing news! If you haven't heard of enter- prise resource planning (ERP), or internet-enabled logistics (e-logistics), you haven't heard of anything yet! Today, more and more companies are making use of ERP and extended ERP (EERP) in order to improve their busi- ness transactions. What is e-logistics and how is it im- plemented in business houses? Deccan Herald spoke to Dr N. Viswanadham, who is currently a professor in the de- partment of Mechanical and Production engineering at the National University of Singapore. He was previously chair of the Computer Science and Automa- tion and Chairman of Electrical Engin- eering division at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Dr Viswanadham has authored several journal articles and is a joint author of two textbooks, ('Reliability in Computer and Control Systems', and 'Performance Modelling of Automated Manufacturing systems'). He is also the editor of IEEE Transactions Robotics and Automation. Can you give an account of the re- cent advances in IT driving global business? In the US, parts of Europe and in Sin- gapore, a robust IT infrastructure has been built up that includes the internet, and local intranets. But this infrastruc- ture also needs to be used for the right kind of applications. Businesses are be- ginning to use the internet for their cost and time advantage. Currently, huge amount of inventory is being kept in factories that is both unwieldy to main- tain and creates delivery time prob- lems. So the question is, can informa- tion substitute for the inventory? By having information on the number of items to be sold the next day, a business house can keep the right amount of in- ERP, EERP and E-loc ventory. This is achieved through in- formation sharing, customer email, scanning, customer surveys etc. Such online information is collected and fur- ther used to a business' advantage. In addition to information collection, the physical movement of components and goods along the final manufactur- ing value chain is also important. Move- ment of material from one business to another is a logistics problem. So, in ad- dition to the IT initiative, logistics ini- tiative is also required. What is the potential of enterprise integration, Logistics and IT in In- dia? There is tremendous potential for In- dia. Several companies in India are component manufacturers to foreign equipment companies. Also, software companies develop component software on a contract basis. Knowingly or unknowingly, several of these compan- ies are part of the global manufacturing enterprises. Several orders of magni- tude of cost savings is possible with ap- propriate logistics, inventory control policies and use of IT tools. For example, India has several seaports and airports. But one needs to study the fa- cilities and operations from the logis- tics point of view and improve them. In India, we have the IT initiative, the Infrastructure initiative and the Telecom Liberalisation from the gov- ernment. Do these contribute in any way to India's competitiveness in the International arena? All these initiatives are long overdue steps in the arena. For initiatives to be converted to action plans, it requires R&D and the hard work of the intellec- tual community. If you consider the infrastructure initiative, an interna- tional airport is 50% concrete and 50% IT. It is simply an IT enabled enterprise moving passengers, their baggage and more importantly, air freight. An air- port has warehouses which require management. All these require sophisti- cated optimization models and monitor- ing software. One has to build internet enabled information systems, incorpor- ating state-of-the-art optimization and project scheduling algorithms. The key to all this is internet-enabled logistics. What is the software used in ERP referred to? It is basically transaction-processing software, enabling millions of transactions to be systematically han- dled. Auto networks, food enterprises, garment networks and several other businesses use the 'extranet' for infor- mation and funds transfer. What exactly is Logistics? Logistics is function of moving the right material to the right place at the right time in a global enterprise. Transportation takes time, inventory, money. If you take the cost of th manufactured, 70° o is incurre transportation, 30"/o material cost time is used for assembling the car in getting it to the customer. If yc cost-time advantages of a product on the roads 90% of the time. Tl pipeline inventory. To make bus efficient, one needs to cut down i tory and logistical costs. How is this possible? It is possible through the use c internet and supply chain plan Let's say a TV manufacturer needs ponents like the tube. If a supplie vides at the right time just the number of components, then, at th of the day, only the finished prod present with no idle component This is both cost effective and con tive. To do this, the manufacturers to communicate with componen pliers online. If supplier have the n facturers' production schedules, m ~ w fc