An element of most companies as essential as the parking lot, Computer Associate's MANMAN manufacturing software is just as immovable in many HP 3000 shops that rely on it. Despite spotty reliability in its latest versions and usury maintenance billing practices from CA, MANMAN isn't going anywhere for many of the HP 3000 customers who first installed it nearly a decade ago.
Since MANMAN is so fundamental to the companies that use it, vendors are beginning to offer advances in its interfaces. These outside firms are bringing the 1980's software into a world where users work everyday over browsers, across networks and on Windows desktops.
Speedware Corporation has created a Web interface to the MANMAN database, allowing direct entry of orders from the Internet into MANMAN databases on the HP 3000. The template was developed in Speedware Autobahn, a scaleable rapid application development toolset for Internet applications. Speedware has positioned Autobahn as a complete development environment for creating new Web applications. The latest incarnation repositions Autobahn Store as Speedware OrderPoint, an example of the product's ability to enable existing mission-critical HP 3000 applications to operate on the Web.
Speedware says the system is of special interest to "the growing
number of sales
representatives and distributors who use the Internet for comprehensive order
processing." Speedware sells the template with the Speedware Autobahn
toolset, and HP
hopes the combination will add momentum to the concept of making HP 3000s
work as
electronic commerce servers.
Cathy Fitzgerald, HP 3000 worldwide marketing manager, said "the integration offers exciting new opportunities to those customers who will be growing and supplementing their existing HP 3000 environments while expanding into the new world of electronic commerce." HP's Alvina Nishimoto, R&D manager for Internet solutions in the 3000 division, said companies launching new applications on the HP 3000 have been more open to the Autobahn concept, which uses the Speedware 4GL as its foundation.
Speedware said Internet ordering gives sales representatives the ability to place customer orders immediately from customers' sites. It also makes it possible for customers to place their own orders around the clock. The customer for whom the interface was created is already in the first phase of live use. Sales reps are inputting orders directly into the MANMAN database from customer premises using an extranet, the Internet configuration that connects trading partners. The Speedware customer is already making use of such capabilities as customer name and number searches, ship-to name and number searches and bill-to name and number searches. These searches are performed against existing MANMAN KSAM files.
Speedware's Internet-based MANMAN order-entry function includes such capabilities as a lookups by customer name or number for Customer Ship-to, Customer Bill-to and Product Searches. Once lookups are complete, users can enter as many line items for an order as required.
For each line item, the user can enter the product number, the customer's own product reference number, quantity, price, expected ship date and other notes. Autobahn validates each of these fields. A line item can be modified by clicking on the item number displayed in a running summary of the order. An order number is dynamically generated by Autobahn and all order information is stored in a temporary database for review by order-entry staff. Once the order has been validated by the order entry staff -- which can be performed through the use of another Web-based Autobahn application -- the order is passed to the MANMAN database and flows through the company's ordering process.
Speedware said future enhancements to this MANMAN interface will feature links to MANMAN's pricing and inventory control subsystems, allowing for online inventory checks, price verification and order status inquiries.
The vendor is offering a ready-to-use implementation of the interface through OrderPoint. OrderPoint, powered by Autobahn, provides the framework for content-rich Web product catalogs, online order placement and inquiry, and customizable integration into MANMAN. This allows users to take full advantage of Autobahn's technology without investing vast amounts of programming time in the project. If a customer site requires further customization, it can then make use of the Autobahn toolset.
On the HP 3000 platform, OrderPoint is priced at $30,000. Autobahn is priced per-user; Speedware said typical sales are in the $16,000 to $20,000 range.