ReleaseWire

While Anixa Biosciences (NASDAQ:ANIX) has gained some visibility for their recent work on Covid-19, it's important to understand that that company has some additional compelling assets. Today, I want to discuss their breast cancer vaccine program. I wont discuss all the market size details about breast cancer as most of us know that breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in women in the US and throughout the world. The most dangerous type of breast cancer is something called, triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). It is called TNBC because the cancer is negative for hormone receptors as well as Her2neu, a marker for a type of breast cancer. Because it does not have those receptors, TNBC grows rapidly without growth signals provided by the proteins that bind to those receptors. Roughly on quarter of all breast cancers are TNBC, but because of its aggressiveness and lack of good therapies for TNBC, it is the cause of roughly half of breast cancer mortality.

ASAP Systems, the market leader in Inventory System, added an enhanced functionality aimed towards increased efficiency and saving time. The new Inventory Sales Order Feature will allow users to create an Inventory Purchase Order from an existing Sales Order with back-ordered inventory items.

ToLocal has unveiled its consumer electronics global expansion platform that can be of help to businesses who are looking to make their presence felt in today's competitive market.

Ultriva, Inc., provider of cloud-based supply chain execution software, announced the addition of a successful energy and aerospace manufacturer to their growing list of customers. The global manufacturer specializing in highly engineered, complex and severe environment products selected Ultriva as their technology provider and partner for their enterprise-wide Supply Chain Management software initiative.

Ultriva, the leader in collaborative supply chain solutions, presented a webinar about consumption-based replenishment. It is common to see orders fulfilled in multiple shipments. This is a serious issue on the supply side which forces similar behavior on the customer side. Ultriva manages lot sizes and ties lead time to those lot sizes. This eliminates the common MRP problem of fixed lead time but varying lot sizes.

Forecast Errors newsletter examined what can be learned from the collision of the supply chain and retail. Supply Chain Planning and Retail Planning organizations have operated independently of each other, to the detriment of both. The separation of the two planning organizations has given rise to isolation without collaboration. Retailers are excellent at planning and executing against a short horizon. Supply Chain managers see the short and long-term operations of the company – what is around the corner, how suppliers, and partners are performing, where challenges and opportunities may develop. The Retail Planning team on the other hand, sits at the frontline of sales, experiencing day-to-day shifts in demand, accumulating massive amounts of point-of-sale data, and spotting trends of what is hot and what is not.

The Forecast Errors newsletter reported research conducted by MDM on the adoption and use of analytics by wholesale distribution companies revealed the wholesale distribution industry is transitioning to a more data-driven mindset, but there are widely different views on what that means. Many distributors say they do not have the right analytic tools, technologies, and talent needed to stay competitive in quickly shifting markets. Survey respondents are generally satisfied with analytics centered on operational efficiencies and financial reporting, but less satisfied with deployment of more strategic tools focused on profitability, sales, marketing and service development. These analytics are being addressed in 2015.

San Jose, California-based moving service Fairprice Movers has pledged to donate a truck and the services of its staff to help the Max Cure Foundation, a charity which raises money to help the families of children who are battling cancer.

Forecast Errors newsletter reported that Chuck Fuerst shared the need for track and trace capabilities in industries such as food and beverage, manufacturing or automotive industries is obvious; the threat of contamination or recalls impacts public safety, and the responses to those events are highly regulated.

Forecast Errors newsletter reported that John Wiegand of TerraTrike, a firm which designs and markets recumbent tricycles. The company doubled its sales since 2012, generating between $5 million and $6 million in 2014, which is expected to be a record year for the company. To mitigate supply-side pressures, TerraTrike opened a warehouse near its production facility to better be able to meet customer demand. Kentwood-based TerraTrike learned all too well the pitfalls a business can face when its sales projections fell short of anticipating the actual demand from consumers for its products. CEO Mike Kessenich share that growth spurt brought on new problems for the company with capacity and supply chain issues that have effectively inhibited how fast it can grow.

There are certain situations in which you want to shoot photos, label and geotag them, and upload to a secure server as quickly as possible. Phil Smith of Sunnyvale, Calif., has the answer.

Ultriva, the leader in collaborative supply chain solutions, invited Chad Smith, a Supply Chain expert and co-founder of the Demand Driven Institute to present a webinar with Ultriva about consumption-based replenishment. The description of the webinar is in the company blog.

Forecast Errors newsletter reported transport and logistics pipeline are often overlooked. It is the vital link between costs and intercontinental shipping performance. The Aberdeen Group polled 142 shippers to explore the key events that industry leaders monitor for international shipments. The events industry leaders view as essential, how leaders move from raw data to intelligence, and the link between improved supply chain visibility and reduced costs prove vital in the elimination of forecast errors among global manufacturing enterprises.

Not much has changed with Supply Chain Management in the last two decades. MRP and ERP forecasts still rule the roost. Narayan Laksham, founder and CEO of Ultriva shared in a recent company blog, "When Supply Chain initiatives are undertaken, they usually involve improving the forecast. However, MRP and ERP systems are data intensive and require timely and stable sales."

Forecast Errors newsletter reported that few sales and operations planning modules offer more exception-based planning, enabling organizations to focus on the product areas where they can realize the greatest return and eliminate forecasting errors. There are idiosyncrasies that require industry-specific functionality to plan and execute supply chain strategies faster and more effectively for achieving business growth. Visualization of complex business data at a glance, would allow users can quickly read, predict and react to information, make faster, more proactive business decisions, and achieve strategic objectives that maximize profit. "Business intelligence is a tool set that continues to evolve from backwards looking to predictive and proactive," said Steve Banker, service director for supply chain management at ARC Advisory Group. "The greater the visibility into the supply chain, the easier it is for a company to make course corrections toward business success."

Forecast Errors newsletter reported that manufacturing forecast errors impact buyers and planners most because of the current inability to directly link Supply Chain Planning with Execution Management to optimize orders, inventory, and transportation on a daily basis. This was an elusive goal, yet as the benefits of Closed-Loop Operational Management is understood, the capability tightly-couples planning systems to execution systems and turns optimized plans directly into action. Buyers and planners have a way to work with operations cooperatively.

Forecast Errors newsletter reported that the promise of reducing costs for the goods and services purchased and increasing employee productivity has elevated the sourcing and procurement technology market to more than $1.4 billion in annual sales. Yet two decades after the introduction of these technologies, many companies are still not getting the results anticipated. Forecasting errors are the trigger of these broken promises.

The Forecasting Errors newsletter reported that The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation released a report which, looks at current data-related issues and innovations and the ways in which they will shape the future of data-driven innovation and the economy. The report, "The Future of Data-Driven Innovation," included contributions from some of the top minds in business, technology, and economics and presents actions that can be taken to maximize the value of tomorrow's digital data.

The Forecast Errors newsletter reported accurate data regarding suppliers, costs, risks, and other important criteria, is absolutely crucial as a first step in understanding where to focus sourcing efforts. Developing a sourcing roadmap that generates the greatest results requires additional analysis of organizational goals, market conditions, and spending patterns. Correcting forecasting errors requires implementation of best practices for collecting and classifying spend and supplier data for effective spend analysis, how to use this analysis to build a long term sourcing strategy and sourcing roadmap, and how to identify an organization's data that can be most helpful in making sourcing decisions.

Fisil LLC, a software development company, added a Gentoo build to its Lync Linux software clients for Microsoft Lync. The clients are available for download at the Fisil LLC website.

The Forecast Errors newsletter reported in the past, companies focused on batch-oriented manufacturing; today, it is more demand-oriented manufacturing. The older model was easier to produce anywhere in the world, and through a distribution model, pump it directly into the market. That has changed to the extent where companies are not dealing with a limited set of SKUs. Now the use of SKUs is so huge and so wide in variety that it is impossible for a company to stock every part. Their overall lead time to customers is dramatically coming down, which means carrying more inventory, or start producing as demand comes in. To do that requires a synchronized supply chain. The food manufacturing industry has experienced this change quite significantly.

The Forecast Errors newsletter reported that demand volatility, unreliable suppliers and forecast based planning systems is a core challenge for manufacturers. Few technology solutions have deployed solutions in hundreds of plants, in a few dozen countries and interface with ten thousand suppliers. More importantly few can specifically demonstrate the hundreds of millions in savings by eliminating forecast errors.

Fisil LLC, a software development company, added 2 way screen sharing with Windows to its Lync Linux software clients for Microsoft Lync. It also improved screen sharing quality. The clients are available for download at the Fisil LLC website.

The Forecast Errors newsletter reported that kanban is a type of scheduling system that can be used to help a manufacturer determine what to produce, when to produce it, and how much to produce for customers and supply chain partners. A major medical device manufacturer transitioned from a traditional paper-based manual kanban system to a cloud-based ekanban system for the lean manufacturing of high quality, defect free, and low cost intravenous (IV) infusion, medication and supply dispensing, respiratory care, infection prevention, and surgical instruments. Forecast errors were significantly reduced.

The recent Forecast Errors newsletter suggested that leaders using traditional risk-management techniques and simple heuristics (dollar amount spent at a site, for instance) often end up focusing exclusively on the so-called strategic suppliers; these expenditures are very high and whose parts are deemed crucial to product differentiation, and overlooking the risks associated with low-cost, commodity suppliers. As a result, managers take the wrong actions, waste resources, and leave the organization exposed to hidden risks. There are effective models which allow companies to identify, manage, and reduce exposure to supply chain risks.

The recent Forecast Errors newsletter reviewed a comprehensive research about demand forecasting process evaluation. Fifteen Brazilian companies were extensively examined including the critical impacts of forecast errors. The four dimensions of analysis were functional integration, application, system and forecasting errors, and the findings were that only 35% met satisfactory levels. When two-thirds of these participants are at unsatisfactory levels there is a mandatory process review in order. The authors suggest that forecasting demand is of fundamental importance to the competitiveness of a productive system. Answering questions such as "how much," "when," and, "what" to produce and buy, guides professionals from various segments to improve their forecasting techniques.

Ultriva, the leader in collaborative supply chain solutions, is uniquely positioned to address the solutions to operational strategies and tactics in an environment of variability and volatility. Narayan Laksham, founder and CEO of Ultriva, explained in the company blog, "Ultriva has a built-in architecture that supports each segment of production, storage, and replenishment. Instead of MRP's all or nothing motto in Finished Goods stocking, Ultriva can identify each point where the inventory could be located for optimal performance."