Baan Gemini lives on for SSA in discreet

Baan lives on with SSA Global, albeit in the guise of the catchily-named SSA ERP LN v6.1, just released more or less on-time. This is the delayed launch of what was Baan’s Gemini project – which would have led to Baan v6 – prior to the company’s acquisition by SSA. Cory Eaves, SSA’s vice president of solutions and research, says the company has spent the time implementing a more rigorous quality programme and widening the scope to improve migration potential, languages etc out of the box. “True to our promise at last October’s user conference, we have released the new flagship ERP on 32nd of July,” he says. Where does LN fit in? Essentially, it’s Baan seriously revamped and SSA’s main push for discrete manufacturing, including all of the verticals Baan was proud to cover. SSA’s LX, due for announcements later this year, will be the BPCS migration route, aimed primarily at the process sector – and you can bet Marcam will be in there too. As for what was Max, separate development is ongoing, and Eaves positions that as strictly for SMEs. There are some good points about LN. First, for both Baan IV and V users, there are direct upgrade paths – for the vast majority on Baan IV, you don’t need to get to Baan V as an interim. Significantly, there are also migration tools for others of SSA’s disparate legacy ERP portfolio – like MK, PRMS and good old, bad old ManMan. “For users on current maintenance contract, there will be no additional charge for upgrade from, for example, ManMan to LN 6,” says Eaves. Although there will, of course, be costs and effort around consulting and the rest, he says: “We have made the upgrade task as easy as possible. Our experience is it takes weeks, not months.” He also suggests that competitors’ attempts (and indeed successes) to muscle in on disaffected ManMan MRP users, particularly those feeling under threat from HP’s withdrawal of the hardware, will now dwindle. Not only is SSA looking after users in terms of the new free migration tools to LN 6, but the firm is also specifically not sunsetting ManMan – or the other legacy systems. “For customers that don’t want to change, we’ll provide maintenance and support indefinitely,” says Eaves. He reaffirms there will be no further development on these systems, and agrees that the company could increase maintenance costs as time goes by – but points out that it hasn’t done so thus far. As for the old hardware issue, he insists: “that’s been overplayed – spares will be available from third party providers, if not HP, for at least 20 years.” Just as important, he points to substantial new modules – like CRM (customer relationship management), PLM (product lifecycle management – again from Baan), procurement, and SCM (supply chain management) – all aimed at the new LN system, but all also available to extend existing ManMan, MK and PRMS users determined to stay on their trusted platforms. Rounding up on LN 6, however, the new system features similar industry templates to those of its Baan predecessor. For example, in automotive and aerospace, the system is pre-configured for supply chain line-side assembly control. SSA is also following its users’ requests for lean business support, introducing ‘Leanware’ as two sets of modules geared towards demand-driven manufacturing and business. The first is a “bolt-on to our ERP that replaces several modules,” says Eaves, and the second is aimed at supply chain planning and execution. So comprehensive are they, suggests Eaves, that an unnamed third party has recently scored them higher than any other. Something of a surprise given the lean releases from the likes of Microsoft, QAD, PeopleSoft and Oracle. Finally, LN v6 has a full web browser-based interface, taking advantage portal technology. It means that users get role-based dashboard-style interfaces to all applications and information sources – as well as truncated handling of common screen sequences – while IT gets eased admin and deployment.