BlueBox business systems & the lean manufacturing operation

Introduction:
There is no doubt that the business software industry is fraught with anagrams, jargon and terminology. This can result in a lot of confusion, debate and interpretation as to the meanings of certain concepts. Combine with this the manufacturing specific names and terminology and one can have a tough time holding ones own in a conversation involving system specialists, engineers and business analysts in a manufacturing environment. Lean manufacturing is one of those terms that along with JIT, Kanban, Kaizen etc. has very specific meaning that is not necessarily fully understood by business system providers who purport to offer them..........read more

Make your warehouse more efficient!

Introduction:
If someone had to ask you to rate your warehouse's performance, how would you respond? Whether your operation is Retail, Manufacturing, Distribution or Wholesale in nature, and whether the answer is positive or negative, this is a question which you should know the answer to. Furthermore, you should have the information to back your answer up. If you are not certain of your answer to the question you have probably wondered whether a Warehouse Management System (often called WMS) would make a difference to the efficiency of your warehouse. If you are already have a WMS, you should know the answer already. The obvious challenges are deciding by what means you would measure performance, how you rate efficiency, and on what elements you would base that measure.......... read more

The request for quote process & the pre- procurement lifecycle

Introduction:

Culminating in the Request for Quote document, pre-procurement, as it's name implies, is the process that organisations go through prior to raising an official purchase order. The pre-procurement process is undoubtedly one of the more 'dry' subjects to cover in a whitepaper; never-the-less, it does have value as a business process and, particularly where businesses have significant capital expense, can have dramatic impact on an operations cashflow management. Larger, more complex organisations in particular face a number of challenges in this area, as runaway processes can quickly result in big numbers.......... read more

Data backups and restoring - preserving your data in case of mashups.

Data backups and restoring/preserving your data.

Introduction:

Since in many instances your company's data basically is the business in a box and the loss of all or part of it would have serious ramifications for the effective functioning of the business, electronically backing up and preserving suitably up to date records of your data is imperative. In the case of data stored centrally on a server a number of basic backup solutions can be followed. There are more comprehensive solutions that cover almost every possible data loss eventuality and are offered as professional services by numerous companies. The bottom line is that your business should have a backup solution that is planned, documented, understood, tested and offers sufficient cover for the risks that may affect your data availablity eg hard drive crashes, fire, theft, malicious hacking, etc........read more

Web 2.0 - What is it, does it affect me, & what is the BlueBox doing about it?

Web 2.0 – What's it all about?

Introduction:

South African television watchers may have noted a margarine related product advert that spends more time talking about the concept of “blogging” than about the actual product they are supposedly advertising. I found this quite a poignant indication of just how much Web 2.0 as a web culture is permeating society as a whole. When advertisers are using technology as a vehicle to sell to housewives, sit up and pay attention! Web 2.0 implies some form of newer release of the World Wide Web by using the version number naming conventions common to software nomenclature . The implication is misleading. Web 2.0 is, most simply put, a buzzword used to describe a philosophy which is taking an increasingly large foothold in the worlds communal online psyche......... read more