Improved materials management through client/server computing

Conference · Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1992 · Proceedings of the American Power Conference; (United States)

OSTI ID:7239562

Brooks, D ^[1]; Neilsen, E; Reagan, R ^[2]; Simmons, D ^[3]

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1. DEC (US)
2. Southern Co. Services, Inc., Birmingham, AL (United States)
3. Alabama Power Co., Birmingham, AL (United States)

This paper reports that materials management and procurement impacts every organization within an electric utility from power generation to customer service. An efficient material management and procurement system can help improve productivity and minimize operating costs. It is no longer sufficient to simply automate materials management using inventory control systems. Smart companies are building centralized data warehouses and use the client/server style of computing to provide real time data access. This paper describes how Alabama Power Company, Southern Company Services and Digital Equipment Corporation transformed two existing applications, a purchase order application within DEC's ALL-IN-1 environment and a materials management application within an IBM CICS environment, into a data warehouse - client/server application. An application server is used to overcome incompatibilities between computing environments and provide easy, real-time access to information residing in multi-vendor environments.

• OSTI ID: 7239562
• Report Number(s): CONF-920432-; CODEN: PAPWA
• Journal Information: Proceedings of the American Power Conference; (United States), Vol. 54:2; Conference: 54. annual American power conference, Chicago, IL (United States), 13-15 Apr 1992; ISSN 0097-2126
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
ELECTRIC UTILITIES
MATERIALS TESTING
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
AUTOMATION
OPERATING COST
MINIMIZATION
DIGITAL SYSTEMS
MANAGEMENT
OPTIMIZATION
POWER GENERATION
REAL TIME SYSTEMS
COST
PUBLIC UTILITIES
TESTING
200100* - Fossil-Fueled Power Plants- Power Plants & Power Generation
200600 - Fossil-Fueled Power Plants- Economic
Industrial
& Business Aspects- (1990-)
990100 - Management
990300 - Information Handling