Supply-chain event management company Vigilance is maneuvering to merge with business analytic vendors Harmony while at the same time partnering with Camstar to help manufacturers synchronize business processes.
The board of Vigilance Inc., based in Sunnyvale, Calif., have approved a merger with Harmony Software Inc., but the deal is subject to shareholder approval, said Jaya Prakash Rao, vice president of business development and alliances at Vigilance. He declined to provide further details of the merger, which will be announced in September if approved.
However, Karen Peterson, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc., said the merger would result in a management shakeup with the current CEO and CTO of Vigilance leaving following the completion of the deal.
“While the combination of event management and analytics is good for customers, the resultant management shake up could hurt Vigilance’s credibility,” Peterson said. “Furthermore, this puts it in competition with one of its partners: PeopleSoft (Inc.)”
PeopleSoft and Vigilance teamed up in May to bundle Vigilance’s event management software with PeopleSoft’s supply-chain management suite.
In related news, Vigilance recently announced it would develop a new integrated, real-time event management solution tailored to global manufacturers with Camstar Inc., a Campbell, Calif.-based company that develops collaborative manufacturing technology.
Through real-time visibility to production flows across single or multi-site production environments, the solution is designed to automatically alert companies and their systems to problems with production processes and accelerates reactions to any changes on the factory floor.
“What we’re trying to do is truly bring synchronized businesses processes all the way down to the manufacturing floor,” Rao said. “The sooner you can communicate the specification change from an ERP system down to the factory floor … therein lies the value.”
The joint solution is also designed to reduce costs by providing live visibility into manufacturing operations for key supply-chain partners and facilitating the creation of front-end business rules across multiple enterprise applications.
