In what it is calling an industry first, supply chain execution (SCE) software supplier Manhattan Associates unveiled its Logistics Event Management Architecture (LEMA) at its users conference last month.

"We have merged deep functional capability of our software with an agile and sophisticated application platform," said Eddie Capel, senior vice president of product management, at the conference. "LEMA is not a technology. It is an application platform that is intended to optimize supply chain transactions from source to consumption."

The platform leverages service oriented architecture and business process orchestration as part of a common application platform and data model. Capel says users will benefit from the enhanced integration it supplies as well as a lower total cost of ownership and reduced upgrade time and cost.

When teamed with Manhattan's Integrated Logistics Solutions (ILS), LEMA allows users to deploy supply chain execution solutions on a targeted basis on a single architecture. While not all of the company's applications have been mapped to the architecture, several have. These include transportation planning execution, distributed order management, fleet management and trading partner management, among others. Manhattan's other applications will be migrated over the next two to three years.

At least six end users are already using LEMA. These include: Armstrong Worldwide Industries, Coles Myer, Honeywell, PPG, Revlon and RiteAid.