ARTS Welcomes New Members

• USA-Japan Retailing IT Leadership Forum, November 8 2005, Tokyo

  ARTS – NRF is partnering with the Japan Retailers Association and the Smarter Retailing Forum to hold the USA – Japan Retailing IT Leadership Forum on November 8 in Tokyo.  This first ever ARTS – NRF event in Japan is focused on providing information on the importance of having retail executive management play an active role in guiding IT strategy.  Japanese software providers have been among the earliest adopters of standards and POSlog has been translated into Japanese to promote its using in creating efficient POS application to benefit customer and lower retailer cost.  For more information or to attend this event email Richard Mader.

   

• Third Annual Retail Technology Summit in London a Huge Success

  The Third Annual NRF-ARTS Retail Technology Summit was a huge success with a roster of excellent retailer speakers from Dixons, WH Smith, Deichmann, Shell and Etam giving attendees valuable insights into their IT challenges.  Etam described a major project replacing a legacy application architecture with best of breed applications and using the ARTS Data Model to implement a new central data architecture to which new applications must conform.  Shell detailed the huge cost savings they have achieved by using standards to connect forecourt devices and their use of the ARTS Data Model to create common corporate data.  

   

  The Summit would not have been possible without our sponsors Oracle, PCMS, SAP, Manugistics, Torex Retail, BT, Aldata, and Autodesk.

   

• ARTS European Committee Meetings Yield Valuable Input

  The ARTS technical committee meetings held in London in conjunction with the Summit resulted in excellent direction for future ARTS standards.  Data Model release 5.0 was reviewed by several UK-based companies who made valuable suggestions to clarify the new enterprise structures.  Discussions with Shell and Herbert Retail outlined a direction for unifying the existing REMC schema with NEAR and the special protocol for food and grocery being developed with the North American Food Equipment Manufacturers (NAFEM).  Detailed minutes of the Data Model and IXRetail meetings can be found on the ARTS webboard in the Members Only section of www.nrf-arts.org.

   

• POSlog Structure to Change

  ARTS recently surveyed the membership to gauge reaction to a proposal to segment POSlog into several separate schemas. Response was very favorable, with only one of more than 45 respondents expressing concern about significant software retrofitting.  It is planned that POSlog will be segmented in two stages, first by function and then by retail segments within each function.  This will make it much easier for grocery, food services and other retail segments to implement POSlog.  Specific segmentation plans will be discussed at the ARTS committee meetings in Atlanta November 14 – 17.

   

• ARTS Standards Pavilion Returns to NRF Annual Convention

  Are you ready for the NRF Annual Convention?  ARTS is preparing the largest standards pavilion ever with 16 member companies sponsoring and demonstrating actual use of IXRetail schemas to integrate disparate applications.  Mark booth 867 as a must visit.

   

  Committee News

•  All-ARTS Committee Meeting, November 14-17 in Atlanta

  All Arts committees (Data Model, UnifiedPOS, IXRetail and Standard RFP) will meet in Atlanta November 14 – 17.  This special meeting, hosted by AfterBot, was arranged to allow UnifiedPOS and IXRetail to jointly discuss XML messaging for applications and devices.  If you have never attended an ARTS technical meeting we encourage you to register and attend.  This is a great opportunity to be introduced to all committees and select the one(s) of most value to you and your company.  Review the agenda and register for the meeting. 

   

• IXRetail Forms WMS Work Team to Support Warehouse Management RFP
  The WMS work team was formed at the recent IXRetail committee meeting in Washington DC with the assignment to create schemas to integrate WMS systems with ERPs and other applications within the retail enterprise.  Volunteers with experience and knowledge in the business functions of WMS are needed.  Please contact Richard Mader if you would like to join this team.

   

• WAMPOS Meeting, November 14 in Atlanta

  WAMPOS (web-access methods for POS), the new UnifiedPOS work team, will meet Monday November 14^th at the above-referenced meetings.  Progress has been made in defining the WAMPOS architecture and this is your best opportunity to influence this future standard.

   

• RFP Committee to Prepare Final Draft of Price Optimization RFP, November 14 in Atlanta

  The RFP committee will be putting the final touches on the Price Optimization RFP prior to release at the NRF Annual Convention in January.  Retailers and vendor experienced with this application are urged to attend.  Please contact Committee Chair Ann McCool to obtain a draft of the RFP for review prior to the meeting.