mnadis™ version 2.0.5 released

October 6, 2003

mnadis™ is a packaged software solution designed to handle all aspects of the circulation and distribution of newspapers and magazines. The system was designed and is supported by Open Projects.

The latest update of the software - Version 2.0.5 - has just been released to customer sites. The release contains more than 30 individual new features and improvements to the software.

Key elements of the release are as follows:

• When the expected number of copies of a large volume title are suddenly not available, changes have to be quickly made to planned delivery quantities. mnadis™ already has a wide range of options to reduce the outgoing quantities based on such factors as previous net sales or latest increases. To rectify a shortage of 500 copies by reducing the supplies to 500 customers by one copy each may seem 'fair', but is inefficient particularly if further supplies are forthcoming. A new option has been added to mnadis™ so that delivery quantities can be reduced in units of full bundles with no customer being reduced below half of their original supply
• mnadis™ is very much an 'open' system with the underlying database design available for customers to construct their own reports and enquiries. Many of these reports are of interest to other mnadis™ users. This release sees many of these reports standardised and consolidated into a new management information menu available for all users
• mnadis™ uses Electronic Data Interchange to send information to other partners in the supply chain. EDI requires data to be formatted according to an agreed standard. Unfortunately the word 'standard' is somewhat of a misnomer, in that partners often choose different standards to exchange the same information. Within each standard there are even different versions. One such standard (SRSDET) is used to send Supply and Returns Summary data to publishers. mnadis™ already handles version 2 of that standard, but this release sees the additional support for the older version 1 of the standard
• mnadis™ will now accept supplier invoices and credit notes in EDI format. This enables much greater checking of quantities and prices than is practical manually. In the testing of this feature at a beta site the facility has already identified a number of anomalies and inaccuracies
• mnadis™ customers often use an automated packing system to physically put the magazines and newspapers into delivery units (e.g. tote boxes, shrink wrapped bundles). mnadis™ will now accept data back from such systems as an acknowledgement of the physical packing process into a delivery manifest with each delivery unit being uniquely identified

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