If you need a demonstration of supply chain management, go to Lilly's stand at CIM 2003. The firm says it will be showing the full range of integrated Visual Enterprise applications, covering from front office to engineering, manufacturing and distribution.

Lilly's not alone in offering a wide range of applications and coverage, so your time will be well spent in terms of learning the new possibilities and limits and honing expectations.

In fact, Visual Enterprise covers ERP, advanced planning and scheduling (APS), some manufacturing execution system (MES) functionality, quality management, customer relationship management (CRM), e-business and warehouse management (WMS) options.

For this vendor, however, your questioning should extend to Theory of Constraints (ToC) and lean thinking business support. Lilly is one of the SME leaders in enabling the approaches of ToC and lean business to be automated internally and externally, with the emphasis on cost reduction and flexibility.