Arena Solutions, a vendor of cloud-based product lifecycle-management (PLM) software for managing bills of materials (BOMs), has forged a partnership with Octopart, a search engine for electronic parts.

GE Capital Fleet Services has launched IntelliGauge, a mobile fuel and carbon-dioxide calculator which allows users to compare the fuel costs of their current vehicles against future models.

Amware Logistics LLC has acquired the assets of ParcelPort LLC, a provider of high-volume product and literature fulfillment services. The latter will be integrated into Amware under the name Amware Fulfillment Services.

Epicor Software Corp. has introduced a new version of its enterprise resource planning (ERP) application. The update contains more than 300 new features and enhancements across every suite, including the Epicor ICE Business Architecture.

RedPrairie Corp. has released version 2012.1 of its suite of supply-chain software applications. The update links execution capabilities to the store and commerce sites, giving retailers, manufacturers and distributors greater visibility of product and data.

GT Nexus has entered into a partnership with WNS (Holdings) Ltd., a provider of global business-process outsourcing (BPO) services.

Bringing e-commerce into the store is more than a luxury: it's a necessity, since online channels have fundamentally changed the shopping experience. Today, when shoppers enter a store, they may have already done product research, checked ratings and reviews, and compared prices.

"Sometimes buzz begets buzz." That's Patrick Bower's explanation for why sales and operations planning (S&OP), hardly a new concept, has become so important to companies today. According to the senior director of corporate planning with Combe Inc., globalization has had a big influence on companies looking for ways to plan demand within increasingly complex supply chains.

Companies wonder how often they should meet in order to achieve maximum information-sharing within the organization, as part of an effective sales and operations planning (S&OP) process. "As often as they need," advises Sanjiv Sharma, head of sales and operations planning with Rolls-Royce Energy Systems. "As little as they can get away with."

Zepol Corp., a provider of trade intelligence and management tools, has released ComplianceIQ.