A friend sent me this note:

>Years ago APICS (American Production & Inventory Control Society) did a
>study of manufacturing companies to determine a typical range of
>expenditures on computer stuff. The study showed that the typical mfg
>company's total I.S. budget was between 3% and 6% of the company's total
>sales dollars. At that same time the manufacturing company I worked for was
>spending 0.5% of the sales dollars on I.S.
>Was this because I was a GREAT manager... or because we had an HP3000?
>
>Subsequent discussion with other mfg people in the HP user group indicated
>that either we were ALL great managers... or it just costs a lot less to
>run your business with an HP3000 as it does when you use what the other
>companies in the APICS study used.
>
>I wonder if there are any similar studies being done these days?? and if
>they're broken out by platform??

This is an excellent lead.  Does anyone have any connections to APICS (or
equivalent)?  If you can do a little digging (to continue on the
gold-mining metaphor), it would be great.  I have the feeling we are into
something nice here.

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|            r  |  Alfredo                     [log in to unmask]
|          e    |                           http://www.adager.com
|        g      |  F. Alfredo Rego               Tel 208 726-9100
|      a        |  Manager, R & D Labs           Fax 208 726-2822
|    d          |  Adager Corporation
|  A            |  Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000            U.S.A.
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