Enporion Named Among Top Innovators by Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100

Enporion, a leading provider of supply chain solutions and professional services, has been named to Supply & Demand Chain Executive magazine's Top 100 companies for the third consecutive year. This achievement recognizes Enporion's continuing commitment to its customers and to delivering best-of-class supply chain solutions.

"Our readers turn to Supply & Demand Chain Executive to learn about new solutions and best practices for enabling the supply chain, to understand trends in supply chain technology, and to benchmark their own companies' enablement initiatives with those of other enterprises across industry verticals," explained Andrew K. Reese, editor of Supply & Demand Chain Executive. "Enporion was chosen for the Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100 this year because of its ability to leverage established supplier networks as a 'single point of contact' with suppliers from order issuance through e-invoice settlement. The company has truly shown itself as an innovator in end-to-end e-procurement."

"Enporion has always strived to provide innovative solutions to its customers and we are thrilled to be recognized for our innovation in end-to-end e-procurement as it truly represents the full suite of what we offer customers -- a complete source-to-settle solution," said George Gordon, Chairman and CEO of Enporion. "In addition, we are continuing to introduce significant innovation as we enable the integration of physical and financial supply chains, also acknowledged in the magazine."

This year the magazine focused the criteria for its "100" feature on supply chain innovation. Supply & Demand Chain Executive has identified leading providers of supply chain services and technologies who are at the forefront of innovation. Based on submissions to the "100" from end users and solution providers, the judging committee for the "100," including the editorial staff of the magazine, in conjunction with the editorial advisory board, has compiled a list of leading supply and demand chain innovators.

About Enporion

Enporion is a supply chain management solutions and services company, providing strategic sourcing and e-procurement applications, and related professional services. Enporion is delivering results for customers in the gas and electric utilities, manufacturing and distribution industries.

Enporion's Supply Chain Manager(R), an integrated suite of e-commerce tools, delivers cost reduction through price and process savings, and includes capabilities in catalog management, supplier enablement and connection, spend reporting, e-sourcing including auctions and electronic RFx's, and contract management. These applications are delivered in a Software-as-a-Service environment, resulting in quick implementation and early realization of benefits. Visit Enporion online at www.enporion.com.
Source-marketwatch.com

Wordingham Technologies Adds Online Support for Supply Chain Management

Wordingham Technologies, specialists in custom machined parts for optics, photonics and precision instrumentation, announces online customer access for tracking orders and managing releases, 24/7. The Wordingham Quality (WQ) Portal, the first of its kind in this industry, demonstrates Wordingham's commitment to "quality delivered."

"Quality isn't just delivering tight tolerances and great aesthetics, important as those are," says David Trombley, Wordingham General Manager, "it's helping our customers get their parts when they need them, even when their plans change."

The WQ Portal allows customers to log on to a secure site, accessible from http://www.wordingham.com, and view critical planning information. This information includes:

    -- Inventories of all their custom parts
   -- Orders in process
   -- Planned releases
   -- Recent releases
   -- In-process delivery tracking information
   -- Pending quotes
   -- Immediate request for in-person help if desired

Trombley continues, "We want to do all we can to help our customers manage their supply chains better. In today's global markets, victory goes to the agile. That's why we invested in the WQ Portal and made it as easy to use as we could. While we will always give fast in-person response to questions, self-service access is a big plus, particularly to our international customers."

Mike Jackson, Inside Sales Representative and developer of the WQ Portal, notes, "Early feedback has been fantastic. The WQ Portal is letting our customers monitor plans for their own customer deliveries in a new way. But that's not all. The WQ Portal is also helping them construct winning bids for new business, faster and easier, by providing real-time data 24/7."

About Wordingham Technologies

Wordingham Technologies provides full-service, dock-to-stock metal machining, including: multi-axis milling, multi-axis turning, honing, advanced metrology, finishing and mechanical sub-assembly. Though ultimately serving many markets, Wordingham focuses on custom parts for Optics and Photonics, including illumination, medical/biometric, and defense and security; and for Precision Instrumentation, including measurement, data collection/transfer and nano-positioning.

Wordingham Technologies' competitive edge is people: their deep commitment and strong optics roots. From its start as an outgrowth of Burleigh Instruments, an early market leader in life science optics and nano-positioning systems, the company has grown to a team of over 50 with a proven track record for producing high quality precision optics interfaces. Visit http://www.wordingham.com to learn more.
Source-marketwatch.com

It's Time to Take the Automotive Supply Chain Online

For all the innovation that has swept through the auto industry — out of the necessity to survive as much as the creativity demanded by the marketplace — automotive companies and suppliers still find themselves bogged down with slow and expensive IT networks that require constant tweaking and upgrading. And for all the talk about reshaping the industry to serve today's consumer, the industry's primary players still remain hunkered down behind walls of secrecy rather than opening themselves to the benefits of full collaboration.

This is the era of Web 3.0, online communities, mobility, flexibility, unified communications and the virtual workforce. Yet the auto industry clings to its silos of information housed in legacy systems when the only way to advance is to centralize data. Supply chains absolutely require complete visibility up and down the line to information on production schedules, warehouses and logistical arrangements for delivery of components and finished products. Until a company integrates its data in a single repository, it cannot expect to keep up with the pace of a changing market because it is spending too much time trying to find and cobble together its own data. Suppliers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) should be consolidating information and leveraging it across their organizations globally to synchronize their production, logistics marketing and service operations like the components of a fine timepiece.

Then companies need to stop hoarding their best practices and start collaborating with each other so that they can deal effectively with design, development and capacity issues that continually toss the industry off the path to progress and into seemingly bottomless potholes. It's time for true collaboration among OEMs and shippers if the industry expects to drive more volume and leverage its massive capabilities globally in a nimble fashion.

Interestingly, the farther back we go in the supply chain, the more data integration and collaboration we find. For example, logistics companies, along with tier-two and -three suppliers, share much common information related to shipping by ground, rail, sea or air. But tier-one suppliers and OEMs often have developed such a culture of protecting competitive advantage that they fail to make data as visible as necessary either within their companies or across their supply chains. The result is that many businesses struggle with performance while costs rise because of inefficiencies, redundancy and waste in the system relating to data management, information flow and legacy systems.

Web of Data

The industry would do well to turn in coordinated fashion to Web-based systems. Even smaller companies are beginning to realize the value of leveraged Web technology, which many now view as the most cost-efficient way to manage and communicate data and to collaborate within and between enterprises. Businesses today must be able to link into the rest of the world, regardless of their size or service.

The visibility offered by the Web enables suppliers, manufacturers and logistics companies to see exactly where shipments are, anytime and from anywhere, to gather bids from shippers in just minutes. It also enables them to select the best modes of shipment by referring to databases containing performance history and ratings, and take advantage of other capabilities that generate nearly instantaneous collaboration and accelerate decision-making. When operating across multiple time zones and technology platforms, companies absolutely must leverage the Web as a primary global resource.

Web-based collaboration will be an especially important tool for smaller, niche service providers that are seeking a way to thrive in this community-oriented marketplace. These small businesses will be collaborating and forming virtual partnerships with larger supply chain companies. While the smaller firms may not be able to win the biggest deals on their own, by collaborating with several larger companies they can retain their niche services while working as part of a team on big projects. Remaining within the boundaries of what they do best, small firms thus will employ collaboration as a major enabler for the way they will do business in the future. The result will be the opening of new avenues to a huge customer base and the expansion of the firm's footprint from the visibility it gains as a collaborative partner, leading to more opportunities for business in their areas of strength.

Source-sdcexec.com

New BSR Report Outlines Lessons on Building Supply Chain Capacity for CSR

While many companies concerned about corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues in their supply chain tend to focus on monitoring factory conditions, a new report by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) reveals that companies working directly with factory managers to equip suppliers with skills, knowledge and systems to take ownership of CSR issues are more effective in addressing persistent issues such as labor standards violations, environmental degradation, and poor health and safety protections.

BSR's "Pilot Summary Report: Building Capabilities to Implement CSR Management Systems at ICT Suppliers in China" is based on a series of recently completed pilot projects aimed at breaking through common barriers to improving factory conditions. Organizations in this collaborative project include BSR, the World Bank Group’s investment climate advisory service, the Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS), the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) and the Shenzhen Electronics Industry Association (SEIA). In 2007, the collaboration published a report identifying the root causes of poor factory conditions, and providing recommendations for how customers, suppliers, government and civil society can all contribute to improved capacity among factories in China.

Based on findings from these reports and the recent pilot projects, there are several steps companies can take to build capacity in their supply chains:

• Support multiple capacity-building strategies. Approaches can include providing generic tools (such as a factory committee or worker hotline to address concerns), conducting trainings, creating supplier-support networks and implementing factory-specific projects.
  
  
• Focus on the business case. To achieve buy-in from suppliers, identify real incentives and allow supplies to shape their own approach to CSR improvements within the factory.
  
  
• Integrate a mentoring system into the monitoring process. Work with the supplier to identify root causes of compliance issues. This strengthens the relationship between the company and the supplier, shifting focus from immediate compliance to continuous improvement.
  
  
• Foster ongoing dialogue among stakeholders. These include customers, suppliers, NGOs, local government and industry associations. This reinforces each group’s efforts, creating the potential for a much bigger impact on everyone’s CSR efforts.

Moving forward, BSR will apply these lessons to other industries and countries. "The challenges with capability building identified in these reports are not unique to the ICT sector or to China, and many of the recommendations can be applied to a wide variety of sectors and geographies," said Laura Commike Gitman, BSR Director, Advisory Services. "The project partners look forward to building on these lessons to help focus future capability-building efforts."

For more information about BSR's work in this partnership, please contact Laura Commike Gitman at lgitman@bsr.org.



About BSR
Since 1992, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) has been providing socially responsible business solutions to many of the world’s leading corporations. Headquartered in San Francisco and with offices in Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, New York and Paris, BSR is a nonprofit business association that serves its 250 member companies and other Global 1000 enterprises. Through advisory services, convenings and research, BSR works with corporations and concerned stakeholders of all types to create a more just and sustainable global economy. For more information, visit www.bsr.org.

About the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition
The EICC consists of 30 companies that have come together in their common interest to improve working conditions and environmental stewardship throughout the electronics supply chain. This group supports a common code of conduct for electronics companies, the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct. The code covers expectations for performance across a range of issues, including labor, health and safety, environmental practices, ethics and management systems. Through its board, steering committee and working groups, the group is working to implement the code of conduct, engaging with stakeholders and keeping the code up to date. For more information, visit www.eicc.info.

About the Global e-Sustainability Initiative
GeSI is a joint initiative of an international group of ICT service providers and suppliers, industry associations, the Carbon Disclosure Project and WWF, with the support of the United Nations Environment Programme and International Telecommunication Union. GeSI seeks to contribute to sustainable development in the ICT industry by taking a leadership role in collaborative exploration and responsible management of the evolving interfaces among industrial, ecological and social systems. The EICC and GeSI are working together on development and deployment of a consistent set of tools and processes to measure, monitor and improve supply chain corporate responsibility performance across the ICT sector. Information about GeSI members and ongoing activities can be found at www.gesi.org.
Source-csrwire.com

Green Supply Chain Management, It's Good For the Environment, It's Good For the Bottom Line

While the majority of global executives consider carbon reduction an important aspect of purchasing and supply chain management, only a minority follow through:

That's too bad, according to the McKinsey study. Not only are these companies not helping fight climate change as much as they could, they are also missing out on some cost lowering opportunities. The facts:

• For consumer goods marketers, high-tech, and other manufacturers, between 40-60% of their carbon footprint is in their supply chain.
  
• For retailers, the number is even higher, 80%.
  
• Many of the opportunities to reduce emissions carry no net life-cycle costs, with the upfront investment more than paying for itself through lower energy or material usage.
  
• Others may require tradeoffs between emissions and profitability, in areas such as logistics and product design.
  
• Forward-looking companies are using such discussions as opportunities for supplier development.
  
• This opens up the possibility of still lower costs and improved operational performance, in addition to helping suppliers remove carbon from their supply chains.

Wal-Mart comes to mind, as a great example of a company that understands the multiple benefits of a greener supply chain. The question of, why are not more companies following Wal-Mart's lead, warrants further examination. Is it lack of knowledge? Having to attend to other, more pressing issues? Inertia? What do you think?

Source-cleantechblog.com

Nordic Semiconductor to relocate supply chain headquarters to the Philippines

Nordic Semiconductor intents to set-up a regional supply chain headquarters in Manila, the Philippines. This will later be expanded to include a regional RF test-engineering group to support local backend test development and subcontract partners in Asia.

The move will represent a wholesale relocation of Nordic's supply chain headquarters from Norway to Asia, and Nordic now seeks to recruit local backend supply chain, production, and test engineering staff.

The new operation will be located within just a few miles of a Manila facility of Nordic's long-term test subcontractor, Amkor Technology, where Nordic's 2.4GHz ULP transceivers are tested on a base of permanently installed, Nordic-owned test systems. Nordic will now have its entire manufacturing and supply chain operations based in Asia, bar only a few legacy products being produced in Europe.

Organizationally, however, everything else is to remain headquartered in Norway; including Nordic's global sales and marketing headquarters in Oslo, and its global R&D and registered company headquarters in Trondheim.

Supply Chain:Warehouse Management System (WMS)

SUCCEEDING IN today’s competitive environment requires warehouses to guarantee customer and supplier satisfaction by providing accurate and profitable warehouse processes associated with productivity. Outdated software applications, poor system integration, and bad accounting inventory tracking solutions can result in a lack of inventory visibility and control. These challenges can prevent warehouse operators from increasing their profitability within and beyond the four walls of a location or multiple warehouses.

WMS BENEFITS:

Increase customer satisfaction, improve employee productivity, eliminate paperwork, data entry, remove IT headache, eliminate maintenance and upgrade costs, reduce inventory costs, automate warehouse operations, avoid stock-outs centralise visibility, compatible with wireless technology, gain immediate ReturnOnInvestment (ROI), complete back-office integration.

Warehouse Management System (WMS) helps warehouses consolidate and manage all inbound purchase orders across departments through one centralised system to streamline the “procure-to-pay” or “procure to receipt” purchase process. By centrally managing these purchasing processes, warehouse accounting can improve productivity and eliminate duplicate data-entry.

Integrating business processes from the back office to the warehouse floor helps streamline the receiving and put-away process by tying receipts to inbound orders. Within the inbound order process, the WMS solution also sources available suppliers from historical perform and based rating system generates customised purchasing and supplier reports automates receiving against inbound orders eliminates paper-based purchasing to lower costs reconciles orders against errors or short shipments.

Keep customer commitments with error-free order fulfillment WMS offers the ability to maximise the productivity of a company’s sales and warehouse staff by providing a centralised system to manage the flow of inventory from sales order, to pick, to ship, to invoice.

With WMS, both sales and warehouse operators effectively manage and access the same accurate customer data to fulfill orders quickly and accurately while shortening lead times. WMS also allows sales and warehouse operators to check real-time, accurate product availability during order fulfillment through integrated inventory control generate pick tickets and shipping documents directly from the sales order gain process efficiency with picking rules view sales order and shipment status from a central view.

Inherent value in on-demand software on-demand architecture enables warehouses to quickly deploy and integrate with front-office an back-office operations. As a managed service, there is no hardware to buy, no software to install, no network to set-up and no technical staff to maintain. As a result, warehouse operators don’t have to worry about system deployments, performance, reliability or upgrades It’s WMS worry not yours.

WMS is an affordable solution that grows with you. Warehouses can easily add users, additional warehouses or SKUs with simple and easy-to-use configuration settings. Delivered over the Internet, WMS is more cost-effective then traditional software solutions and provides users with an intuitive interface to help increase employee adoption.

WMS solution:
Eliminates IT headaches, improves reliability and scalability provides real-time information and integrates easily with computer hardware.

Source-merinews.com

Study: Manufacturers Using Supply Chain for Growth

A new survey by management consulting firm Archstone Consulting has found that manufacturing executives are planning to use supply chain management as a tool for boosting performance.

The results of the survey, conducted in April of this year, further prove that the concept of supply chain management is gaining popularity in corporate circles, according to John Ferreira, Archstone’s industrial manufacturing practice leader.

“It’s starting to move into the mainstream,” he said.

The survey, Archstone’s Manufacturing Executive Agenda for 2008, includes responses from 265 manufacturing executives from a wide range of industries.

“Over 80% of manufacturers have responded to the current economic climate by devising aggressive agendas to boost sales and cut costs,” said Todd Lavieri, Archstone’s president and CEO.

According to the survey, two of the four most common ways that executives plan to boost performance this year were supply chain management-related.

“I think it’s very intriguing that they’re talking about leveraging the supply chain to enable growth,” Ferreira said.

The four executive agenda items shared by manufacturers in all industries include:

• Increasing revenue growth by leveraging supply chain capabilities to add value to products and services.
• Reducing costs with supply chain efficiency improvements.
• Improving product innovation.
• Controlling direct material costs.

In addition, Ferreira said respondents indicated they wanted to use supply chain management techniques to rapidly adapt to changing markets and offer more customized customer service.

Ferreria said the respondents did not indicate how long it would take to implement their ideas, but the survey asked respondents to consider their plans for 2008.

Source-scmr.com

Managing the Global Supply Chain

The global supply chain is a vital part of modern business. Presenting a global view of the scope and complexity of supply chain management, this book reflects the rapid change that has taken place within the supply chain and its environment.

Schary and Skjøtt-Larsen have fully updated their successful first edition, giving readers of this new edition an insightful overview of the conceptual foundations of the global supply chain. The book has been completely reorganized toward a customer orientation and rewritten to include the new changes in technology and practice.

'Managing the Global Supply Chain' is based on three parallel elements: structure, process and organization to build a supply network that includes distribution, production and procurement within one integral system. It moves beyond concepts from business logistics to emphasize inter-organizational networks and the strategic role of the supply chain in corporate strategy. A separate section on management and strategy examines organizational forms and management tools.


Source : www.cbspress.dk

GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

With increased globalization and offshore sourcing, global supply chain management is becoming an important issue for many businesses. Like traditional, supply chain management, the underlying factors behind the trend are reducing the costs of procurement and decreasing the risks related to purchasing activities. The big difference is that global supply chain management involves a company's worldwide interests and suppliers rather than simply a local or national orientation. Because global supply chain management usually involves a plethora of countries, it also usually comes with a plethora of new difficulties that need to be dealt with appropriately. One that companies need to consider is the overall costs. While local labor costs may be significantly lower, companies must also focus on the costs of space, tariffs, and other expenses related to doing business overseas. Additionally, companies need to factor in the exchange rate. Obviously, companies must do their research and give serious consideration to all of these different elements as part of their global supply management approach. Time is another big issue that should be addressed when dealing with global supply chain management. The productivity of the overseas employees and the extended shipping times can either positively or negatively affect the company's lead time, but either way these times need to be figured into the overall procurement plan. Other factors can also come into play here as well. For example, the weather conditions on one side of the world often vary greatly from those on the other and can impact production and shipping dramatically. Also, customs clearance time and other governmental red tape can add further delays that need to be planned for and figured into the big picture. Besides contemplating these issues, a business attempting to manage its global supply chain must also ask itself a number of other serious questions. First, the company needs to make decisions about its overall outsourcing plan. For whatever reason, businesses may desire to keep some aspects of supply chain closer to home. However, these reasons are not quite as important as other countries advance technologically. For example, some parts of India have now become centers for high-tech outsourced services which may once have been done in-house only out of necessity. Not only are provided to companies by highly qualified, overseas workers, but they are being done at a fraction of the price they could be done in the United States or any other Western country. Another issue that must be incorporated into a global supply chain management strategy is supplier selection. Comparing vendor bids from within the company's parent-country can be difficult enough but comparing bids from an array of global suppliers can be even more complex. How to make these choices is one of the first decisions companies must make, and it should be a decision firmly based on research. Too often companies jump on the lowest price instead of taking the time to factor in all of the other elements, including those related to money and time which were discussed above. Additionally, companies must make decisions about the number of suppliers to use. Fewer supplies may be easier to manage but could also lead to potential problems if one vendor is unable to deliver as expected or if one vendor tries to leverage its supply power to obtain price concessions. Finally, companies who choose to ship their manufacturing overseas may have to face some additional considerations as well. Questions regarding the number of plants that are needed, as well as the locations for those plants can pose difficult logistical problems for companies. However, it often helps to examine these issues in terms of the global supply chain. For example, if a business uses a number of vendors around Bangalore, India than it may make sense to locate the manufacturing plant that would utilize those supplies in or around Bangalore as well. Not only will this provide lower employee costs, but overall shipping and tariff expenses should also be reduced. This would then save the company money. Source : www.epiqtech.com