President Obama opened a new battery plant in Holland, Michigan this week.
Manufacturing
Process and discrete manufacturing
Supplier Performance Management – Part 2
A mini-case study on one manufacturer that integrates supplier scorecard data with operational and planning data from across their business units. They have not only been able to improve supplier performance, but have found other benefits as well.
Automotive Supply Chain Hits the Road
General Motors failed to fix their supply chain in the late ’80s. Now GM and taxpayers are paying for it big time. Maybe now they are finally getting it right.
SaaS ERP for the Smallest Manufacturers
The universe of SaaS/Cloud offerings just got bigger. Today’s announcement of Epicor Express means a full-featured SaaS solution is available to small manufacturers who have had almost no SaaS options up to now.
Applications of Total Cost Sourcing – Part 2
Total Cost Sourcing (i.e. making sourcing decisions based on the total impact across the whole company) takes many different forms and yields many benefits. In this article, we explore various applications, starting with simpler things like calculating total landed cost, and moving to more sophisticated applications like the tradeoffs between the cost of manufacturability and the cost of inventory.
Logility Acquires Optiant
Logility’s acquisition of Optiant ‘streamlines’ the optimization market. With Ilog and its acquisition of Logictools, JDA’s acquisition of i2, and others, the market is looking leaner. But this could be good for customers.
The Parallax View: ChainLink’s Supply Chain Management Model
The impetus for this report came from global supply chain managers involved in managing and transforming supply chains who feel that many of the current industry member organizations and publications do not provide a progressive view or guidance to support their current challenges. Many supply chain organizations focus on professional practices such as certifications in planning and standards alone rather than on the objectives of supply chains themselves – supporting the creation of new markets and creating and enhancing customer value. These are key issues for any enterprise and as such should have the attention of senior management.
RFID for Manufacturers
While many manufacturers are adopting RFID by force of mandate, even more of them are seeking ways to use the technology to improve their operations. Our survey of 275 manufacturing companies across a wide range of enterprise sizes and industries found that two-thirds of the companies’ RFID implementations were driven in part or entirely by process improvement goals, rather than just by customer mandates.