Category Archives: Technology

SupplierSoft and its Supplier Process Management Solution

Last year, the Sourcing Maniacs introduced you to SupplierSoft, a provider of Supplier Data and Process Management solutions as part of their vendor tour.

SupplierSoft is a unique solution not only because they’re one of the few companies that understand the importance of centralizing all of the supplier process management solutions in a common platform (because supplier management is more than just supplier information management and supplier risk assessments, two prominent directions that their competitors are moving in), but because they decided to build their solution on the #1 CRM platform, SalesForce.com. As noted in the previous post, there is a lot of similarity between CRM and SRM, since both require extensive information management and the ability to capture and organize the data against relevant business processes.

Despite its recent market entry, the SupplierSoft platform is one of the most extensive Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) and Supplier Information Management (SIM) platforms on the market with supplier management, audit management, corrective action management, product compliance management (PCM), environmental compliance management (ECM), bill-of-material (BOM) analysis, and end-to-end reporting modules.

Over the past year, they have significantly extended their regulatory compliance capabilities in their PCM and ECM modules with extensive customizable BOM and (PDF & web) forms support. You can collect data at any level of the BOM, which rolls up into higher-level components and reports, which can then be drilled into as required. This allows you to focus only on exceptions and non-compliance, which is a must when you have thousands of parts that collectively use thousands of compounds that you need to track to maintain compliance with RoHS, WEEE, and REACH (which is about to get a lot more involved as it works its way through the SIN List). The solution allows you to define custom forms, with defaults, that allow you to only collect the regulatory data relevant to you, which can then be (automatically) customized (by the system) for each supplier with respect to the products they supply you (and the declared components and/or raw materials). SupplierSoft’s clients have found that by creating easy-to-use custom forms, they get better responses to their regulatory compliance efforts with less work on their part. In one customer’s case, the compliance manager was able to free up half the staff to work on initiatives more important than just ensuring the supplier provides all of the necessary information.

A good compliance management solution, which SupplierSoft provides, is becoming very important because:

  • it significantly reduces data collection, review, and reporting costs
    which are becoming more and more significant as a flurry of global regulations are forcing many companies to keep electronic mountains of data
  • it reduces time to market for new products
    which can get delayed due to regulatory reporting requirements if you can’t fill out all of the forms and provide the necessary supplier documentation on-demand
  • it reduces risk
    as manual processes can allow non-compliant raw materials and parts to “sneak” through, which can result in forced recall and significant revenue losses; it also provides you with a “due diligence” defense should you be accused of recklessness in your regulatory compliance efforts
  • it contributes to a 360° view of suppliers
    which is very important to your SPM program

So if you’re looking for an SRM solution and you’re looking at Aravo, CVM, or another big name SIM/SPM/SRM solutions vendor, you might want to give SupplierSoft a look as well. Like their competition, they’re currently getting a lot of attention from a couple of Fortune 100’s and I expect they’ll be getting more attention as time goes on. You won’t know what option is truly right for you unless you look at all of the relevant ones.

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Take Lean to the Next Level with Tech

I enjoyed this recent article in Industry week that noted “technology can help manufacturers take lean to the next level” because technology is a critical component of lean planning in modern operations. While it might be appropriate to start with the “technology agnostic” philosophy that so many experts cherish, you can only get so far on generic process improvement alone.

For example, if a company is introducing a new product, the early-warning portal can be integrated with enterprise resource planning systems and other shop-floor applications and measurements to provide detailed information about additional materials that may be required at assembly line supply point. This allows plant personnel to view color-coded kanban alerts that show where a demand or engineering change may impact supply cycles and get lean right the first time.

Pure lean principles need to be looked at in tandem with industry-leading best practices in supply chain, such as intelligent inventory management, response management and demand management, in order to create the ideal lean plant. Furthermore, the approach of avoiding software is no longer realistic in today’s environment due to the simple fact that there are too many constraints, which cannot be handled manually with ad hoc tools.

So use technology earlier in the process. You might just find that results materialize faster than you expected.

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Not Just for Document Management

A recent article in Integrated Solutions noted that “the time has come to apply reduce, reuse, and recycle thinking to electronic business information” because embracing a more strategic, “green” approach to information management will deliver a number of benefits, not the least of which is a dramatic reduction in the cost of storage. These days, there are a number of technology offerings that can reduce storage demands and improve real-time access to business-critical information. For example, on-demand conversion of print-stream to PDF eliminates the unnecessary storage of large-format documents and lessens internal network congestion during the retrieval process.

To demonstrate the efficiencies achievable with smart application of modern technology, the article provided a brief case study of a financial services institution that recently upgraded its customer service technology infrastructure to provide its 2.5 Million online customers with easy access to their statements.

  • Reduce
    On demand statement generation and conversion reduced the storage footprint 97% from 12.5 TB of storage a month to 375 GB.
  • Reuse
    A smart infrastructure allows the same information to be retrieved through a portal, e-mail, or traditional mail.
  • Recycle
    The provider is “recycling” content data to personalize cross-sell offers to the right customer at the right time.

However, the mantra is particularly pertinent to Contract Management. With a good contract management solution that includes authoring and archival capabilities, you get the following:

  • Reduce
    You can collaboratively edit contracts on-line in the application, which greatly reduces the amount of paper you waste and e-copies of the contract-in-progress that float around in each contributor’s storage account.
  • Reuse
    Common clauses can be applied across contracts, saving the need for the recreation (and the associated legal [review] fees).
  • Recycle
    Contracts can be templated so that all that needs to change on the next award is the recipient, pricing, term, and conditions.

For a list of contract management solution providers, start with the resource site.

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Has Google Taught Us Well?

A recent article over on Fortune by Ken Auletta lists 10 things Google has taught us. Now, it’s obvious the 10 lessons provide a path to success (as you just have to look at where Google stands), but did Google teach us well? Before we can answer that, we have to review the 10 lessons.

  1. Passion Wins
    Larry Page and Sergey Brin are involved with Google full-time, unlike Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo. They see Google as a defining company and give it everything they’ve got.
  2. Focus is Required
    The founders never let themselves get defocused by the crowd or the other 100 good ideas that they could be working on.
  3. Vision is Required Too
    Page and Brin want to make “all the world’s information available”. That’s quite a vision!
  4. A Team Culture is Vital
    Google’s allocation of 20% of employee time to projects of their own choice give employees a sense of proprietorship.
  5. Treat Engineers as Kings
    For most Valley companies, engineers are the equivalent of the television writer, a dime a dozen. Not at Google.
  6. Treat Customers Like a King
    Google is among the world’s most trusted brands because it conveys a sense that the user comes first. Google services are free and user friendly.
  7. Every Company is a Frenemy
    Google understands that a medium like the internet blurs the borders between companies, sometimes making it more difficult to sight a potential rival or to distinguish between ally and foe.
  8. Don’t Ignore the Human Factor
    Google has been wise in winning the trust of its users, in building a team culture, and in thinking long-term. But when you start from a blanket assumption that the old ways of doing things are probably wrong, as Google does, you’re bound to make unwise mistakes. Page was unwise to assume Google could immediately digitize all books, just as Google was wrong to assume that it could devise formulas to better sell ads for newspapers and broadcast radio, two efforts it has since abandoned.
  9. There Are No Certitudes
    There is nothing about the Google model that makes them invulnerable. While they made it big as a search engine, the money they’ve poured into new ventures like YouTube, Android, and cloud-computing has not yet paid off.
  10. Life is Long But Time is Short
    You need to think and act quickly and move with the markets, which will change many times over your life time.

So has Google taught us well? Yes, they have. In fact, they have taught us very well. All the lessons apply to your supply chain. Specifically:

  1. Passion Wins
    In order to build a better supply chain than your competitor, you have to work long and hard. This will require passion.
  2. Focus is Required
    Since the average, well-planned, supply chain transformation takes 18 to 36 months in a large multi-national, you need unwavering focus so you don’t get led astray.
  3. Vision is Required Too
    You have to see the end result to get there.
  4. A Team Culture is Vital
    Success will require the commitment of a cross-functional team that represents every unit of the business.
  5. Treat Engineers as Kings
    Your supply chain professionals, who are re-engineering the supply chain, need to have the full support of the C-suite who need to treat them like Kings for the value their efforts can bring.
  6. Treat Customers Like a King
    Since sourcing / procurement / supply chain needs the support of the other internal divisions of the company, their “customers”, they need to treat their customers like a king if they want to make big wins.
  7. Every Company is a Frenemy
    Your supply advantage today could be a supply risk tomorrow without the right IP protection when your contract manufacturer starts working for your direct competitor.
  8. Don’t Ignore the Human Factor
    The projects with the largest returns won’t succeed if everyone isn’t on board.
  9. There Are No Certitudes
    The markets are changing. The perfect supply chain today will not be the perfect supply chain tomorrow. You will have to improve continuously.
  10. Life is Long But Time is Short
    Especially where consumer products are concerned.

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Cost of NOT Using Modern Supply Chain Systems: 6.8 Billion

A recent article over on CNN Money that noted that the store theft cost to your family, largely due to a 9% jump in retail theft over the past year, is $435 — as shoplifting, employee theft, and supply chain fraud cost retailers $42.2 Billion between July 2008 and June 2009, had a surprising revelation.

Breaking this mega-loss down, we find that:

  • 18.7 Billion is due to employee theft
    which could be considerably reduced with better screening, security and processes
  • 15.0 Billion is due to shoplifting
    which could be somewhat reduced with better security, but will likely always be a problem
  • 6.8 Billion is due to processing, supply chain errors, and frauds
    which could be eliminated with good systems and processes
  • 1.7 Billion is due to other causes

There’s no excuse for any errors. Good end-to-end e-Procurement systems can match every invoice against the purchase order and contract and make sure you’re only paying for what you ordered at contracted rates. Good forecasting and inventory tracking systems will prevent costly errors. And good visibility systems will allow you to spot any exceptions as soon as they occur and stop frauds, and fraudsters, in the act.

So now that you know that not using this technology is personally costing you, and everyone else in your organization, about $70 a year, why aren’t you using these systems? The reduction in loss alone over their service life-time will more than pay for them. (Not to mention the savings that a good sourcing, e-procurement, or inventory system can help you identify!)

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