Global Logistics and Supply Chain Strategies - June 2008 - (Page 33) uses E2open as the backbone for end-toend supply chain visibility and collaboration with suppliers, says John Boucher, executive vice president for supply chain solutions. The E2open technology also enables the company to look at data in new ways “I can measure supplier performance based on the supplier’s flexibility attributes, which I couldn’t before,” he says. This helps Celestica “execute the business the way in which we want to, and award suppliers based on their performance.” It also supports Celestica’s total cost ownership process by enabling decisions “based on real, accurate and timely data from the entire end-to-end supply chain,” says Boucher. In addition to visibility, these types of solutions provide collaboration platforms that enable contract manufacturers and their customers to quickly confer on and resolve problems. “Succeeding today is less a function of planning and more a function of responding to plan variation,” says Sicard. “Responding to plan variation requires that teams work together to make a collaborative judgment and these teams need to be able to quickly form and disband, perhaps several times a day, for different unexpected events that occur.” Kinaxis RapidResponse identifies the right people that need to be involved on these teams and enables them to collaborate in a virtual meeting space, he says. “Our unique technology merges a human being’s job responsibility with the supply chain data itself to figure out who needs to get together to resolve an issue,” Sicard says. “Human nature makes it difficult for strangers to immediately be able to collaborate on something, but if you are able to look around at members of a team and you know why they are there, it is a lot easier for them to get down to business.” Cisco is attacking this issue with an advanced technology called Telepresence that it acquired when it bought Webex. Harrington is executive sponsor of Cisco’s global supply chain Telepresence rollout. Telepresence enables very realistic face-toface meetings between people that need to collaborate on an issue, he explains. “In a highly disbursed business and operating environment, there is nothing like bringing constituencies and stakeholders who are far away right to you, and with this technology we can do that. We can take cameras right out onto the manufacturing floor while having a meeting with our contract manufacturer in a Telepresence environment. So we can be in San Jose and looking at something right on the line half way around the world with crystal clarity—and nobody had to get on a plane.” That in itself is a competitive advantage for a relationship, Harrington says, “but the thing I am really looking forward to is layering applications on top of that infrastructure, once it is present. A whole gamut of Web 2.0 technologies can be used to enable behavioral and business process changes. So the real call to action for our organization in the next year is to set up an environment for using this technology across every element and every function of the supply chain.” This will benefit not only Cisco but also its partners “as together we invent a new way of doing business that keeps us out of airplanes, keeps us in our time zones, keeps us fresh and productive and allows THE EFFICIENCY OF TOTAL LOGISTICS 60 por ts, 10 multimodal hubs, a network of container terminals covering the whole of Pa r i s re g i o n , a ye a r - ro u n d l o c a l s e r v i ce linked with over 100 European por ts with no t ra n s h i p p i n g a n d a co m b i n e d t ra n s p o r t offer. The assurance of high-per formance, spot traffic at managed costs and delivery times. Port autonome de Paris. Logistics made to measure : www.paris-ports.fr The other way to Paris region GLOBAL LOGISTICS & SUPPLY CHAIN STRATEGIES 33 http://www.paris-ports.fr http://www.paris-ports.fr
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