Managing Automation - June 2008 - (Page 28)

[ COVER STORY ] things like part and product numbering and order processing. That made it difficult for Laird to forecast demand and capacity across all of its sites and to quickly fulfill an order generated in one region with production from another hen your customers start moving their production operations when that made sense. It also made it difficult for Laird to quickly and acoffshore and they insist you follow them to places like China, curately estimate the cost of doing so. Mexico, and Eastern Europe, you follow. “We want to be able to source from any region and make that decision At least that’s what executives at Laird Technologies decided to do a few transparent to the customer. We want to do order processing, years ago when its customers — makers of mobile phones, conengineering, and fulfillment in one region, and manufacturing in sumer electronics, and medical equipment — began asking the another,” Rumsey says. “But, to do that, they all have to be on the company to set up shop in places like Quanzhou, China; Chennai, same integrated platform and use the same nomenclature.” India; and Reynosa, Mexico. Customers wanted Laird, a maker of So, in 2005, Laird decided to get all of its global operations on antenna, electromagnetic interference shielding, and other comthe same page by deploying common ERP platforms that could ponents, to be close at hand so that it could respond quickly to support consistent business processes. The company also dechanges in supply and design requirements. cided to create common data definitions that could be used to “It is absolutely demanded in our markets that we be very give executives and line-of-business workers accurate, real-time close to [customer] locations,” says Todd Rumsey, vice president visibility into the company’s global operations. and CIO at Laird. “This drove us to a strategy where we have to Selecting the common system platform was the easy part. First have a very extensive global design presence, customer service Todd Rumsey Laird considered and rejected using a data warehouse to pull presence, and manufacturing footprint.” together information from its various, globally deployed systems. The reason: To support that strategy, privately owned Laird in 2004 launched an aggresMaintaining the data feeds from Laird’s ERP systems to the data warehouse sive acquisition drive, buying up small and not-so-small manufacturing concerns would have been too demanding, particularly as Laird’s business continued to mostly outside the United States. For a period spanning 2005 and 2006, Laird evolve and grow. Better to get all plants globally on the same ERP platform. was making acquisitions at the rate of one per month. Between April 2004 and Rumsey’s team next considered what systems Laird already had installed, and early 2008, the company grew to more than $1 billion in revenue from $200 then narrowed those platforms to those for which vendors could deliver relimillion. Laird now has operations in 15 countries around the world. able global support. From that short list, Laird ended up selecting QAD Inc.’s All of that global growth, however, took a toll. With so many newly acquired MFG Pro ERP system for global deployment after QAD demonstrated that it plants, Laird lacked common business processes, data definitions, and systems. could support Laird’s make-to-order business processes. At one point, the company was operating 13 different ERP systems. The more challenging part, Rumsey says, was deciding on the common data Moreover, its plants around the globe used different nomenclatures for Buying into Globalization W The same holds for just-in-time programs where we’re now moving in with, let’s say, truckload deliveries rather than rail deliveries because rail deliveries tend to be more variable and longer. It may well be that there are some [materials] that are going to make more sense on rail when energy costs get high. Now, that means just-in-time programs where we don’t carry any inventory may not make sense for some materials and some items. So, companies have to revisit some of that. Some of these impacts of globalization, such as transportation, have not only financial costs, but also costs in terms of sustainability and the environment. To what extent are you seeing organizations factor sustainability questions into their globalization strategies? start to see things in a different light. If companies began to focus on making sure their supply chain is as green as possible, it may change where they produce product and how much transportation they have. Interestingly, when you see what I’ll describe as the upcoming Wal-Mart phenomenon, where they’re asking for disclosure of energy consumption in certain product categories, I think those things are going to heighten the awareness of this. So I think we’re on the front end of the wave. There aren’t many companies today that I’m visiting that don’t have this issue on their top five list; some view it as something they’ve just got to manage, but others are viewing it much more strategically. HANLEY: Well, I think we’re on the front end of a wave, and there are a number of things that are creating this wave. Most of folks’ focus here today has been on “What’s your lowest cost of your supply chain?” But if you put a green screen on that, which is what some companies are beginning to do, you DADMUN: I think what a lot of folks are starting to figure out is that you can harvest cost savings and, at the same time, have a green supply chain. I think what people are starting to uncover, as they look at the greening of the supply chain, is there is money to be had. For example, we recycle things that we never recycled before. In doing that, it leads to product innovation around new product introduction on how to do it better. It actually brings costs ma June 28 2008 Photo courtesy: Laird

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation - June 2008

Managing Automation - June 2008 Contents Take 1 SAP Cites Functionality, Cost Structure in Modified On-Demand Product Rollout Dassault Exec Predicts More PLM Consolidation The Blackberry Goes Native with SAP CRM QAD Brings MDM In-House with FullTilt Buy Power Experts Look to End Voltage Sags The Progressive Manufacturers Notes Cover Story: Playing the Globalization Game to Win Special Report Integration Transformation Industries Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - June 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.