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Kanban Proves Effective Lean Manufacturing Supply Chain in KPMG Survey
Dave Becker is vice president of sales and marketing at All Flex Flexible Circuits noted recently, KPMG, an international consultancy that operates as a network of member firms offering audit, tax and advisory services, came out with their 6th annual survey of manufacturing executives focusing on global manufacturing trends. A total of 385 senior executives were polled in a variety of industries including medical device, aerospace, automotive, defense, and industrial. Respondents' geographic locations were equally distributed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.
Some of the high level conclusions of the report were discussed including:
- A constantly changing environment with shifting demands and competition is causing manufacturers to rethink their business models and long-term growth plans.
- Manufacturers are focusing investments on fewer competencies and will rely on new partners to drive new ideas and efficiencies.
- Manufacturers will need to continue to focus on agility and integrating their supply chain strategies that are more demand driven and transparent.
- The pace of innovation will continue to accelerate, driving new product development, automation, and manufacturing processes.
- Some of the underlying implications are that manufacturers will strive for more flexibility by focusing on fewer core competencies and rely on tech savvy suppliers for more innovation, support, and technology. This implies a much higher level collaboration and visibility between manufacturer and supplier. Suppliers and manufacturers must work together to "drive out" supply chain wastes, redundancies, and delays.
Implementation of Lean manufacturing techniques has successfully been adopted for both printed circuit fabrication and assembly. Managing bottlenecks through kanban signals and theory of constraint principles helps reduce work-in-process inventory and increases velocity through the factory. Learn more: bit.ly/1FVIaAW
Supplier Portals and ERP Integration for Automating Material Flow Across the Value Chain
Supplier portal software solutions for automating material flow processes across the value chain must remove waste through Lean principles. From Supplier Kanban, Schedule Based Replenishment (SBR), Internal Kanban, Lean Production, OEE, and Customer Kanban cost-efficiencies can be achieved. One of the key benefits of the supplier portal is that no software needs to be installed on any user's machine and the planners, buyers, material handlers, suppliers, and supply chain managers can access the application by using just a web browser to get real-time inventory status, visibility into materials, and metrics for continuous improvement. No supplier portal should be considered unless it is transacting at least US$1 billion of inventory.
ERP Integration with Supplier Portals must enable customers to manage multiple plants (with a single instance or multiple instances of enterprise resource planning (ERP)) to deliver a single view of their global supply chain. It is not just Kanban signals, but also firm or planned orders that can be communicated through this unified interface. Suppliers can get real-time Kanban and non-Kanban signals though a demand-driven supply network portal. Supply Chain professionals must capture full supply chain visibility, key performance indicators through continuous improvement metrics, real-time inventory health for elimination of stock-outs, and inventory reduction. The suppliers get the same inventory health view, including the on-hand inventory for the parts they are supplying. Learn more: bit.ly/1PrFCQM
ERP Agnostic Supplier Portal Critical to Largest Marine Electronics Company
Navico is the world's largest marine electronics company; it is the parent company to leading marine electronics brands: Lowrance, Simrad and B&G. Navico has approximately 1,500 employees globally and distribution in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Reverse Logistics Magazine reported that Navico selected Ultriva because the company was seeking a web portal solution that could seamlessly integrate into their INFOR Syteline ERP system. The web portal had to display current forecasts, orders, exceptions and item data for all material vendors. The same web portal also needed to send the same information via EDI (electronic data interchange) messages to certain vendors. The non-EDI vendors, would use the portal to receive and process forecast demand data and orders.
Navico wished to streamline their supply chain execution through a software solution that combines work flows, business rules and alerts to provide actionable information for improving buyer productivity while reducing the stock outs. Navico went through a formal RFP/RFQ process to select Ultriva as their vendor of choice. Ultriva's selection resulted through a combination of simple and intuitive user interface, ease of integration for master and transaction data sets and ability to rapidly on board global suppliers. Their ultimate goal is to extend their supply chain with a 3PL consolidation for managing Asian suppliers while reducing inventory at the plants. Learn more: bit.ly/1KoJqki
Email: ultrivasales@ultriva.com | Tel: (408) 248-9803 | Website: ultriva.com | 
