Mid-May was a busy time for Ultriva. In addition to connecting with our users at our annual Customer Conference, we were an exhibitor at NetSuite’s SuiteWorld 2014. SuiteWorld is Netsuite’s annual user conference for customers, partners, media, and industry analysts in San Jose, California. 

All of Ultriva is excited that we will be exhibiting at SuiteWorld 2014 in San Jose, California from May 12-15, 2014. The SuiteWorld Conference is expected to attract more than 6,000 NetSuite customers, partners, and developers from around the world. SuiteWorld is NetSuite’s largest user conference and Ultriva representatives will be showcasing their supply chain management solution which will complement NetSuite Cloud ERP. Attendees can visit Ultriva at booth #818.

Ultriva’s Lean Suite provides a collaborative platform for manufacturers to establish Electronic Kanban with their customers and suppliers. All the Ultriva modules – Inventory Optimization Tool (IOT), Customer Kanban, Supplier Kanban and Lean Factory Management, will exchange data seamlessly with NetSuite ERP.

Ultriva will feature a live demonstration of the Ultriva Inventory Optimization Tool with direct connectivity to NetSuite. This demonstration illustrates precisely how Ultriva extracts historical data from NetSuite and simulates potential inventory savings.

Often overlooked in lean manufacturing initiatives is the supply chain; in particular supplier replenishment. Global multi-national manufacturers can use supplier replenishment as the ultimate tool in lean manufacturing best-practices. 

The First Requirement for E2E

Last week, I wrote a blog highlighting the clear need for a cloud-based SaaS solution to establish the “End to End Pull” process across manufacturing companies (or E2E pull process or just E2E). In that blog, eight basic requirements for developing an E2E pull model were listed. 

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT), (www.gartner.com), the world's leading information technology research and advisory company, has made a compelling case as to why manufacturers should integrate with the demand side to streamline their supply chain. They call this process as “End to End Pull (E2E)” replenishment. This is clearly a paradigm shift compared to the constant focus on improving the planning or forecasts using better and superior algorithms. 

Lean in its purest form is removal of waste. In today’s world, manufacturing is becoming more competitive than ever with shorter lead times, higher service levels, exploding number of finished goods SKUs, and thinning margins. Over the last twenty years, the focus of lean in manufacturing was concentrated on streamlining the factory floor, aligning of production lines, optimization of space, and standardizing of operating procedures.

As director of engineering at Ultriva, I constantly see new requests for our Supply Chain Management Software. Clients ask how is the best way to accommodate the business rules for shipments and scheduling. I love getting these requests because we can accommodate the customer without writing custom programs. Let me explain.

As part of my marketing job with Ultriva, I get to peruse the headlines for manufacturing news. I happened to notice the roster of Manufacturing Day 2013 sponsors recently added four more key support organizations. The Precision Metalforming Association (PMA) and the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) are both joining, along with Women in Manufacturing (WIM) and the Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA). That is great news for the backers of Manufacturing Day, now in its second year.

Late last week, the Manufacturing & Technology eJournal report the following headline: American Women Vote Trane as Best Air Conditioning and Heating Brand for the Home.  This was the second consecutive Women's Choice Award Seal of Recommendation that Trane, a leading global provider of indoor comfort systems and solutions and a brand of Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR), was awarded. In a national survey among more than 5,000 women who were asked to select the brands they would most highly recommend to others, and Trane came out on top.

Kanban is at the core of many solutions, including Ultriva.  That tells only a small part of the story which is about solutions that enhance the process and automates them across the value chain.  Beyond kanban is an execution platform which sets up the pull process from the point of consumption to point of production.  It means scheduling the production based on actual demand, real orders or pull signals.