Blog Entries: Multi-tier supply chain

Segmented consensus

Rich Becks, General Manager, High Technology, E2open - Thursday, April 26, 2012 - 0 Comments

Why have we come so far so fast? With the rise of globalization and outsourcing, it has become increasingly difficult for single supply-chain companies to meet the requirements of all their major customers. Complexity and interdependence are unavoidable realities for modern supply chains, and adapting supply chain processes to meet these new realities is crucial for survival. More »
Collaborative execution: Innovation and growth, not just grinding margins

Sean Rollings, Vice President, Product Marketing, E2open - Friday, April 06, 2012 - 0 Comments

Collaboration between trading partners is not a new concept. However, as technology has become more sophisticated, the way suppliers and OEMs communicate and work together has started to change rather dramatically. Companies who’ve mastered the technique of learning-by-doing at scale have accelerated organizational learning. More »
The sun never sets on today’s BOM

Edward Toung, Vice President, Asia Pacific, E2open - Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 0 Comments

A bill of materials (BOM) used to be a simple thing. A BOM is a list of the parts or components required to build a product. It provides the manufacturer’s part number (MPN) and the quantity needed for each component. At its most complex, a BOM is a multi-level document that provides build data for multiple sub-assemblies (products within products) and includes for each item the part number, approved manufacturers list (AML), mechanical characteristics, and a range of component descriptors... More »
Don’t believe the hype! The truth about supply chain control towers

Sean Rollings, Vice President, Product Marketing, E2open - Thursday, March 08, 2012 - 0 Comments

There are a lot of people talking about supply chain control towers lately – but what’s all the hype? And are we all talking about the same thing to begin with? Probably not. It’s easy enough to slap a “control tower” label on a piece of software, but actually delivering a more agile, intelligent control structure is quite a different feat. More »
Re-thinking supply chain risk and resiliency

Rich Becks, General Manager, High Technology, E2open - Friday, March 02, 2012 - 0 Comments

In the last decade, supply chain visionaries have promoted outsourced manufacturing, vendor managed inventory (VMI), and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) to handle everything from procurement and materials handling to manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing. And while the projected cost savings were compelling, many businesses worried that sacrificing control of these critical operations would introduce a number of business risks—specifically, would outsourced vendors act in their own self interest, as opposed to supporting the needs of the end consumers? More »
Supply chain is now a top 10 priority for CIOs. It’s about time.

Dave Hale, Chief Information Officer, E2open - Friday, February 17, 2012 - 0 Comments

The Japanese tsunami and the flooding in Thailand last year were wake-up calls for many companies, forcing them to see the need for serious investments in better collaborative execution tools. More »
Tier 1 is just the tip of the iceberg

Phil Kaminsky, Department Chair, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, University of California, Berkeley - Friday, February 10, 2012 - 0 Comments

More and more, we're seeing supply chain technologies and capabilities that we were only able to "theorize" about a few years back. The ability to see and exchange information across multiple tiers of the trading network is one of these game-changing advancements. For industry-leading manufacturers and brand owners, tier-1 suppliers are just the tip of iceberg. More »
Multi-tier cost management: Defying the uncertainty principle?

Sean Rollings, Vice President, Product Marketing, E2open - Wednesday, February 01, 2012 - 0 Comments

I had coffee a while back with a customer from a high-tech manufacturing company. He told me how incredibly challenging it is to try to keep up with all the moving parts in his trading network. He rattled off an impressive number of SKUs, assemblies per finished item, components in the assemblies, and so on. As my eyes glazed over trying to do the math, he said to me... More »
What’s really the cheapest shore? Why nearshore, and how do you decide?

Andrew Atkinson, Director, Product Marketing, E2open - Friday, January 27, 2012 - 0 Comments

In a recent report, Gartner projected that by 2014, "20 percent of Asia-produced and U.S.-consumed goods will be nearshored in the Americas." This nearshoring shift will be part of a more general move from low-cost country sourcing strategies to optimized-cost country strategies. What does this really mean? More »
Bridging the gap between profitability and social responsibility

Rich Becks, General Manager, High Technology, E2open - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - 0 Comments

Apple controls one of the world’s top supply chains, which has been shrouded in secrecy for years—until now. The beloved consumer electronics company recently revealed the name of 156 companies that represent 97 percent of its supply chain. This is an unusual move for an industry that relies heavily on foreign component suppliers to drive margins, especially for Apple, a notoriously secretive company. More »