Intelligent Manufacturing € February € 1996 € Vol. 2
€ No. 2
Managing the Electronic Supply Chain
Technology Solutions Co. (Chicago, Ill.), a provider of
systems integration services, has launched a strategy designed to
incorporate two of the most overused and least understood buzzword
concepts of the 1990s: supply chain management and the Internet.
TSC's plan is to provide electronic commerce capabilities to
manufacturers and other organizations heavily reliant on tracking the
flow of products through numerous channels.
Electronic commerce is the marriage of technologies, applications,
processes, and business strategies that fosters the efficient
exchange of information between organizations, improves the way
companies market and sell products and services, and reduces the cost
of doing business. Electronic commerce includes bar coding and EDI
(electronic data interchange) applications, advanced messaging and
Internet services as well as interactive commerce initiatives.
In managing the electronic supply chain, the goal is to help
companies maximize the benefits of supply chain management
applications, including efficient consumer response, vendor-managed
inventory, category management, procurement, order processing, and
other logistics-related applications. TSC is working with a number of
major companies, such as pulp and paper distributors, computer
companies, financial services organizations and clothing apparel
manufacturers.
Gruppo GFT, an Italian apparel manufacturer, used the electronic
supply chain concept "to assist in the development of a long-term
vision to support all aspects of merchandise distribution
technology," explained Rick Garvin, Gruppo's vice president and chief
information officer. Similarly, Georgia-Pacific Corp. (Atlanta, Ga.),
a manufacturer of pulp, paper and packaging products, redefined its
bar coding and EDI efforts in order to improve key relationships with
its suppliers. The company also created a long-term EDI plan to
support new applications.
"Our research partners indicate that the electronic commerce market,
with the supporting technologies and applications, is growing very
rapidly," said James Carluccio, TSC's executive vice president. To
that end, the company sees a strategic advantage for its customers in
gaining access to the electronic marketplace and the latest
technology to support electronic catalogs, intercompany e-mail,
Internet, interactive video, electronic banking, and virtual
corporation applications. Those manufacturers who are able to use the
Internet as an access point for customer service will gain a
strategic leg up on their competitors.
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