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March 04, 2010

Invigorating the topline of Hi Tech enterprises through a streamlined and efficient Demand to Deliver Value Chain

Most of the Hi Tech Manufacturing organization are reeling under tremendous margins pressure due to flat to modest growth in the topline and ever increasing costs. In this tough environment its absolutely imperative for organizations to capitalize on whatever sales opportunities are presented to them. At the same time they also need to be very aggressive in scouting of new avenues for revenue growth, so that their toplines are positively impacted.

A streamlined, efficiently run Demand to Delivery Value Chain is the key to this objective and this in turn calls for a best of breed, cutting edge, integrated, Enterprise wide solution/application to support the execution of this value chain.

Continue reading "Invigorating the topline of Hi Tech enterprises through a streamlined and efficient Demand to Deliver Value Chain" »

Posted by Abhishek Goyal at 10:29 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

February 25, 2010

Demand To Deliver Value Chain for High Tech

Are the Traditional Package based IT solutions helping us bridge the gap between various departments to give an enterprise level view?

Continue reading "Demand To Deliver Value Chain for High Tech" »

Posted by Abhishek Sabharwal at 09:46 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 02, 2009

Are you getting the most out of your investment in PLM and ERP?

Core ERP products are typically not geared towards the design and lifecycle management of products. ERP is very transaction oriented whereas design requires 3D drawings, specifications and other such unstructured data. As a result, customers are increasingly making investments in best-of-breed PLM products in addition to their ERP investment. The objective, of course, is to reduce development lifecycle and improve the time to market for new products.

 

Continue reading "Are you getting the most out of your investment in PLM and ERP?" »

Posted by Gaurav Yadav at 12:26 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

September 30, 2009

Feasibility of "KPO" Outsourcing of High Value Added Manufacturing Processes in Hi-Tech Companies

Knowledge process outsourcing(KPO) may be defined as outsourcing of  high added value process  where the achievement of objectives is dependent on the skills, domain knowledge and experience of the people carrying out the activity. It is being claimed that KPO is one step extension of BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) which is outsourcing of low value added services to a partner company.

Is it possible for a Hi-Tech company to outsource high value added and critical processes like Design, manufacture of critical components, etc. to global outsourced partners to achieve business benefits? Let's look at what are pre requisites for this and the pros and cons of this and evaluate.

Continue reading "Feasibility of "KPO" Outsourcing of High Value Added Manufacturing Processes in Hi-Tech Companies" »

Posted by K N Harilal at 09:36 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

September 18, 2009

Innovation through Outsourcing in HiTech Companies..Is it Achievable?

In recent times Hi-Tech companies have increasingly looking to outsource substantial portion of their manufacturing to vendors in developing nations like India, China, ec. to uncover substantial reduction in costs. This outsourcing  helps the companies to improve competitiveness and profitability and to some extent even helps in making the Hi-Tech companies operations viable in the marketplace.

Continue reading "Innovation through Outsourcing in HiTech Companies..Is it Achievable?" »

Posted by K N Harilal at 09:30 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

August 27, 2009

Green Design – A Means to reduce Product Development Costs?

It is seen that for High Technology companies’ compliance to green related regulations required for market entry is the top pressure driving green product development. Most of the High Technology manufacturers have a green product development initiative in place, even more than other industries. They also seem to brand energy efficient technology as one of their top marketing strategies
It is clear, that while today High Technology manufacturers are focused on compliance to regulations like RoHS, REACH, WEE, TSCA, etc. they must look ahead and add cost reduction strategies around green design in their efforts in order to capture and sustain competitive advantage.

But doesn’t too much focus on compliance lead to increasing product development costs and affect their sustainability in the marketplace?? Let us see how successful High Technology manufacturers address this.

Continue reading "Green Design – A Means to reduce Product Development Costs?" »

Posted by K N Harilal at 07:53 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

August 12, 2009

An Introduction to Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center (MOC)

Does your manufacturing intelligence system support proactive monitoring for quick decision support? Lots of data gets collected on your shop-floor – but how should it be organized to assess the performance of a machine, a line, a plant, or a fleet of plants? What will it take you to make the process more a science than an art? Oracle has launched a new product - Manufacturing Operations Center - to answer some of these questions.

Continue reading "An Introduction to Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center (MOC)" »

Posted by Deepak Wankhade at 06:43 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 20, 2009

Planning Roundtrip Multi-Stop Delivery Routes in OTM

Improving logistics performance still remains a challenge for many firms, even those that have achieved better planning and optimization from implementing well structured TMS applications available in the market.

Continue reading "Planning Roundtrip Multi-Stop Delivery Routes in OTM" »

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 05:50 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 10, 2009

Making Parcel Shipments work in OTM

In the last decade, the emergence of e-commerce coupled with the rise in smaller and more frequent orders has made parcel shipping operations one of the key functions of transportation management.

Continue reading "Making Parcel Shipments work in OTM" »

Posted by Nilabja Dey at 08:09 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 08, 2009

The Enigma of the Global Supplier Hub

Typically the way the High Tech industry operates is through the extensive use of Contract Manufacturers. These Contract Manufacturers or Manufacturing Partners as they are frequently referred to as, manufacture and test the products based on the design and specifications provided by the parent company. The Manufacturing Partners procure the components from their suppliers who are typically known as Component Partners.

 

Continue reading "The Enigma of the Global Supplier Hub" »

Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 11:25 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 23, 2009

MDM Best Practices – The first steps

Further to my earlier post on managing expectation from MDM implementation – we will discuss on some of the best practices for Master Data Management (MDM).

A company decide on going for a MDM program - what are the first steps to be taken to ensure a successful implementation of the program.

Continue reading "MDM Best Practices – The first steps" »

Posted by Krithivasan S at 08:52 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 18, 2009

CDH/UCM -Competitors, Yet same Vendor!!!

The market leader in database strongly focuses on Customer Data Hubs. Why? Oracle is going to use Customer Data hubs to increase its sales of Oracle CRM and ERP in SMB sectors. Read the blog to know more on the competitors in Customer Data Hubs in the market.

Today, enterprises need a single system of reference to consolidate the duplicate records lying in disparate systems to provide a global view of customer data. To facilitate this, Oracle provides out-of-the-box functionality to integrate with E-Business suite of Applications through its homegrown product - Oracle Customer Data Hub.

Continue reading "CDH/UCM -Competitors, Yet same Vendor!!!" »

Posted by Aruna Srikanth at 11:22 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 17, 2009

Speed to Market - Using historical data

The other aspect of successful design is effective usage of historical data. Recall the fact that only 30% of new products launched succeed. Effort that would have gone into the other 70% of the failed product will prove useful in the new initiative.

Continue reading "Speed to Market - Using historical data" »

Posted by Krithivasan S at 10:21 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 16, 2009

Detail Design phase - Speed to Market Strategy

Continuing  the series of  previous posts on Speed to market started at:
 
 

Continue reading "Detail Design phase - Speed to Market Strategy" »

Posted by Krithivasan S at 10:47 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 13, 2009

Speed-to-Market - Get it Right for your Business

The first step in launching a new product is designing one. With available tools, once product design is frozen, manufacturing and launching  can be managed effectively. The time taken to freeze the design is highly unpredictable. From my previous post, we will discuss on collaborative design and effectively using the historical data.

Continue reading "Speed-to-Market - Get it Right for your Business" »

Posted by Krithivasan S at 10:23 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 06, 2009

Is my CAD vendor the natural choice for PLM?

 As a head of Product Engineering team, you finally convinced the management for a PLM tool for your organization. The next big question will be which tool should you implement? All CAD vendors have PLM tools & few ERP vendors also offer PLM as a module. 

Continue reading "Is my CAD vendor the natural choice for PLM?" »

Posted by Krithivasan S at 06:36 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

January 30, 2009

Should Hi-Tech Manufacturers increase outsourcing in these times of recession?

Let us examine the business drivers of a typical Hi-Tech manufacturer. Hi-Tech manufacturers are driven by the main factors of innovation and new product innovation, which are becoming increasingly evident now in the times of global recession. The Hi-Tech industry is characterized by declining product life cycles, falling prices which have an impact on any investments by these companies into any new machinery or new manufacturing technologies. Outsourcing provides the answer in such circumstances enabling these companies to push such risks on to their outsourcing partner.

Continue reading "Should Hi-Tech Manufacturers increase outsourcing in these times of recession?" »

Posted by K N Harilal at 08:02 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

December 18, 2008

Reuse and Recycle of WEEE (Wastage of Electrical and Electronics Equipment) – Optional or Mandatory?

The Directive on WEEE (Wastage of Electrical and Electronics Equipment) in EU notes that the content of hazardous components in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) is a major concern during the waste management phase and recycling of WEEE is not undertaken to a sufficient extent. The WEEE directive places the responsibility of end of life (EOL) disposal responsibility of the products on the manufacturers either individually or by joining a collective scheme. This implies that the cost of disposal of the product and the harmful substances that it contains squarely lies on the manufacturer.  The EU Commission has set new targets for recovery and reuse/recycling by 31-Dec-2008 for all EU countries.

Continue reading "Reuse and Recycle of WEEE (Wastage of Electrical and Electronics Equipment) – Optional or Mandatory?" »

Posted by K N Harilal at 09:07 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 12, 2008

Importance of Outsourcing to provide flexibility to Hi-Tech Manufacturers

Today’s global environment has placed increased pressure on Hi-Tech manufacturers to become more competitive and profitable. Global outsourcing activities have increased in importance and have increasingly emerged as a key strategic tool in achieving cost reduction, quality and delivery improvement, cycle time reduction, and improved responsiveness to customer, competitive, and financial market demands. It is estimated that a well planned and executed global outsourcing strategy can result in a cost savings differential of 15 to 25 percent when compared to manufacturing inhouse.

Using external suppliers to design, manufacture, ship and service products or components  - has been a growing trend in recent years as Hi-Tech manufacturers have sought, among other things, to divest themselves of production capacity (and the inherent risks associated with owning capital equipment), lower their labor costs and maintain greater flexibility in the face of ever-shrinking product lifecycles.

 

Continue reading "Importance of Outsourcing to provide flexibility to Hi-Tech Manufacturers" »

Posted by K N Harilal at 08:17 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

December 10, 2008

Need for expansion of Product Life cycle Management (PLM) beyond engineering to users across the company and its extended enterprise

Engineering and design occupies an important role in most Hi-Tech companies due to mounting business pressure on R&D and product development functions. This is due to increasing demand for innovative feature-rich products accompanied by shrinking product life cycles and decreasing prices for the improved products. Thus there is a need for the PLM software to collaborate and communicate with a wide range of users beyond the Engineering department within and outside the company.

Continue reading "Need for expansion of Product Life cycle Management (PLM) beyond engineering to users across the company and its extended enterprise" »

Posted by K N Harilal at 05:35 AM | | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

December 09, 2008

Regulatory compliance for Hi-Tech Manufacturers is mandatory - non-compliance stakes are high

From 2001, the shadow of WEEE Directive (Waste Electrical and Electronics Equipment) and RoHS Directive (Restriction on Hazardous Substances) had begun looming over the world electronics manufacturing industry. By 2007, most EU Member States had implemented WEEE and the deadline for RoHS was achieved in July 2006. Other countries are now building their environment compliance approaches similar to the EU directives, e.g. some states in the USA, Korea, etc have put in place their own regulations. China, Chile, Brazil and Columbia also now have some environment management Directives in place. Japanese laws had been in place even earlier and many Japanese companies are well ahead in implementing cleaner technologies and in greening their supply chain. While the larger companies in most countries have started their compliance measures, most small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) including those in Korea and Taiwan have fallen behind.

Continue reading "Regulatory compliance for Hi-Tech Manufacturers is mandatory - non-compliance stakes are high" »

Posted by K N Harilal at 07:43 AM | | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

November 23, 2008

Business Intelligence and the Economic Gloom: A Perspective

With the economic meltdown of the financial world and a severe downturn and meltdown in the Automobile and Retail sectors we are possibly headed for tough times ahead.

With the global economy being so intertwined there is no sector or industry vertical that is immune to this crisis.

Continue reading "Business Intelligence and the Economic Gloom: A Perspective" »

Posted by Somnath Mukherjee at 04:51 PM | | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

November 05, 2008

High Tech Reverse Logistics: A Potential Cost Cutting Avenue

To put in simple terms, Reverse Logistics is the flow of Returned goods by the customer to a state where the product is disposed of, repaired, recycled or internally consumed. And because of the strict norms pertaining to disposition of goods in the high tech sector, this is a very strategic area.

Continue reading "High Tech Reverse Logistics: A Potential Cost Cutting Avenue" »

Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 09:38 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

October 22, 2008

High Tech Industry’s Sourcing Value Proposition: Reverse Auction

With the current slowdown being accelerated by the financial turmoil, companies are increasingly looking at avenues to cut costs yet maintain profitability against all odds. This is a tricky situation given the fact that any decision leads to a bullwhip effect owing to the integrated nature of today’s supply chain. One of the time tested techniques to achieve this is through Reverse Auctions which is quite prevalent in the High Tech industry.

Continue reading "High Tech Industry’s Sourcing Value Proposition: Reverse Auction" »

Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 08:53 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

August 31, 2008

High Tech Industry: A State of Flux

Moore's law describes an important trend in the history of computer hardware: that the number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit is increasing exponentially, doubling approximately every two years. The trend has continued for more than half a century and is not expected to stop for another decade at least and perhaps much longer. This alone is a testimony to the fact how the high tech industry is changing at a rapid pace. And companies seem to be in a state of shock trying to cope with this change. Rising costs, shrinking markets seem to add further to their woes.

 

Continue reading "High Tech Industry: A State of Flux" »

Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 07:00 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

August 13, 2008

Improving Package Implementations Estimates using Package Points

Today, ERP is used more to drive business improvements & operational efficiencies and hence, any delays or budget over-runs could impact the business. However, most independent surveys and studies indicate that about 55 percent of ERP Implementation projects incur budget overruns. According to Standish Group, a research firm, the average IT project runs over budget by about 43 percent. Among the litany of reasons quoted (such as excessive focus on technology at the expense of business processes, communication shortfalls, project management and operational issues) estimation & bad planning rank high in the list.

Continue reading "Improving Package Implementations Estimates using Package Points" »

Posted by Manikandan Munikrishnan at 10:08 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

August 10, 2008

Thinking of R12? Go for an Enhanced Upgrade

Call it the bane or boon of an ERP system, companies do not have a choice but to upgrade to a higher version. There are various factors which drive the decision to upgrade namely de-support of the current system by the ERP vendor, availability of new features in higher version which have the potential to give a strategic edge. Typically companies choose the upgrade path to avoid the de-support problem and hence what it finally does is a pure as-is technical upgrade. This has multiple benefits in the sense that it is least risky and also can be done in a shorter timeframe. But once in a while it makes sense to have a look at the new features which can bring efficiencies in the process.

 

Continue reading "Thinking of R12? Go for an Enhanced Upgrade" »

Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 05:38 AM | | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

August 08, 2008

Hi-Tech Trash: Have our e-dumps become safer?

Scientific American featured a thought provoking article in November 2007 titled--Trashed Tech: Where Do Old Cell Phones, TVs and PCs Go to Die? The enormity of the problem of electronic waste and the urgent need for producing toxin free electronic components could not have been discussed better. I had a serious conscience attack about replacing my old cell phone after reading the article!!

Continue reading "Hi-Tech Trash: Have our e-dumps become safer?" »

Posted by Padmini Ramakrishna Talagavaram at 10:40 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

August 04, 2008

High Tech Sector’s Label Printing Needs: Are we there?

 

If there is one thing which we can call as the livewire of the High Tech Sector is Labels. The entire high tech industry moves on labels. In Standard ERP Packages there are certain limitations in terms of volume of labels, performance and quality of bar code labels. As a result, typically companies have looked at other middleware options as a plug and play with the ERP Packages. Latest offerings from the ERP vendors seem to address this problem removing the need for middleware.

 

Continue reading "High Tech Sector’s Label Printing Needs: Are we there?" »

Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 06:32 PM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

July 31, 2008

What is the Right Product Structure for the High Tech Sector?

To give a text bookish definition, Product structure is a hierarchical decomposition of a product, typically know as the BOM (Bills of Material). The High Tech Sector typically has a Model BOM with Option Classes and Options. With so many variants offered by competitors, the industry has no other way but to offer a better customer experience to garner market share. And one way of offering a better customer experience is to give as many choices as possible to the customer to choose from. For example, giving various ranges of RAM to the customer to choose from gives a feeling of contentment to the customer.

 

Continue reading "What is the Right Product Structure for the High Tech Sector?" »

Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 06:45 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 21, 2008

High Tech Industry’s Logistics Woes: Oracle Transportation Management may be the answer

Gone is the era when customers would queue to your factory gate to buy the goods produced by you. Remember Bajaj scooter in the 80s when we had a waiting time of up to 10 years. Not any more. With breakthrough advancement in science and technology, we are in a situation where the market place is cluttered with supply surpassing demand. More so in the high tech sector where changes happen in split seconds. Given the current situation, the winner is surely the one who will be able to provide a better buying experience to the customer and yet charge reasonably for providing the service. This includes both choice of products and/or services and delivering it to the customer at a reasonable price.

 

Continue reading "High Tech Industry’s Logistics Woes: Oracle Transportation Management may be the answer" »

Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 10:59 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

July 19, 2008

Collaboration: The way forward for High Tech Industry

In his classic best-seller ‘The Goal’, Eliyahu M. Goldratt discusses about the three fundamental ways of making money for a going concern namely,

  1. Increase throughput (the rate at which the system generates money through sales)  
  2. Reduce Inventory (all the money that system has invested in purchasing things which it intends to sells)
  3. Reduce Operational expenses (all the money the system spends in order to turn inventory into throughput)

     

Continue reading "Collaboration: The way forward for High Tech Industry" »

Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 06:05 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

July 11, 2008

Upgrading to Oracle R12? Keep Fusion in mind

R12 is a milestone in Journey to Fusion

Oracle’s E-Business Suite Release 12 is Oracle’s latest version of their business applications with an upgrade path to Oracle Fusion Application. The technology stack is upgraded to Fusion Middleware, the backbone of Fusion Applications.

Continue reading "Upgrading to Oracle R12? Keep Fusion in mind" »

Posted by Malay Kumar at 03:03 PM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

May 26, 2008

SCRUM Methodology: Does the Twenty-Twenty Version of the Waterfall Model Work?

The last month and a half has been exciting! The ardent cricket fan in me has been treated to some rapid fire cricket through the Indian Premier League 20:20 extravaganza. Round about the same time, my project team also started rapid application development using SCRUM, a methodology I would call the 20:20 version of the waterfall model of software development. Interestingly, the word SCRUM also has its origins from the sport of rugby where a “scrum” is a group of people responsible for picking up the ball and moving it forward.

Continue reading "SCRUM Methodology: Does the Twenty-Twenty Version of the Waterfall Model Work?" »

Posted by Padmini Ramakrishna Talagavaram at 11:29 AM | | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)