Eliminate Black Holes in Contract Manufacturing: TraceLink Launches Predictable Supply Suite
06-Apr-2010Woburn, MA (PRWEB) April 6, 2010 – Supply chain and contract manufacturing teams finally have the tools they need to control production and optimize outsource manufacturing with the launch of the TraceLink Predictable Supply Suite™, a software solution that revolutionizes supply chain management just like Salesforce.com transformed CRM. Developed to empower virtual production teams, the solution accelerates outsourced production and improves production lifecycle visibility by creating a secure business cloud that connects business process modules for Production Tracking, Inventory Monitoring and Quality Review to a collaborative team workspace created and managed by the business users themselves.
The TraceLink approach enables business users to establish virtual teams, select business processes and connect with their supply chain partners within minutes after registering on the site. Teams can create a business cloud to coordinate production across dozens of manufacturing projects and products or to handle one-off production runs on an as-needed basis. Selectively improve your manufacturing performance with the Tier-1 partners or drive collaboration with long-tail suppliers that have been virtually impossible to connect with. Manage the overall production lifecycle with Production Tracking and augment with Material Tracking and other capabilities as needed. Share production documents, ad-hoc notes and other artifacts as team members need them and drill into exceptions and milestones to view and manage underlying issues. Why ask for permission and wait years to transform your contract manufacturing visibility? Now you can do it yourself!
The TraceLink Predictable Supply Suite creates visibility across the entire production lifecycle from purchase order and production forecast to final product delivery that will forever banish supply chain black holes and bring a new level of predictability to outsourced manufacturing. External supply management teams can expect immediate benefit with their very first use with a contract partner.
- Right-First-Time predictability and scalability of outsourced manufacturing production. Improve decision-making, production performance and business agility with integrated cross-partner, cross-site and individual project visibility into production status, upcoming milestones and potential roadblocks to on-time delivery.
- On-time product delivery and reduced operational cost throughout the production lifecycle. Reduce purchase order negotiation time, take delays out of the manufacturing process and order-to-cash cycle, ensure raw material availability and eliminate manual labor in production status and operational reporting.
- Reduce inventory and safety stock levels. Support lean initiatives by improving inventory visibility across the external supply network, tightening production plans and execution schedules, and identifying potential production delays before they impact delivery dates.
- Improve corporate competitiveness and business agility. React faster to demand changes and material resource availability by simplifying connectivity with even long-tail supply partners, establishing and dissolving collaborative clouds with remote teams as needed and driving new levels of joint business collaboration with suppliers, contract partners and customers.
- Enhance corporate strategy and planning. Drive better sales and operations planning by applying deep insight on external supply network operational performance and monitoring individual partner and production project performance against established KPIs.
“By working with supply chain leaders and project teams, we recognized that eliminating the black-holes required developing a new innovative approach” said Shabbir Dahod, president and chief executive officer of TraceLink. “We used design principles from Salesforce.com, LinkedIn, Google as well as Twitter, and merged them with our in-depth knowledge of supply chain business processes to create a revolutionary solution for executing any business process with any partner at any time.”
“Our interviews also revealed that the ability to exchange information is of primary importance to manufacturers in their contract manufacturing relationships.” noted Hussain Mooraj, vice president and head of research at AMR Research (recently acquired by Gartner, Inc.) in a January 2010 report entitled Deriving Maximum Value From Contract Manufacturing Relationships. “However, the current ability of ERP systems to do so is very much in question. Furthermore, contract manufacturing organizations generally don’t have an advanced or standardized IT infrastructure for the brand owners to tap into for information such as batch release data or quality specifications.”
The Predictable Supply Suite is available immediately online via a flexible subscription model which makes these supply management solutions accessible and cost effective for individual teams, departments, divisions and entire corporations. In addition, signing up for FREE PILOTS of TraceLink solutions is quick and easy through the TraceLink website.
For additional information on the subject of this release, contact Brian Daleiden.
About TraceLink:
TraceLink helps companies create a predictable supply network by providing them with software solutions that enable execution of any business process with any partner at any time in a secure business cloud. Using our integrated team collaboration platform and instrumented business process modules, brand owners, material suppliers and contract partners can establish an inter-company business process web that enhances the performance, quality, and timeliness of their global manufacturing and supply network operations. With visibility across the production lifecycle, companies increase control of manufacturing and distribution operations, improve operational performance and reduce production scheduling risk.
TraceLink is funded by FirstMark Capital, a venture capital firm managing more than $2 billion in capital commitments. For more information on TraceLink and our solutions, visit www.tracelink.com.
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