Profiles in Supply Chain Enablement: Bringing new products to market faster using a supplier extranet to manage product information across the supply chain
Company: Emerson Process Management (Marshalltown, IA)
Company Size: Large
Company Sector: Manufacturing (Process Automation)
Area(s) of Enablement: Product Lifecycle Management
Enabler: Stellent, Inc. (Eden Prairie, MN)
Case Study: Emerson Process Management is a leading global supplier of products, services and solutions that measure, analyze, control, automate and improve process-related operations. While the company has used Stellent-based supplier extranets to support a variety of product lifecycle management initiatives, the launch of its GX Control Valve serves as an example of how the company integrates these applications into its product development processes and the benefits it reaps from these deployments.
Prior to using extranets based on Stellent solutions, Emerson's supplier-related product development processes were less efficient. Engineering departments e-mailed manufacturing documents, drawings and parts specifications to each supplier, a process that became problematic as version control, workflow, archiving, document access and productivity were hindered. Moreover, Emerson emailed suppliers large attachments, which tied up internal and external networks and servers.
The Solution
To remedy this problem, Emerson leveraged Stellent's Universal Content Management solution to provide the company with a variety of functionality, including collaboration, document management and Web content management. The company used this solution to create, store, manage, collaborate on and distribute all content related to the design and launch of the GX Control Valve.
Design teams used Stellent as a Web-based common repository for requirement documents, product design specifications, competitive data and other critical information, so Emerson's internal and external teams, including suppliers, had real-time access to documents and could easily collaborate on product design. In the second stage, the team began using Stellent's document management capabilities, as well as its collaboration capabilities, to create project files that held research, calculations, test data, competitive information and more.
As the project moved forward, Emerson launched a Stellent-based extranet to provide suppliers and manufacturing partners across the globe, including Asia, with access to manufacturing and drawing information automatically replicated from Emerson's main internal document repository.
Emerson Process Management then used Stellent to create an intranet providing GX sales collateral, presentations and other necessary information to its sales teams. In addition, now that the product has been launched, customers are able to access product literature and support information through Emerson's Stellent-based customer extranet.
The Results
Today, all GX Control Valve product content for each part of its lifecycle is centrally managed with Stellent, including supplier-focused extranets that allow suppliers to access only the documentation they need to manufacture their specific parts of the valve.
This implementation — encompassing extranets, a collaborative workspace, document repository and intranet — has effectively leveraged Emerson Process Management's existing IT architecture. For example, Emerson did not have to invest in additional software or hardware to deploy GX Control Valve extranets and intranets because these items were already in place from previous Stellent initiatives.
The deployment of a supplier extranet in the product development and manufacturing process highlighted above enabled Emerson Process Management to bring the GX Control Valve to market months faster than past products. It costs less than $1,000 (i.e. internal resource time) to deploy a supplier extranet at Emerson Process Management, and it takes approximately one week to implement the supplier extranet. Payback is speed of information delivery. Instead of taking weeks to get information to vendors, it's now instantaneous.
The cost to manage information with Stellent technology is 1/20th of the cost it would take to manage the same information in a manual environment. Emerson estimates the exact payback is four weeks per supplier extranet, with estimated savings of $20,000 per year per supplier using Stellent Universal Content Management to power secure extranets, like the one used in the GX Control Valve example. Emerson Process Management plans to roll out an additional 10 supplier extranets over the next two years to meet the increasing demands of its product development pipeline.
For more stories of successful supply chain implementations, read the "2005 Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100" article in the June/July 2005 issue of the magazine. Also watch the Today's Headlines section of SDCExec.com every Tuesday and Thursday for more in depth best practices drawn from this year's Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100.
Company: Emerson Process Management (Marshalltown, IA)
Company Size: Large
Company Sector: Manufacturing (Process Automation)
Area(s) of Enablement: Product Lifecycle Management
Enabler: Stellent, Inc. (Eden Prairie, MN)
Case Study: Emerson Process Management is a leading global supplier of products, services and solutions that measure, analyze, control, automate and improve process-related operations. While the company has used Stellent-based supplier extranets to support a variety of product lifecycle management initiatives, the launch of its GX Control Valve serves as an example of how the company integrates these applications into its product development processes and the benefits it reaps from these deployments.Prior to using extranets based on Stellent solutions, Emerson's supplier-related product development processes were less efficient. Engineering departments e-mailed manufacturing documents, drawings and parts specifications to each supplier, a process that became problematic as version control, workflow, archiving, document access and productivity were hindered. Moreover, Emerson emailed suppliers large attachments, which tied up internal and external networks and servers.
The Solution
To remedy this problem, Emerson leveraged Stellent's Universal Content Management solution to provide the company with a variety of functionality, including collaboration, document management and Web content management. The company used this solution to create, store, manage, collaborate on and distribute all content related to the design and launch of the GX Control Valve.
Design teams used Stellent as a Web-based common repository for requirement documents, product design specifications, competitive data and other critical information, so Emerson's internal and external teams, including suppliers, had real-time access to documents and could easily collaborate on product design. In the second stage, the team began using Stellent's document management capabilities, as well as its collaboration capabilities, to create project files that held research, calculations, test data, competitive information and more.
As the project moved forward, Emerson launched a Stellent-based extranet to provide suppliers and manufacturing partners across the globe, including Asia, with access to manufacturing and drawing information automatically replicated from Emerson's main internal document repository.
Emerson Process Management then used Stellent to create an intranet providing GX sales collateral, presentations and other necessary information to its sales teams. In addition, now that the product has been launched, customers are able to access product literature and support information through Emerson's Stellent-based customer extranet.
The Results
Today, all GX Control Valve product content for each part of its lifecycle is centrally managed with Stellent, including supplier-focused extranets that allow suppliers to access only the documentation they need to manufacture their specific parts of the valve.
This implementation — encompassing extranets, a collaborative workspace, document repository and intranet — has effectively leveraged Emerson Process Management's existing IT architecture. For example, Emerson did not have to invest in additional software or hardware to deploy GX Control Valve extranets and intranets because these items were already in place from previous Stellent initiatives.
The deployment of a supplier extranet in the product development and manufacturing process highlighted above enabled Emerson Process Management to bring the GX Control Valve to market months faster than past products. It costs less than $1,000 (i.e. internal resource time) to deploy a supplier extranet at Emerson Process Management, and it takes approximately one week to implement the supplier extranet. Payback is speed of information delivery. Instead of taking weeks to get information to vendors, it's now instantaneous.
The cost to manage information with Stellent technology is 1/20th of the cost it would take to manage the same information in a manual environment. Emerson estimates the exact payback is four weeks per supplier extranet, with estimated savings of $20,000 per year per supplier using Stellent Universal Content Management to power secure extranets, like the one used in the GX Control Valve example. Emerson Process Management plans to roll out an additional 10 supplier extranets over the next two years to meet the increasing demands of its product development pipeline.
For more stories of successful supply chain implementations, read the "2005 Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100" article in the June/July 2005 issue of the magazine. Also watch the Today's Headlines section of SDCExec.com every Tuesday and Thursday for more in depth best practices drawn from this year's Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100.
