San Jose, CA November 6, 2002Agile Software Corp., Agile Software K.K. and Hitachi Ltd. this week announced that Hitachi has decided to expand the Agile product lifecycle management (PLM) platform as its corporate-wide collaboration solution in a multi-million dollar rollout.
Hitachi, an electronics manufacturer, said it is going to use the Agile platform to exchange and manage high-tech and electronics product information for supply chain, as well as bring products to market.
With the deployment of Agile's TSCM (Total Supply Chain Management) solutions, Hitachi said it has already accelerated new product introduction, increased sharing and collaboration around the product record, and reduced rework. At Hitachi's Internet Systems Platform Division, where Agile has been deployed since April 2001, Agile claimed the solutions have improved productivity by 6 percent and shortened engineering change cycle time by 30 percent in the first year.
"When it came time for a large scale deployment, we decided to expand Agile solutions for the collaboration needs of our entire world-wide operations of high-tech electronics products," said Tateo Shimizu, general manager of Monozukuri Engineering Division, Hitachi Ltd. "We expect Agile to make a tremendous contribution to strengthening the competitiveness of our high-tech electronics products."
Hitachi said the Agile Product Collaboration solutions will be deployed at the manufacturer's global affiliated companies, including suppliers and partners worldwide with a current user base of more than 3,500. Some of the Hitachi divisions using Agile include the Internet Systems Platform Division, Data Storage Systems Division, Disk Array Systems Division, Mechatronics Systems Division, Telecommunications Systems Division, Enterprise Server Division and the Digital Media Division.
