Boston May 2, 2002 United Airlines is set to use a supplier management solution from Open Ratings to help evaluate and monitor its supply base activities, the solution provider announced today.
Under the three-year deal, terms of which were not disclosed, UAL, the second largest air carrier in the world, is rolling out Open Rating's BPImpact solution to proactively monitor operational performance and short-term risk in the company's supply base.
In addition, UAL will implement a detailed scorecarding initiative with a select group of top suppliers. This initiative will give these suppliers the ability to view their Web-based scorecard in a secure, real-time fashion and collaborate with UAL procurement professionals on potential performance issues before they adversely impact UAL's profitability.
"Proactive supplier performance monitoring is on the cutting edge of supplier relationship management", said Rick Juster, UAL vice president of purchasing. "By looking forward at our suppliers' predicted performance and stability, sharing that data with our suppliers and working together to solve problems before they happen, we are positioned to both reduce our own risk and to lead a new era of effective buyer-supplier partnerships in the airline industry."
BPImpact is the flagship product in what Open Ratings calls its predictive supplier management solution suite. The solution provider says its suite helps buyers more effectively select, evaluate and monitor suppliers by going beyond inferences based on historical performance to predicting future supplier performance and stability. By preempting poor performance or instability in the supply base, organizations can improve supplier relationships, increase efficiencies across supply chains, reduce both hard and soft dollar costs, and mitigate supply chain risk, Open Ratings says.
