Newport Beach, CA April 18, 2001 webplan Corp., a provider of e-business solutions for manufacturers, yesterday announced the availability of eSupply-Chain.net, a new managed Web service that provides manufacturers of differing sizes with supply chain visibility, analysis and trading partner collaboration. Subscribers to the service will enable their supply chains, resulting in better communication of direct material requirements, more efficient and effective internal planning, supply chain event management and true collaboration.
"The reality today is that many manufacturers still don't coordinate their production plans with suppliers. Demand changes are often reflected only in local schedules, have little verification that suppliers can satisfy the new requirements, and provide little notification to suppliers of changes that may completely disrupt their production, creating problems that ripple throughout the supply chain," said Sid Snitkin, Ph.D, vice president of enterprise applications for ARC Advisory Group. "webplan's eSupply-Chain.net effectively addresses these most pressing problems by enabling fast and easy communication with the entire community of suppliers. This is a critical step toward balancing the supply and demand dilemma, taking supply chain management to its next generation and progressing towards the ultimate goal of truly seamless collaboration among all trading partners."
eSupply-Chain.net facilitates the development of a multi-tier, many-to-many collaborative trading network. Individual manufacturers can provide select suppliers with demand notification and analysis capability, and customers with order management information. These private trading networks are then amalgamated into a larger collaborative trading network that consolidates demand data from multiple sources and makes it available in a "one-stop" online environment for suppliers that serve multiple manufacturers. eSupply-Chain.net provides secure access to information in view-only, publish or interactive modes, all in a self-service environment.
"Manufacturers and suppliers, especially those that don't have significant internal IT [information technology] resources, face an uphill battle when attempting to synch up their own internal operations and those of external trading partners," said Michael Ker, president and CEO of webplan. "This new solution provides them with immediate, effective and inexpensive help in that effort. Our focus has always been and continues to be to providing manufacturers and their suppliers and customers with more and better information in order to streamline operations, decrease costs and increase profitability."