Bridging the Supply Chain "Reality Gap" at Jabil Circuit

EMS provider deploys Webplan solution to ensure rapid response to supply chain events

EMS provider deploys Webplan solution to ensure rapid response to supply chain events

Ottawa — October 6, 2004 — Electronic manufacturing services (EMS) provider Jabil Circuit has deployed a planning solution from Webplan in a bid to ensure the company's ability to respond to events across its supply chain and increase customer service while lowering inventory levels.

Headquartered in St. Petersburg, Fla., Jabil offers manufacturing and supply chain solutions to electronics and technology companies across a range of industries, with facilities in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

The company required a solution with global visibility and rapid response capabilities in order to better manage changes in supply, demand, products and capacity. "As a global EMS provider, we need to manage our manufacturing operations and supply chains for all of our customers," explained Paolo Palombo, director of materials information systems at Jabil.

Jabil opted to deploy Webplan's RapidResponse solution on Intel Itanium processors in order to ensure rapid response across its global supply chain. Webplan said that RapidResponse enables manufacturers to anticipate potential problems, review multiple action alternatives and align operations to overcome the "reality gap" between plans and facts on the ground.

The RapidResponse architecture connects directly to front- and back-end systems, and its supports a continuous flow of information across multiple sites, according to Webplan. Deploying RapidResponse on Intel Itanium processors allows Jabil to gain global visibility into over 30 manufacturing sites and support hundreds of users around the world, given the scalability of the solution, the solution provider said.

"Gathering data in a single repository and using a global instance of RapidResponse gives us greater flexibility without requiring large safety stocks," Palombo said. "As Jabil grows, along with the size of our data set, moving RapidResponse to the Intel Itanium platform allows us to model our entire supply chain without sacrificing the single, global view that we have come to rely on."

"EMS providers face unprecedented business challenges today due to increasing customer options and cost pressures", said Randy Littleson, vice president of marketing at Webplan. "The ability to effectively and efficiently respond to ever-present changes on a global basis is a competitive necessity in terms of costs and customer satisfaction."
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