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January 07, 2009

Beat the competition with speed to market strategies!

Innovation! In the Era of Innovation…the latest gadget becomes obsolete within no time. Better products come to market at cheaper prices and/or with higher value. The result is shorter product lifecycles.
The main effects of shorter lifecycles are:

 Need for New Product Introduction(NPI) at shorter intervals – speed to market is the only way to beat the competition
 Focus on cost effective / high value products
 Innovation in processes

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Posted by Krithivasan S at 05:10 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 18, 2008

Reuse and Recycle of WEEE (Wastage of Electrical and Electronics Equipment) – Optional or Mandatory?

The Directive on WEEE (Wastage of Electrical and Electronics Equipment) in EU notes that the content of hazardous components in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) is a major concern during the waste management phase and recycling of WEEE is not undertaken to a sufficient extent. The WEEE directive places the responsibility of end of life (EOL) disposal responsibility of the products on the manufacturers either individually or by joining a collective scheme. This implies that the cost of disposal of the product and the harmful substances that it contains squarely lies on the manufacturer.  The EU Commission has set new targets for recovery and reuse/recycling by 31-Dec-2008 for all EU countries.

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Posted by K N Harilal at 09:07 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 12, 2008

Importance of Outsourcing to provide flexibility to Hi-Tech Manufacturers

Today’s global environment has placed increased pressure on Hi-Tech manufacturers to become more competitive and profitable. Global outsourcing activities have increased in importance and have increasingly emerged as a key strategic tool in achieving cost reduction, quality and delivery improvement, cycle time reduction, and improved responsiveness to customer, competitive, and financial market demands. It is estimated that a well planned and executed global outsourcing strategy can result in a cost savings differential of 15 to 25 percent when compared to manufacturing inhouse.

Using external suppliers to design, manufacture, ship and service products or components  - has been a growing trend in recent years as Hi-Tech manufacturers have sought, among other things, to divest themselves of production capacity (and the inherent risks associated with owning capital equipment), lower their labor costs and maintain greater flexibility in the face of ever-shrinking product lifecycles.

 

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Posted by K N Harilal at 08:17 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 10, 2008

Need for expansion of Product Life cycle Management (PLM) beyond engineering to users across the company and its extended enterprise

Engineering and design occupies an important role in most Hi-Tech companies due to mounting business pressure on R&D and product development functions. This is due to increasing demand for innovative feature-rich products accompanied by shrinking product life cycles and decreasing prices for the improved products. Thus there is a need for the PLM software to collaborate and communicate with a wide range of users beyond the Engineering department within and outside the company.

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Posted by K N Harilal at 05:35 AM | | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

December 09, 2008

Regulatory compliance for Hi-Tech Manufacturers is mandatory - non-compliance stakes are high

From 2001, the shadow of WEEE Directive (Waste Electrical and Electronics Equipment) and RoHS Directive (Restriction on Hazardous Substances) had begun looming over the world electronics manufacturing industry. By 2007, most EU Member States had implemented WEEE and the deadline for RoHS was achieved in July 2006. Other countries are now building their environment compliance approaches similar to the EU directives, e.g. some states in the USA, Korea, etc have put in place their own regulations. China, Chile, Brazil and Columbia also now have some environment management Directives in place. Japanese laws had been in place even earlier and many Japanese companies are well ahead in implementing cleaner technologies and in greening their supply chain. While the larger companies in most countries have started their compliance measures, most small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) including those in Korea and Taiwan have fallen behind.

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Posted by K N Harilal at 07:43 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

November 23, 2008

Business Intelligence and the Economic Gloom: A Perspective

With the economic meltdown of the financial world and a severe downturn and meltdown in the Automobile and Retail sectors we are possibly headed for tough times ahead.

With the global economy being so intertwined there is no sector or industry vertical that is immune to this crisis.

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Posted by Somnath Mukherjee at 04:51 PM | | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

November 05, 2008

High Tech Reverse Logistics: A Potential Cost Cutting Avenue

To put in simple terms, Reverse Logistics is the flow of Returned goods by the customer to a state where the product is disposed of, repaired, recycled or internally consumed. And because of the strict norms pertaining to disposition of goods in the high tech sector, this is a very strategic area.

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Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 09:38 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

October 22, 2008

High Tech Industry’s Sourcing Value Proposition: Reverse Auction

With the current slowdown being accelerated by the financial turmoil, companies are increasingly looking at avenues to cut costs yet maintain profitability against all odds. This is a tricky situation given the fact that any decision leads to a bullwhip effect owing to the integrated nature of today’s supply chain. One of the time tested techniques to achieve this is through Reverse Auctions which is quite prevalent in the High Tech industry.

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Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 08:53 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

August 31, 2008

High Tech Industry: A State of Flux

Moore's law describes an important trend in the history of computer hardware: that the number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit is increasing exponentially, doubling approximately every two years. The trend has continued for more than half a century and is not expected to stop for another decade at least and perhaps much longer. This alone is a testimony to the fact how the high tech industry is changing at a rapid pace. And companies seem to be in a state of shock trying to cope with this change. Rising costs, shrinking markets seem to add further to their woes.

 

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Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 07:00 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

August 13, 2008

Improving Package Implementations Estimates using Package Points

Today, ERP is used more to drive business improvements & operational efficiencies and hence, any delays or budget over-runs could impact the business. However, most independent surveys and studies indicate that about 55 percent of ERP Implementation projects incur budget overruns. According to Standish Group, a research firm, the average IT project runs over budget by about 43 percent. Among the litany of reasons quoted (such as excessive focus on technology at the expense of business processes, communication shortfalls, project management and operational issues) estimation & bad planning rank high in the list.

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Posted by Manikandan Munikrishnan at 10:08 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

August 10, 2008

Thinking of R12? Go for an Enhanced Upgrade

Call it the bane or boon of an ERP system, companies do not have a choice but to upgrade to a higher version. There are various factors which drive the decision to upgrade namely de-support of the current system by the ERP vendor, availability of new features in higher version which have the potential to give a strategic edge. Typically companies choose the upgrade path to avoid the de-support problem and hence what it finally does is a pure as-is technical upgrade. This has multiple benefits in the sense that it is least risky and also can be done in a shorter timeframe. But once in a while it makes sense to have a look at the new features which can bring efficiencies in the process.

 

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Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 05:38 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

August 08, 2008

Hi-Tech Trash: Have our e-dumps become safer?

Scientific American featured a thought provoking article in November 2007 titled--Trashed Tech: Where Do Old Cell Phones, TVs and PCs Go to Die? The enormity of the problem of electronic waste and the urgent need for producing toxin free electronic components could not have been discussed better. I had a serious conscience attack about replacing my old cell phone after reading the article!!

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Posted by Padmini Ramakrishna Talagavaram at 10:40 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

August 04, 2008

High Tech Sector’s Label Printing Needs: Are we there?

 

If there is one thing which we can call as the livewire of the High Tech Sector is Labels. The entire high tech industry moves on labels. In Standard ERP Packages there are certain limitations in terms of volume of labels, performance and quality of bar code labels. As a result, typically companies have looked at other middleware options as a plug and play with the ERP Packages. Latest offerings from the ERP vendors seem to address this problem removing the need for middleware.

 

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Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 06:32 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

July 31, 2008

What is the Right Product Structure for the High Tech Sector?

To give a text bookish definition, Product structure is a hierarchical decomposition of a product, typically know as the BOM (Bills of Material). The High Tech Sector typically has a Model BOM with Option Classes and Options. With so many variants offered by competitors, the industry has no other way but to offer a better customer experience to garner market share. And one way of offering a better customer experience is to give as many choices as possible to the customer to choose from. For example, giving various ranges of RAM to the customer to choose from gives a feeling of contentment to the customer.

 

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Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 06:45 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 21, 2008

High Tech Industry’s Logistics Woes: Oracle Transportation Management may be the answer

Gone is the era when customers would queue to your factory gate to buy the goods produced by you. Remember Bajaj scooter in the 80s when we had a waiting time of up to 10 years. Not any more. With breakthrough advancement in science and technology, we are in a situation where the market place is cluttered with supply surpassing demand. More so in the high tech sector where changes happen in split seconds. Given the current situation, the winner is surely the one who will be able to provide a better buying experience to the customer and yet charge reasonably for providing the service. This includes both choice of products and/or services and delivering it to the customer at a reasonable price.

 

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Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 10:59 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

July 19, 2008

Collaboration: The way forward for High Tech Industry

In his classic best-seller ‘The Goal’, Eliyahu M. Goldratt discusses about the three fundamental ways of making money for a going concern namely,

  1. Increase throughput (the rate at which the system generates money through sales)  
  2. Reduce Inventory (all the money that system has invested in purchasing things which it intends to sells)
  3. Reduce Operational expenses (all the money the system spends in order to turn inventory into throughput)

     

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Posted by Sandeep Chatterjee at 06:05 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

July 11, 2008

Upgrading to Oracle R12? Keep Fusion in mind

R12 is a milestone in Journey to Fusion

Oracle’s E-Business Suite Release 12 is Oracle’s latest version of their business applications with an upgrade path to Oracle Fusion Application. The technology stack is upgraded to Fusion Middleware, the backbone of Fusion Applications.

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Posted by Malay Kumar at 03:03 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

May 26, 2008

SCRUM Methodology: Does the Twenty-Twenty Version of the Waterfall Model Work?

The last month and a half has been exciting! The ardent cricket fan in me has been treated to some rapid fire cricket through the Indian Premier League 20:20 extravaganza. Round about the same time, my project team also started rapid application development using SCRUM, a methodology I would call the 20:20 version of the waterfall model of software development. Interestingly, the word SCRUM also has its origins from the sport of rugby where a “scrum” is a group of people responsible for picking up the ball and moving it forward.

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Posted by Padmini Ramakrishna Talagavaram at 11:29 AM | | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)