Instead, most manufacturing companies have spent the past year developing strategies to more effectively market their products, serve customers, purchase and manage supplies, and design products using collaborative online tools and electronic links to trading partners. In this brave new world, the goal is to eliminate inventory buffers between buyers and suppliers that create waste and cost throughout the supply chain. It's also about quick response to changing market conditions, which requires cooperation and communication among all members of the supply chain. Companies that prove to be efficient and collaborative trading partners will triumph over those that cling tightly to internal information and shield themselves from business processes outside their own walls. It's a supply chain competing against a supply chain.
Manufacturers love the telephone.
Traditional manufacturers know that if they leave the revolution up to someone else, they may lose market presence and customers. With the threat of college-campus MBA programs creating business models to replace your distribution channel, it's more like months and days. Meanwhile, industrial giants such as Boeing, Ford, General Motors, Honeywell, and Lockheed Martin are creating online trading hubs for procuring supplies, and pushing their E-commerce agendas onto trading partners. Those partners are left with the task of determining which online trading efforts are most viable and deservingof their time and investment. As a supplier of automotive exterior trim and fuel systems, Textron has been solicited by Ford, General Motors, and DaimlerChrysler to sell its wares on Covisint, an E-marketplace being developed by the three automakers and scheduled to go live later this year.