Industri-Matematik Announces A New Value Improvement Process
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 16, 1999--
Unique Methodology and Software Combination
Enables Companies to Measure Supply Chain Performance and Drive
Faster Time-to-Benefit
Industri-Matematik International Corp. (www.im.se and NASDAQ:IMIC) today announced a new Value Improvement Process (VIP), a combination of business methodology and enterprise software that enables companies to identify, improve, monitor and measure supply chain operational performance. With VIP, companies can strengthen the bottom-line results delivered by supply chain and e-commerce initiatives ranging from global fulfillment operations to individual product line marketing campaigns.
VIP is a three-step approach to help companies assess existing supply chain processes and identify critical areas for improvement; focus system implementations to provide fast time-to-benefit in targeted supply chain processes; and analyze supply chain performance using real-time logistics information. The offering provides the tools for companies to aggressively attack supply chain challenges such as customer and vendor service quality levels, transaction price management, and order fulfillment cycle times and fill rates.
"VIP has become the 'implementation bible' for our company initiative to enhance supply chain performance," said Gary Tomczyk, order management project manager at Mercury Marine, a $1.5 billion manufacturer of marine propulsion systems and related parts and accessories. "It helped us identify the high-payoff fulfillment advancements we could make and focused our project on strategic drivers to improve our global order fulfillment."
According to John Geraci, senior vice president, global sales & marketing, and president, Americas at Industri-Matematik, "As companies aggressively move to a supply chain model where inventory is replaced with information, they need a strategic roadmap that helps them examine logistics and sales processes at a very detailed level. VIP allows them to find where the greatest opportunities for supply chain improvements are and guides them in putting in place the systems and processes to increase profitability and drive customer service levels."
The three components of the Value Improvement Process are:
-- Value Improvement Analysis (VIA) - The VIA process provides a structured process and tool to identify and quantify the opportunities for increased profitability and customer satisfaction by specific value areas (such as gross profit, operating costs and working capital costs). The VIA tool produces a detailed analysis that validates current business processes, targets specific benefits and costs, and prioritizes the opportunities - generating increased understanding and acceptance of the supply chain initiative throughout an organization.
-- Value-Focused Implementation (VFI) - Leveraging output from the VIA, this methodology is a customer-proven process to develop the best supply chain system implementation approach. VFI helps focus projects on prioritized value areas to ensure fast time-to-benefit.
-- Value Improvement Review (VIR) - Based on an operational decision support structure, VIR develops scorecards to evaluate logistics processes and provides strategic value analysis that proposes improvement areas and follow-up targets. The tool has specific focus on economic value created in the fulfillment process, as well as performance relating to customers, vendors, products, warehouses, orders and order lines, pricing and distribution costs. With the tool, a company can continually evaluate and monitor its supply chain, sales and service processes to achieve the highest levels of profitability and customer satisfaction.
To ensure successful adoption of the VIP methodology, Industri-Matematik provides a five-day Value Improvement University to train and certify partners and customers. VIP is available as a component of Industri-Matematik's VIVALDI(TM), a suite of global fulfillment and customer service software for e-commerce. VIVALDI enables 100 percent real-time visibility of inventory availability, pricing, fulfillment costs and preferences on the basis of individual order lines, products and customers. It allows companies to move towards zero inventory levels while delivering products more quickly, improving customer service and profitability.
About Industri-Matematik
Industri-Matematik International Corp.'s VIVALDI software provides high-performance fulfillment and customer service solutions for e-commerce. The company specializes in pull-driven supply chain environments with complex logistics, information-rich, high-transaction volumes and rigorous demands for customer responsiveness. Industri-Matematik has implemented enterprise applications worldwide at market-leading organizations such as British Airways, Campbell Soup, Canadian Tire, Canon, Carlton & United Breweries, Ericsson, Hartz Mountain, Kellogg's, Skyway Systems, Starbucks, VWR and Warner/Elektra/Atlantic.
Editors: For Industri-Matematik company and product information, and press releases, access the Industri-Matematik site on the World Wide Web at im.se. VIVALDI is a trademark of Industri-Matematik International Corp.
CONTACT:
Industri-Matematik
Tim Walsh, 609/797-3200, ext. 4438
tiwa@im.se
or
Copithorne & Bellows
Albie Jarvis or Angela Lee, 617/450-4300
angela.lee@cbpr.com |
