Peter,
Thanks for the great articles, they are really appreciated. The following three quotes especially caught my eye, though there are lots more. I'm saving them for future reference, to remind me what's happening the next time I think that FLEX or JBL is getting pricey.
<<Custom manufacturing can be cheaper than mass production. If that seems hard to imagine, take a squint at how it works for Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) First off, Cisco outsources most production to contract manufacturers that operate 37 factories, all linked via the Net. Suppliers not only make all the components and perform 90% of the subassembly work but even do 55% of the final assembly. So suppliers regularly ship finished Cisco computers to Cisco customers without a Cisco employee ever touching the gear. The result is 'savings of between $500 million and $800 million this year,' compared to what it would cost to own and operate those plants, says Carl Redfield, Cisco's senior vice-president for manufacturing.>>
<< The sea change flowing from the Net is so profound that owning a factory is increasingly regarded as a liability. Hewlett-Packard (HWP), IBM (IBM), Silicon Graphics (SGI), and others have sold plants to contract producers such as Solectron, SCI Systems (SCI), Flextronics (FLEX), and Celestica (CLS)--then signed up these manufacturing specialists as suppliers. Some experts imagine that many enterprises will ultimately become tripartite virtual partnerships. One arm will handle product development and engineering, another will take care of marketing, and the third will do the production chores. 'We've got a whole different world emerging,' says Bryan D. Stolle, president of Agile Software Corp. (AGIL), a San Jose (Calif.) provider of supply-chain management software for coordinating distributed manufacturing.>>
<< For instance, J.D. Edwards teamed up with MES specialist Camstar Systems Inc. in Campbell, Calif., to help Lexmark International Inc. slash production cycles for computer printers by 90%. A printer that used to take four hours to assemble now gets made in Internet time--24 minutes.>> |
