JD Edwards unveils vision for collaborative supplier relationship management suite

JD Edwards & Company recently announced its vision for a function-rich supplier relationship management suite with full capabilities to electronically collaborate with suppliers and partners across the supply chain.

Having advanced the concept of SRM beyond other offerings currently on the market, JD Edwards is in a great position to fill customers` growing need for more visibility, real-time response and collaboration in the supply chain.

SRM is part of JD Edwards 5, the company`s new family of innovative, collaborative enterprise software products and services for customers and business partners unveiled on 21 May.

JD Edwards is leveraging its ERP, Advanced Planning, and supplier applications like Supplier Self-Service, as well as existing product partnerships with companies such as Ariba, MatrixOne and Agile, to deliver an SRM solution today. Going forward, JD Edwards will make additional SRM enhancements to support the management of the five key functions of the Supplier Lifecycle - design, plan, source, fulfil and settle.

By providing the buying organisations and their trading partners with collaborative tools, JD Edwards SRM will improve the efficiency of their business processes through real-time proactive messaging and alerts presented via Web-based portals. The ease and speed of these functions will deliver value through lower costs, improved asset management and increased customer responsiveness to JD Edwards SRM customers.

SRM addresses businesses` urgent need to:

* Eliminate cycle times;

* Dramatically increase inventory turns;

* Implement "pay-on-consumption" strategies;

* Address proximity of supply issues;

* Reduce costs through volume spending agreements; and

* Enhance security of electronic transactions.

Current supply chain offerings in the market still leave gaps in with suppliers. JD Edwards SRM plans to integrate planning, execution and fulfilment functions, as well as design and settlement capabilities, to work together seamlessly. This broad, integrated and configurable suite will optimise supplier relationships over the course of procuring direct goods, indirect goods, services and people items - a process JD Edwards refers to as Supplier Lifecycle Management.

"There is still plenty of room for improvement in enterprises` ability to minimise inventory and increase working capital. Software that reduces inventory and fulfilment times, while improving supply proximity, is the next logical step for SRM," said Les Wyatt, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at JD Edwards. "With proven, flexible, user-friendly Advanced Planning and ERP applications and a world-class set of partners, JD Edwards is clearly in the best position to deliver collaborative SRM to mid-sized enterprises so that businesses can reduce inventory costs and maximise efficiency."

The next JD Edwards SRM product to be released, Buyer Workstation, is slated for next year. Buyer Workstation will combine the Strategic Planning and Fulfilment functions, laying the groundwork to develop the complete five-function SRM suite.

Companies such as Hoffman Enclosures, a long-time JD Edwards customer using the OneWorld suite and the Advanced Planning SNO module, will use facets of Buyer Workstation to further integrate transactions and communications among suppliers and customers. Facets of Buyer Workstation will help Hoffman respond to customer requests quickly and accurately by assessing its own resources and those of its suppliers in real-time.

"JD Edwards has proven over the years that it can deliver comprehensive applications in a short time and at a lower short-term and long-term total cost," said Gerry Wilichowski, vice president of business development and quality at Hoffman. "We believe JD Edwards` SRM vision is on target to support our aggressive growth and profit improvement plans."

Hoffman replaced its legacy systems with JD Edwards WorldSoftware in 1997. (It now runs OneWorld Xe). The total project, from analysis all the way through implementation, took less than one year. More recently, it implemented SNO to increase the number of product distributor sites and better match the quantity of each of its products that would be shipped from each site.