Agile Anywhere drives efficiency improvements across Dell's supplier network

Citation

(2001), "Agile Anywhere drives efficiency improvements across Dell's supplier network", Assembly Automation, Vol. 21 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/aa.2001.03321cab.004

Agile Anywhere drives efficiency improvements across Dell's supplier network

Agile Anywhere drives efficiency improvements across Dell's supplier network

Keywords: Computer software, Supply-chain management A

leading direct computer systems company, Dell Computer Corporation, is highly regarded for its innovative supply chain management practices. Looking to further improve its interaction with suppliers around the world, the company has deployed Agile Anywhere™ from Agile Software Corporation a leading provider of collaborative manufacturing commerce solutions.

This deployment included simultaneously rolling out Agile Anywhere to the product development community, five regional Dell factories and 37 of Dell's top 50 suppliers – an unprecedented feat. Now, Dell is building on this successful deployment by continuing to add to its Agile-ready global supplier network, currently at 45 of Dell's top 50 suppliers and 80 per cent of Dell's direct material costs, to take full advantage of Agile Anywhere's collaborative manufacturing capability.

"To sustain leadership in this competitive marketplace, we use Agile as our technology backbone to support the enormous transaction volume our suppliers and manufacturing partners generate", said Glenn Neland, vice president of worldwide procurement at Dell. "Agile's rich collaborative product content-based process management has improved communication with our internal divisions and our supplier network who use Agile Anywhere, by ensuring that all product content information is centrally aggregated in a single, global system and that all product changes are instantly disseminated and tracked across the global supply chain using the Internet."

In addition to Agile Anywhere, Dell has deployed Agile Integration Server™ (AIS), an XML-based integration solution that makes the valuable product content (product DNA) held in Agile Anywhere available to other mission-critical business applications at Dell, including Dell's enterprise resource planning and validation tools, as well as its Internet supplier exchange, http://valuechain.dell.com This product DNA information, held in Agile Anywhere as a bill of materials and approved manufacturer lists, often changes hundreds of times over the life of a product. By automatically exchanging this ever-changing product DNA with other business applications using AIS, Dell has been able to significantly improve its time to reach volume production, maintain the highest level of product quality, and improve supplier visibility, thereby rapidly expanding the value of Agile Anywhere as a private collaborative manufacturing exchange.

"With their excellent customer service and industry-leading prices and performance, Dell is the undisputed leader in direct computer systems", said Bryan D. Stolle, chairman and chief executive officer of Agile. "We are proud to successfully roll out Agile Anywhere to Dell's manufacturing sites worldwide and be part of its successful approach to enhancing customer commitment and marketplace leadership."

Agile Anywhere is a complete suite of collaborative manufacturing solutions that enable manufacturers to build private product manufacturing collaboration exchanges, automating the distribution and synchronization of product content across the e-supply chain, with all information and services available through Agile eHubs™. At MyAgile.com™, Agile also provides the dispersed supply chain with mission-critical e-services such as online marketplaces, custom part procurement, wireless access, and components research. Agile Anywhere solutions include the Agile Product Definition Server™, Agile Product Change Server™, Agile AML Server™, and Agile ChangeCAST™.