Tag: supply chain

Open Source hardware needs a supply chain

Posted on March 12, 2015 by - News

INDUSTRY HP 1The Open Compute Project, which wants to open up hardware the same way Linux opened up software, needs a supply chain badly.

OCP President and Chairman Frank Frankovsky said it formed OCP four years ago to spread the gospel of open hardware and eventually build a market for it.

It now has an impressive array of vendors and customers, including HP, Cisco, Juniper, Broadcom, and Samsung.

While companies looking to adopt this kind of gear include some blue-chip names Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Capital One are members, the weakness in the set up is the supply chain.

“You can’t download servers or boxes in the same way you can open source software,” Frankovsky said.

OCP is looking to business realities when members propose new contributions to the project. It wants the name of a lead customer that wants to buy the technology and the lead supplier that’s willing to build it, as well as whether it’s available from multiple channels so users will have a choice of where to buy it, he said.

Hynix downplays massive fire in chip plant

Posted on September 5, 2013 by - News

silicon-waferSK Hynix, the world’s second biggest maker of memory chips, is in damage control mode, quite literally. A blaze gutted parts of one of its plants in Wuxi, China, but the company is now trying to reassure the market by saying that damage was largely superficial.

The memory maker claims supply volume will not be affected, as there was no major damage to production equipment. It looked spectacular, but luckily the blaze doesn’t appear to have done much damage. One person suffered a minor injury and the company insists it will resume operations “in a short time period”.

However, the world was watching for good reason. The fab in question produces an estimated 15 percent of the world’s DRAM. Any extended outage would have had a massive effect on supply and prices. Luckily, SK Hynix insists the market will not be affected and the supply chain has nothing to worry about. Furthermore, the company says there is no material damage to any fab equipment in the clean room

The fire started yesterday afternoon and it took almost two hours to extinguish. What made it look a lot worse to onlookers was the fact that it churned out a lot of black smoke, which was concentrated in air purification facilities, which pretty much saved the plant but made the whole incident look a lot more ominous.

Gartner gives advice to shops

Posted on May 9, 2013 by - News

gartnerDemand driven retail success is dependent on getting a range of factors right, Gartner has said.

According to the company, defining the role of supply chain, span of control and metrics maturity are the key  to  retail success.

Demand-driven retailing is based on a range of technologies and processes that analyze and capture consumer behaviour. This is then teamed up with  demand, supply and product analysis in a bid to to fulfil customer expectations, improve operational performance and in turn give a profitable response across a network of suppliers, employees and sales channels.

In a survey of retail industries in North America, Western Europe and Asia/Pacific, the company said that there were three important bit to  getting this right.

Firstly the supply chain, which Gartner pointed out varied in role by retailer, was
named as one of the key things to help businesses with their strategy. It said its survey highlighted that 64 percent of respondents were more likely to deliver return on assets (ROA) of greater than 16 percent when using this chain properly.

The supply chain so-called “span of control” was another factor highlighted by the company, which said although the role of the supply chain may differ by retailer, the best shared one common trait — they define their supply chains more inclusively than their peers.

It said many retailers use a narrow span of control (such as distribution centre [DC] operations, transportation and procurement) to define their supply chains.

Smarter retail supply chains went a step further and broadened the span of control to include forecasting, replenishment, new product launch and sourcing responsibilities.

Finally, Gartner said that establishing a robust set of end-to-end supply chain metrics was also an important factor with many retailers today measuring aspects of their supply chains, but also identified a need for a more-comprehensive measurement program.

SME supply chain initiative welcomed by disties

Posted on April 25, 2013 by - News

Hands across the waterDisties have cautiously welcomed plans for big retailers to allow SMEs into their supply chains.

The plans, which are being spear-headed by Business In The Community (BITC), wants companies across the UK to commit to making their contracting processes and procedures more amenable to smaller companies.

According to the charity, 99 percent of businesses are SMEs.  It said that since 2008, nine out of ten unemployed people who have found work in the private sector have been employed by SMEs, pointing out that in the current economic climate, successful partnerships between large and small businesses have never been more important.

BITC now wants signatories to the ‘access pledge’ promise to make their business, fair and simple, transparent, on a level playing field, and open, for all suppliers.

It already has committed Goldman Sachs to making its contracts more accessible by  reducing the costs to SMEs of bidding by paying for the majority of vendor screening activity itself.

Asda, which is focusing on boosting the ethnic diversity of its supply chain, and Santander, which has made all non-disclosure agreements valid for 12 months for any deal they bid for, are among the other companies cited by BITC.

Disties have welcomed the moves but have also been sceptical.

“It’s a good idea and it’s pleasing to see that big companies are taking part of these initiatives,” one told ChannelEye.

“However, whether it’ll actually be taken up properly and after the press has died down, remains to be seen. Somehow I don’t think we’ll see much publicity,” he added.

Another shared a similar outlook.

“Making transparency in the supply chain can only be a good thing. However, big brands are all over this trying to show they are making a difference.

“The problem here is that smaller businesses trying to make a change could be swamped and therefore competition is already stifled,” he added.

Economic turmoil wreaks supply chain havoc

Posted on April 17, 2013 by - News

supply-chain-managementThe never ending economic crisis was to blame for more supply chain disruptions last year than insolvencies and horrible weather. According to a survey by Dynamic Markets, commissioned by Oracle, more than half of major companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) suffered supply chain disruptions caused by economic woes.