Eliminating Stock Outs According to Ultriva

Ultriva enables manufacturing companies to become customer centered by leaning their business from distribution all the way to their global supply chain.  Elimination of stock outs, reduction in lead times, increases in inventory turns, productivity improvement and inventory reduction are the primary factors why customers choose Ultriva.

Ultriva, the lean leader, with an electronic kanban focus went live in thirty-six plants last year and is on target to double in 2009.  Narayan Laksham, Founder and CEO said, “Align inventory levels with actual consumption offers a collaborative, easy-to-use lean execution platform for consumption-driven replenishment. Working with your ERP/MRP applications to support material flow across the supply chain, the Electronic Kanban for Global Supply Chain automatically signals a supplier to produce and deliver a new shipment whenever a Kanban card or "lot" of material is consumed. Every Kanban card is tracked throughout the replenishment cycle, even across borders and languages, bringing unprecedented visibility to both buyers and suppliers.”

This system enables users to:

• Eliminate stock outs
• Always have the right material at the right place at the right time
• Ensure smooth material flow across the supply chain by complimenting and extending your ERP/MRP system functionalities.

Complementing the revenue success Ultriva also announced various products to help customers accomplish their goals. Some of the key modules that were released were:

-          Lean Assessment Tool – A patent pending analytical SaaS (software-as-a-service) tool that simulates historical MRP data and superimposes Kanban replenishment to identify ideal Kanban parts and potential inventory savings.

-          Production Sequencing – An Add-on feature to the Internal Kanban module for managing cell level production

-          Call-off Replenishment – A module that enables engineered to order products to  get raw materials (with long lead times) just-in-time

-          Lean Scheduling – A SaaS tool that allows final assembly cells to front load, back fill or level load production based on the customer want date instead of just capacity

Laksham noted that “The supply chain is still largely controlled by MRP/ERP systems which use forecasted or planned demand to set up supplier replenishments. Every run generates changes to the existing demand while also creating new demands which results in inconsistencies across the supply chain, late shipments, costly expediting, and stock outs. As manufacturing spreads horizontally, the global supply chain is becoming the most critical factor in determining customer demands. Managing this chain is no longer a matter of reducing costs but of optimizing a key process that is fueled by integration, trust, common metrics, and aligned goals. Ultriva addresses all of the above with a software solution that supports different forms of replenishment like Kanban, MRP orders, VMI, and 3PL and integrates seamlessly with your existing systems.”

Ultriva Lean Supply solutions, such as the Supplier Portal for Purchase Order Execution offer a platform to improve collaboration between plants and suppliers so they can interact and perform in synergy to deliver the right parts at the right time. They provide seamless integration between manufacturing plants and supply bases through order visibility, exception alerts, inventory health, performance metrics, and analytics for continuous improvement. Our solutions support your choice of methodologies and processes within a single platform, from Kanban-based replenishment with Electronic Kanban for Global Supply Chain to MRP/forecast-driven supply, to VMI, and more.

Over 3000 suppliers are participating across 95 plants in 9 countries using Ultriva Lean Supply. Our customers report important benefits:

• Improved on-time delivery by 20%
• Shortened lead times by 25% or more
• Reduced inventory levels more than 40%

Reduced expediting fees by 50% Ultriva is live at over 120 plants across 10 countries.  Companies like Emerson, BE Aerospace, Trane, Ingersoll-Rand, McKesson, AO Smith, FRANKE and AGCO among others are using Ultriva to collaborate with over 4000 suppliers and transacting $1.5 billion of purchased parts every year.

Ultriva

www.ultriva.com

Cindy McGowan

pr@ultriva.com

408.248.9803