A Vision for the Industry: The Perfect Lean Market

The right information at the right time. A balance of supply and demand. These are conditions for what economists call the "perfect market." For manufacturers, timely flow of information could lead to the "perfect lean market," in which the rate of supply and rate of demand are aligned. Waste is eliminated, friction is minimized and efficiency maximized.

But the perfect lean market is about more than just eliminating waste and speeding production. The right information at the right time and place can help a manufacturer proactively respond to changes in demand. That responsiveness underpins the agility to keep pace with the rate of change in customers' wants and needs. What's more, the perfect lean market can provide insight from your office into plants around the world. By introducing timeliness and clarity into supply chain communications, the perfect lean market could serve as a venue for supply chain members to collaborate and achieve collective competitive advantage. The effect of cooperation between manufacturers, suppliers, trading partners and others is unity.

Path to Perfection

Economists might point out how the evolution of instant payment systems illustrates the requirements for progress toward a frictionless environment: standardization, collaboration and automation.

Before ATMs debuted in the late 60s, the Diner's Club credit card was the only relief for consumers carrying cash and utilizing individual store accounts. Likewise, Traveler's checks restored standardization with guaranteed value and were a welcomed departure from personal checks—and before that bank notes—which could be redeemed only at the issuing bank. Today, you can go to any ATM, almost anywhere in the world and access your personal bank accounts. You can even use the Web to transfer funds and pay for merchandise electronically—illustrating tremendous progress and achievement in the standardization, collaboration and automation of the financial market.

The manufacturing sector also has charted progress thanks to standardization, collaboration and automation. But as the industry progresses, product complexity grows, pressures increase and with that comes the potential for friction. The forces of globalization, customization and sophistication have put unprecedented strain on the foundation of standardization and collaboration.

Fulfilling the Vision

When manufacturers work together, use agreed-upon conventions for conducting business, automate operations with innovative products, and take advantage of greater connectivity, friction is replaced by clarity, agility and unity—the characteristics of the perfect lean market, where information flows freely.

There are three primary attributes to a perfect lean market: Clarity, agility and unity. Clarity characterizes the way supply chain members connect and share data and other pertinent information. QAD embraces open standards for technology that can help create a foundation for perfect lean market by enabling frictionless supply chain communication.

The second attribute of a perfect lean market, agility, illustrates responsiveness to changing market pressures and demands. Lean qualities are powerful enablers of business agility, change and growth, but they are not enough to ensure information is consistently in the right place at the right time. That's where technology can further enable agility, through systems that can receive and process information efficiently through automation.

Unity is the third attribute of a perfect lean market. When supply chain members can collaborate consistently, they'll likely respond to events more quickly and competitively. Getting information to the right place at the right time can fuel that kind of unity. And as companies continue to expand and extend their supply chains, this kind of unity will become essential.

Follow the Roadmap

Powered by our passion for simplicity, QAD solutions for the next stage of your business are designed to reduce the complexity within your manufacturing operations, while providing you business advantages to modify your systems according to changing customer needs and business requirements. With QAD GXE, the Global Enterprise Edition, our passion is to:

• Deliver a truly global solution today that sets you on a clear path for tomorrow
• Eliminate waste and inefficiency from the manufacturing supply chain as we work toward creation of a "perfect lean market"
• Create a balance between centralized and localized data management

And the advantage to you, our customers is:

• An improved corporate bottom line
• Greater visibility and management of your overall business
• The ability to move quickly and efficiently at the local/plant level

That is why we are introducing the next phase in the Demand-Driven Enterprise Initiative. With a new set of products and enhanced functionality, this is another step toward fulfilling our vision for the industry, the perfect lean market.

This November at Explore EMEA 2006, attendees will be the first to experience the next stage in the QAD Demand-Driven Enterprise Initiative.

The latest enhancements and functionality of the Demand-Driven Enterprise Initiative provide customers even greater advantages in the global market by optimizing and streamlining the demand process, and fully integrating that demand model with internal operations as well as those across the extended enterprise. The promise of QAD GXE, the Demand-Driven Enterprise Initiative remains the same: provide you with leading-edge tools for achieving more accurate demand forecasts, a more seamless connection between production and supply functions-as well as more efficient demand fulfillment.

Solution highlights include:

New / Early Adopter

• QAD Manufacturing Execution Workbench (QAD MEW)
• QAD Sales Force Automation
• QAD Marketing Automation
• QAD Transportation

New / General Availability

• QAD Demand Management

Existing / Enhanced

• QAD Advanced Inventory Management
• QAD Production Scheduler
• QAD Customer Self Service
• QAD Business Intelligence

Service Packs

• QAD .NET UI
• QAD Desktop

Consulting

• Application Management Services
• Upgrade Services
• Customer Advisory Groups
• Learning QScan

Support

• Premium Support
• Maintenance "Restart" campaign

Learning

• Knowledge Manager
• Custom Learning Portal
• Learning QScan

Our promise to customers is to deliver the power of simplicity in everything we do. With our latest solutions and roadmap for the future, we are delivering on that promise every day.