Adaptive manufacturing

Welcome to Hewlett-Packard's world of manufacturing IT and the 'adaptive enterprise'. In today's difficult and fast-changing business environment, we believe you will find this supplement both interesting and also challenging. We think that's the case because it is specifically not just about a grouping of excellent technologies. First, it's about our vision of new transformational approaches to consolidating and streamlining your IT infrastructure – the foundation for all our businesses –that for the first time make that critical resource flexible. In fact, that reflect the agility we, as manufacturing business leaders, all require to survive and flourish in 2004. But vision alone isn't enough. So second, and every bit as important, this supplement is about real-world examples of engineering and manufacturing successes achieved through inventive thinking, with HP technologies and services and those of our partner community. BMW WilliamsF1 and Rexam are just two outstanding examples of how our vision and theirs, and those of our partners have been turned into a reality that is delivering very big and sustainable, winning benefits. All of which is crucial today. Business, all business, involves uncertainty. Are we out of depression in the UK; are we not? Will the global economy pick up, and will we be able to respond? It's a world of mixed messages. One thing, however, is certain: resurgence or not, everyone is under pressure to deliver more, yet to cut costs and, by the way, to increase flexibility and responsiveness. To do more with less, yet be able to turn the wick up and down quickly as the need arises. Which is why we believe you'll find these stories of our adaptive enterprise concepts, and their live, functioning implementations, compelling. We're delivering on the promise of modern, advanced enterprise IT that can be turned on fast to follow the money, but turned down just as abruptly when you need to cut costs. Incidentally, we do have experience: we're doing this ourselves. Remember, we're not just a distributor; we're one of the planet's biggest manufacturers, recognised for world class processes and engineering and supply chain excellence. Today more than ever, businesses want solutions that take out risk, deliver fast ROI and recognise their need for individuality and differentiation. We think that we and our partners – best-of-breed companies like Microsoft, SAP, Basilica and Computacenter – have got that combination right. We hope you enjoy this publication.