National B2B Centre to bring supply chain management to SMEs

Giant IT and telecoms hardware provider NEC is to offer its supply chain and logistics solutions and consultancy to UK manufacturing SMEs through the DTI’s National B2B Centre at Warwick University. NEC says it will help firms to adopt and use latest e-commerce and business process improvement technologies in association with the other participants, including Warwick Manufacturing Group, BT, Groove Networks, PTC and Sun Microsystems, which are also providing technology for the Centre. NEC has supplied equipment including PCs, projectors, plasma screens and an NEC supercomputer to the demonstration suite at the B2B Centre itself. It also has a record of providing some of the world’s largest supply chain management services, particularly for Japan’s automotive companies. Indeed the firm says it will focus first on automotive suppliers and associated manufacturing organisations in the West Midlands, “to help improve production processes and inventory management”. It will give them practical support in understanding how e-business can help their day-to-operations, developing e-business strategies and implementing solutions. Specific areas addressed will be supply chain management, logistics management, process engineering and e-commerce. Charles Hayhoe, NEC’s representative on the National B2B Centre’s Partner Board says: “With NEC’s experience in working with some of the world’s leading car manufacturers, it is a natural step to target UK businesses already operating in this sector.” He continues, “With the world-wide supply chain management services market predicted to grow at 15.1%, we see a huge opportunity to leverage NEC’s expertise in this area. Many of our customers have … reaped the benefits of having up to date, tailored management systems designed for their businesses.”