Newage generates efficiencies through hosted supply chain system

$285m generators manufacturer Newage International, part of Cummins, is expecting to meet what it describes as tough new production and delivery targets, without any increase in headcount or manufacturing capacity, by implementing a supply chain execution system. The business plans to implement Wesupply’s hosted web system with its major trading partners to improve visibility of real-time data for synchronisation of planning and material movements throughout its supply chain. Gary Cameron, materials supply leader at Newage, says: “Wesupply’s dynamic solution framework will provide Newage with real-time supply and demand information by managing, monitoring, alerting and intelligently coordinating our supply network. “This will significantly reduce inventory holding, improve our ability to be adaptive to volatile market conditions and lead to better profitability and customer satisfaction.” Terry Smith, who manages material supply at Newage’s Stamford site, adds: “We deal with hundreds of component suppliers, using a variety of applications, delivery mechanisms and information systems.” He says much of the value of the system is its handling of all data translations regardless of suppliers’ internal IT and sophistication. “This means that supply chain ambiguity is removed and everyone has one common, real-time and unambiguous view of current status,” he explains. He says the system will reduce the risk of materials being unavailable, directly impacting production up-time. It will also provide early warning of supply chain problems and decision support information. In fact, he claims it’s the difference between being “supply chain managers, rather than supply chain administrators.” Newage runs its business and manufacturing on Mapics v6 ERP, and the supplier portal will be integrated with that. It will support multi-mode fulfilment, including electronic kanban demand pull, invoice management and self-billing, and supplier performance monitoring.