 Enterprise applications generally can’t keep pace with the unanticipated changes and the escalating demands of customers and markets. Business changes that occur seemingly overnight can require months of development time to accurately reflect in rigid enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
The rise of outsourcing and the virtual enterprise further limits the effectiveness of ERP systems, which are not designed to share data and execute processes with third party peers.
To complicate matters, the order and fulfillment process itself has also become more complex over the years. Business changes such as mergers and acquisitions have driven the need for more robust order management capabilities that span organizations and systems.
New technology, regulatory, and business demands have also complicated the order lifecycle. Technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID), regulatory requirements like Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), and quality methodologies such as Six Sigma impact the order process.
Manufacturing and supply chain organizations continually strive to achieve the “perfect order” -- an order that processes with universal “straight-through” speed and efficiency. Manufacturers have implemented numerous business applications to reach this elusive perfect order processing capability. ERP systems were the investment focus for manufacturers during the 1990s. Companies also invested in enterprise applications designed to extend the functionality of ERP, improving it categorically from inventory management to front/back office integration. Such systems brought a new level of automation to the order lifecycle. However, after spending billions of dollars on them, the perfect order remained elusive.
As systems and business requirements became increasingly complex, the occurrence of exceptions increased throughout the supply chain - delayed shipments, wrong shipments, stock-outs, shop floor delays. ERP systems recorded the problems, but companies needed a way to capture them, organize them, and fix them. Vitria's M3O Exception Manager was designed to manage exceptions throughout the lifecycle and enable automated resolution. Exception Manager allows companies to get control of their process exceptions and manage them efficiently while reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction.
Improvements in perfect order processing deliver tremendous financial results:
Vitria has developed a suite of Business Process Applications (BPAs) that effectively manage the order lifecycle. This suite, called Perfect Order, provides unprecedented visibility and control over the manufacturing and supply chain order lifecycle – from order inception to fulfillment. By implementing Vitria’s Perfect Order solution and improving automated order processing, customers can see significant benefits:
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A 10% improvement in attaining a perfect order rating correlates with a 50¢ increase in earnings per share. |
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A 5% gain in perfect order rating translates to a 2.5% improvement in return on assets. |
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An increase of 3% in perfect order performance correlates with a 1% boost in profit margins. |
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