“But Bradley has a long-time business relationship of its own with AUD,” Stansell points out.
“SO, what we’re saying here is that is not just a discussion about these two organizations, but a consideration of the whole supply chain. The cost of lost flexibility, the lack of shared information. It’s costing both of them. And the sudden spikes in production requests by AUD, in response to its retail customers, creates unnecessary problems in production planning at Technologia and unnecessary stress for the management and workers at both companies.”
“VMI could be a powerful tool that empowers and brings value to both sides,” Stansell says. “Through this system, Technologia will be able to create orders for us based on direct access to our orders and demand information-both short and long-range needs…”
“And then. we can work together, determining the most cost-efficient way to manage and deliver the inventory,” Santos continues. ”We’ll look at the entire supply chain to see where changes and even minor tweaks can be made to bring down costs and make the partnership strong, but there would have to be equal give and take.”
“Flexibility on both sides is necessary to make this work,” Stansell points out. ”This is not competition. Nobody has to be right.”
“But getting top management on-board to make this work is our real challenge, ”Santos says. “And we have to start looking ahead. VMI could be a stepping-stone to Jointly Managed Inventory (JMI), an even deeper collaboration, allowing the increased tactical planning and the real integration of Techologia and AUD’s point of sale systems, That will offer optimal cost sharing and real time sales data, allowing us to stay ahead of the curve in production planning as well as logistics to meet AUD’s needs in real time. “So, what’s our next step?” Stansell asks. “How can we make this happen?”