Our last blog shared that Ultriva was the cover story in the manufacturing technology special edition issue of CIO Review. This feature article was authored by Raj Kumar and is titled, “Ultriva: Escalating Manufacturing Output Through Lean.” The author interviewed Narayan Laksham, Ultriva’s founder and CEO. This second part of the story features Ultriva real-world success in the manufacturing space. Here is part two of the article:
Headquartered in the beautiful city of Cupertino, CA, Ultriva claims to have an astonishing customer retention rate of 98 percent in the last 10 years. With Laksham at the helm, the company has brought many multi-billion dollar enterprises sub-one year ROI gains and has consistently helped customers to go live in less than 12 weeks. On one such occasion, a Global Biotech/Pharmaceutical Leader (GBPL) that is an intravenous drug manufacturing division of one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies had no means of tracking and controlling its sterile equipment inventory across the production, cleaning and restocking loop, resulting in ramifications. GBPL then chose Ultriva’s cloud-based Lean Factory Management (LFM) solution, which helped them gain control of its inventory by establishing a series of interconnected consumption-driven material replenishment loops between manufacturing usage and supply locations. “The entire application is automated through tablet devices on movable stations,” affirms Laksham. Furthermore, a barcode labeling process was implemented, which sent a pull-based replenishment signal to material coordinators indicating them to replenish unsterile equipment with sterile units every time the barcoded equipment is scanned by the production.
“Within 60 days of deploying Ultriva, GBPL’s manufacturing services team improved on-time delivery rates from 62 percent to 82 percent, while eliminating stock-outs,” claims Laksham. With Ultriva, GBPL continues to make strides towards improving on-time delivery and employee productivity.
Ultriva improves service levels on both sides of the supply chain. Suppliers increase their performance through collaboration, real-time information, and superior visibility and manufacturers improve their retention rate by right sizing the inventory and reducing lead times through the implementation of pull methodologies. In a similar vein, when a world leader in the commercial vehicle market was on the lookout for a “lean” solution that would increase inventory control and visibility, while engaging the suppliers—they turned to Ultriva’s Collaborative Supply Portal (CSP) and Electronic Kanban. Not only did Ultriva provide the client with full inventory visibility, its web-based platform also gave easy accessibility to the company and its suppliers. At the end of the day, Ultriva’s CSP featuring eKanban enabled the client to view and track inventory at every phase—the supplier, in transit, the receiving dock, and on to the customer. This real-time information allowed them to adjust inventory and run the most efficient lean material flow, providing customers with on-time delivery. The company recouped its investment in the Ultriva platform within just six months, and within one year, it realized a 28 percent gain in inventory turns and a 43 percent reduction in overall inventory.
While the normal ERP systems allow interdepartmental workflows within a single organization, Ultriva on the other hand has been focusing on providing solutions where the process spills over to other business organizations. “So, we built supplier portal for purchasing, followed up with a portal for customers and also expanded the modules to support Request For Quotation (RFQ), Non-conformity/Corrective Action process that spreads across suppliers, manufacturers, and customers,” recalls Laksham empathically. The company’s solutions are built on a very powerful infrastructure, which includes isolation layers, transactional workflow engine, mutli-language support, rules engine and business objects for superior security. “Adding new business process in Ultriva is very simple and therefore we focus on customer driven software development,” he adds. Moving forward, Ultriva is bent on enhancing its product features and improving processes that involve cross business workflows. The company’s CEO is also determined to retain manufacturing in the U.S. “Manufacturing should be where the market is,” he emphasizes. “Using our software we have shown how companies can cost effectively build a local supply chain.”
To see the article in its entirety, please go to the CIO Review Manufacturing Special Edition. To check out Ultriva’s supply chain execution solutions and see how our solutions can help your supply chain, schedule your own demo.