Existing mainstream enterprise systems are not meeting the market need for dynamic supply network flexibility. Namely, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and advanced planning and scheduling (APS)-supply chain partnership (SCP) systems are not geared for high-value, operations-level business trade-offs that require educated human intervention. Spreadsheets are used frequently, but they lack the required scalability, become quickly dated, and result in unreliable multiple versions of the truth. Business intelligence (BI) tools are not real-time in nature; they are structured for after-the-fact insight rather than for making execution decisions. Thus, some businesses have turned to a new software category dubbed “response management” to extend the capabilities of the above traditional technologies.
For more background on the evolution of this new area of supply chain management (SCM), please see previous parts of this series—Who Could Object to Faster, More Responsive Supply Chains?, Multi-enterprise Responsiveness—Can It Ever Be Achieved?, and A Possible Remedy for Non-responsive Supply Chains.
Enter Kinaxis—a Response Management Pioneer
This brings us to a vendor that has changed its name a few times while refining its value proposition along the way, but which has certainly not departed from its roots and core competencies. Ottawa (Canada)-based, privately held Kinaxis Inc. today delivers both on-demand and on-premise response management software and services for visibility and coordination to help businesses drive swift responses to the constant changes taking place across global supply chains and fulfillment networks, with the goal of improving customer service and operational performance.
Founded in 1984 as Cadence Computer Corporation, the vendor was renamed Webplan Inc. in 1995. Then, in 2005, the company changed its name again to Kinaxis (a combination of “kinetic energy” and “global axis”). Throughout the years and multiple name changes, the company’s solutions have evolved from memory-resident, multisite production optimization capabilities (i.e., fast-acting manufacturing resource planning [MRP]) into a value proposition of Web-based, collaborative risk trade-off and response, and performance management within a distributed supply chain.
In addition, the innovative product architecture is able to mine information from existing back-office systems (and even spreadsheets or flat files, if necessary) as a basis for multiple what-if scenarios. This connectivity is in response to Kinaxis’s many customers having standardized ERP systems from such established providers as SAP, Oracle, or Baan, to name a few.
Despite Kinaxis’s earlier financial and brand recognition struggles (owing to the market’s infatuation with i2 Technologies’ and Manugistics’ demand planning and optimization APS-SCP solutions), Kinaxis has successfully grown its customer base. Recently, the vendor posted a whopping 300 percent quarter over quarter growth, equating to more than 50,000 users at about 60 major corporate customers, with its solutions in use at over 400 Fortune 500 locations worldwide. This includes the following recently announced customers: Elcoteq, John Deere, Microsoft, Nikon, and Qualcomm. Such global leaders are operating in an increasingly distributed environment and live in a world of constant changes in demand, supply, and product mix.
The company’s better-known Kinaxis RapidResponse combines multi-enterprise visibility, collaborative what-if analysis, and on-the-fly decision support to enable frontline manufacturing and cross-enterprise fulfillment teams to take quick and effective action when faced with the inevitable constant changes mentioned above. This means decision makers are able to make the trade-offs and compromises necessary to respond to unexpected events in increasingly erratic global supply and fulfillment networks. Manufacturers value the ability to analyze alternative response actions before making a decision on a major trade-off; by proactively modeling and scoring different response alternatives, a well-understood and optimal action can be communicated to the supplier or contract manufacturer.
Kinaxis’s customers’ revenues range from $100 million to $30 billion (USD), and they offer products ranging from simple consumer goods to diverse defense systems. Kinaxis RapidResponse has been used in fulfillment and operations management amid thousands of user communities within certain supply networks.
Although its customer base now spans many vertical industries (electronics, aerospace, industrial equipment, automotive, and consumer durable goods), Kinaxis can claim a dominant position among electronic manufacturing service (EMS) leaders. Namely, Kinaxis RapidResponse is in use at many of the world's leading global brand owners (such as Casio, Honeywell, Qualcomm, Raytheon, and Toshiba) and at eight of the top 10 EMS providers.
For more background on the evolution of this new area of supply chain management (SCM), please see previous parts of this series—Who Could Object to Faster, More Responsive Supply Chains?, Multi-enterprise Responsiveness—Can It Ever Be Achieved?, and A Possible Remedy for Non-responsive Supply Chains.
Enter Kinaxis—a Response Management Pioneer
This brings us to a vendor that has changed its name a few times while refining its value proposition along the way, but which has certainly not departed from its roots and core competencies. Ottawa (Canada)-based, privately held Kinaxis Inc. today delivers both on-demand and on-premise response management software and services for visibility and coordination to help businesses drive swift responses to the constant changes taking place across global supply chains and fulfillment networks, with the goal of improving customer service and operational performance.
Founded in 1984 as Cadence Computer Corporation, the vendor was renamed Webplan Inc. in 1995. Then, in 2005, the company changed its name again to Kinaxis (a combination of “kinetic energy” and “global axis”). Throughout the years and multiple name changes, the company’s solutions have evolved from memory-resident, multisite production optimization capabilities (i.e., fast-acting manufacturing resource planning [MRP]) into a value proposition of Web-based, collaborative risk trade-off and response, and performance management within a distributed supply chain.
In addition, the innovative product architecture is able to mine information from existing back-office systems (and even spreadsheets or flat files, if necessary) as a basis for multiple what-if scenarios. This connectivity is in response to Kinaxis’s many customers having standardized ERP systems from such established providers as SAP, Oracle, or Baan, to name a few.
Despite Kinaxis’s earlier financial and brand recognition struggles (owing to the market’s infatuation with i2 Technologies’ and Manugistics’ demand planning and optimization APS-SCP solutions), Kinaxis has successfully grown its customer base. Recently, the vendor posted a whopping 300 percent quarter over quarter growth, equating to more than 50,000 users at about 60 major corporate customers, with its solutions in use at over 400 Fortune 500 locations worldwide. This includes the following recently announced customers: Elcoteq, John Deere, Microsoft, Nikon, and Qualcomm. Such global leaders are operating in an increasingly distributed environment and live in a world of constant changes in demand, supply, and product mix.
The company’s better-known Kinaxis RapidResponse combines multi-enterprise visibility, collaborative what-if analysis, and on-the-fly decision support to enable frontline manufacturing and cross-enterprise fulfillment teams to take quick and effective action when faced with the inevitable constant changes mentioned above. This means decision makers are able to make the trade-offs and compromises necessary to respond to unexpected events in increasingly erratic global supply and fulfillment networks. Manufacturers value the ability to analyze alternative response actions before making a decision on a major trade-off; by proactively modeling and scoring different response alternatives, a well-understood and optimal action can be communicated to the supplier or contract manufacturer.
Kinaxis’s customers’ revenues range from $100 million to $30 billion (USD), and they offer products ranging from simple consumer goods to diverse defense systems. Kinaxis RapidResponse has been used in fulfillment and operations management amid thousands of user communities within certain supply networks.
Although its customer base now spans many vertical industries (electronics, aerospace, industrial equipment, automotive, and consumer durable goods), Kinaxis can claim a dominant position among electronic manufacturing service (EMS) leaders. Namely, Kinaxis RapidResponse is in use at many of the world's leading global brand owners (such as Casio, Honeywell, Qualcomm, Raytheon, and Toshiba) and at eight of the top 10 EMS providers.
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