Toshiba Europe GmbH, located in Neuss, Germany, is the European headquarters for Toshiba Corporation. Toshiba, with 161,000 employees and revenues of $53 billion, is one of the largest information technology and electronics companies in the world, and Toshiba Europe GmbH employs more than 900 with revenues of EUR 1.95 billion in the 2003-2004 fiscal year. In order to maintain its leadership position in the highly competitive marketplace with product life cycles of three months, shifting market demands and aggressive competition, Toshiba is continuously improving its supply chain processes.
Toshiba Europe GmbH chose Kinaxis RapidResponse to improve the company's ability to respond to changes in demand and supply. In doing so, Toshiba set out to: reduce the time required to respond to changes and align demand and supply; reduce the operational workload of processing an increasing number of SKUs; share information online across many organizations and functions; and enhance the granularity of information to a higher number of sales territories.
"The ability to respond rapidly to change has become a competitive necessity," said Toshinari Sato, vice president of Information. "With RapidResponse, we were up and running quickly and have seen strong user acceptance. The flexibility and rapid response times have empowered our staff to collaborate and quickly make the right decisions that align with our corporate goals."
RapidResponse delivers technology that enables manufacturers to anticipate potential problems, instantly review multiple action alternatives, and align operations to rapidly and effectively respond to changes at the point-of-action. The RapidResponse unique architecture connects directly to front- and back-end systems, supports a continuous flow of information across multiple sites, and optimizes the value of existing infrastructure.
"The key to driving manufacturing performance is in responding to change," said Randy Littleson, vice president of Marketing for Kinaxis. "Decisions must be made quickly and, most importantly, be aligned with corporate objectives to be effective. We're pleased we can help Toshiba lead the marketplace by enabling the company to respond to the ever present changes in the IT and electronics market."
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