FreeMarkets Aims To Speed New Supplier Relationships

Enterprise sourcing vendor FreeMarkets Inc. on Wednesday detailed new software and services aimed at helping companies more quickly begin trading and realizing cost savings with new suppliers.

FreeMarkets' latest offering is called the Savings Implementation Solution and is offered on a hosted basis. The company doesn't divulge pricing information.

The software component features a process library that includes tasks and subtasks, as well as assigned roles, for how a standard process such as machine casting would work. While the template serves as a starting point, it can also be tailored to a particular company or process.

The software also includes document-management and collaboration capabilities that give a customer the ability to have part-level document libraries to make it easier to access information on a particular part being sourced, says Jay Odell, FreeMarkets' director of product management. Collaboration capabilities built into the software facilitate sharing of such information between companies and their suppliers.

Finally, the software includes project-management functions to track individual tasks related to parts or materials to be sourced. Of course, the software integrates with FreeMarkets' sourcing technology.

"If I have gathered some drawings and specs for a supplier to be able to bid, it's already in the format we need, and with the click of a few buttons you can bring that over," Odell says.

The services component of Savings Implementation Solution includes project content-management services for bringing together relevant documentation, implementation project-management for driving a supplier implementation process, a project-strategy service for establishing standard processes, and on-site supplier management to help a given supplier manage the transition to working with a FreeMarkets customer.