CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
11 May 2005
Company News
UGS and A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions Announce Sourcing Community Powered by Teamcenter®
UGS Corp. , a global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, and A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions , offering strategic sourcing services, announced the availability of Sourcing Community, the latest release of product lifecycle sourcing solutions powered by UGS' Teamcenter® software. Sourcing Community combines web-based RFx (Request for Proposal, Request for Information, etc.) and sourcing survey capabilities with Teamcenter knowledge management and collaboration solutions to further integrate the sourcing and change management processes.
UGS and A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions are demonstrating the new technology at the International Supply Management (ISM) Conference on May 8-10 in San Antonio, Texas. The announcement represents the strategic next step in the extension of Teamcenter PLM technology to support the needs of business users.
UGS considers the expansion of PLM to unite both product development and business data and processes as core to their product strategy. The company has partnered with A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions, a Strategic Partner in the UGS Partner Program, to jointly develop the Sourcing Community solution, which will be delivered to customers directly through UGS' direct channel and through A.T. Kearney's strategic sourcing activities.
Sourcing Community combines sourcing with collaboration and product data management (PDM), to provide one window access to sourcing and product data to all stakeholders in the supply chain, increasing sourcing productivity, compressing sourcing cycle time and enabling early supplier involvement to design the cost out of products.
"The joint development of the Sourcing Community solution by A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions provides us with a key validation of the wide use of Teamcenter for a variety of business uses," said Raj Khoshoo, vice president of strategic initiatives, UGS. "More importantly, by providing this integration on the Sourcing Community platform we have enabled collaboration, program management and seamless integration with office tools, all provided on the familiar Microsoft desktop to ensure usability by business users with minimal training."
Sourcing, Collaboration, Change Management Now Tied Together
With this release, Sourcing Community further ties A.T. Kearney Procurement Solution's sourcing best practices and intellectual capital with UGS' leading knowledge management and change management processes for an end-to-end approach. As product changes are invoked, Product Bill of Materials (BOMs) and associated data are automatically gathered and routed to sourcing teams for incorporation in bid packages, eliminating idle time and increasing overall sourcing productivity. The impact of product changes can more readily be understood by sourcing teams with direct access to part usage information and product configuration information from PDM, helping to streamline and eliminate RFx duplication across product lines and suppliers.
The one window access to both product and sourcing data in a collaborative environment makes it easier to involve suppliers early in the process, increasing collaboration in the more upfront stages of product development, increasing innovation and eliminating rework to help design the cost out of products.
"Sourcing Community has really made it easy for A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions to deliver significantly increased added value to our customers," says Joseph Raudabaugh, president of A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions. "Sourcing Community can quickly be deployed, and tailored as we define the sourcing best practices for the customer."
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