Business

BISM 2601

Web Smart 50

Research Project

The application of Internet technologies has been a growing trend in the business world for nearly a decade. More and more companies are realizing the benefits of using the web. Web use has morphed from information exchange only to enhancements for collaboration, customer service and customization. These applications now lead to increasing profits; cutting costs, minimizing production, and customer satisfaction in all areas of the manufacturing process. Companies such as Mattel, BMW, and TaylorMade have adopted ways of fine-tuning their strategies to keep up with this growing trend. This was accomplished by focusing on several key aspects in each of their respective markets.

Ñ"УMattel has adapted its production process by involving a newly developed system named Platypus. Platypus is a unique combination of many different programs. It is, therefore, a perfect name for the system used by Mattel to involve people from all aspects of the toy and game production process. Ñ"УNow by implementing Platypus, they have cut that process by nearly 20%. Before Mattel adopted this new hybrid way of thinking, it took approximately eighteen months for the creation of new toys and products.

Having the ability to produce new products faster was only part of the process. Mattel accomplished a faster approval by placing their licensing program online. Before Platypus, the company was shipping products to and from their licensees repetitively. Ñ"ШBy digitizing and automating the approval process, Mattel has reduced shipping to licensees from fourteen weeks to nearly five.

BMW is no newcomer to the business of making and selling cars. They have been on the forefront of the automobile world since the company began focusing on production shortly after World War II. BMW established a place in the market by carefully crafting a reputation for manufacturing quality luxury automobiles. Innovative companies like BMW have begun to move away from mass production assembly lines of the Henry Ford day. Internet technology has been merged with production to allow BMW consumers to customize their vehicles by choosing among options available to them via the World Wide Web, Customizing the manufacturing process of automobiles is the wave of the future and BMW is riding the long board all the way in.

World Wide Web customization has major advantages over mass production by allowing the customer to have more control over the packages available to them. Before the web was used in this process, the customer had to choose a car from vehicles that were only available through dealers. Now with the introduction of e-commerce, it has increased the development of material handling systems. Newly designed planning, automated staging systems and manufacturing software has made the ordering process itself easier by being sent directly to the plant where they are produced. BMW calls this process ÐŽ§customer oriented sales and productionЎЁ. Their newly developed software system provides real-time information of the entire manufacturing process. Ñ"Ò' This means now that customers can make option changes six days before final production starts on the car. BMW also implemented an automated storage and retrieval system or stacker as they have termed it. This system makes a delayed option change requested by the customer if possible.

Being able to manage the flow of information from the ordering process to the manufacturing process has also been a huge success of the system. The ability to keep track of resources necessary for the production of a car and the wants and needs of the customer is a problem for most companies involved in product manufacturing. BMW has also allowed its resource suppliers into the production loop. They changed their information systems both internally and to their suppliers. The data is sent from individual customer orders directly to the suppliers daily. This provides accurate information on the needs of the company, and in turn reduces the necessary amount of resources that it has to have on hand. The old adage ÐŽ§DonÐŽ¦t put all your eggs into one basketЎЁ applies to BMW systems. By having this connection with their suppliers, BMW makes sure that parts arrive only when they need them to fill a customerÐŽ¦s order. When time comes to start on the vehicle it takes only two days to complete, and thus valuable resources are not unnecessarily tied up in products that are not immediately viable for sales revenues.

Customer relationship management is one of; if not, the most important aspect of any business. Lessening the separation between supplier and customer is one of the struggles of big businesses. With todayÐŽ¦s web application and technology markets moving forward, the line between the two is getting erased. TaylorMade and Adidas Golf are on the forefront of innovative customer relations. Ñ"Ð... They have been among the first to use online applications for tackling this growing problem. They did this by approaching the customer relationship company Kana in 2001.

The companies were unsure how to use Kana to their advantage and decided to ask their