Archive for January 2010

Management Dynamics Releases End-Use Manager to Help Companies Reduce Trade Compliance Risks

January 21, 2010, 9:57 am

New On-Demand Solution Enables Cross-functional Teams to Create and Manage End-Use Statements for Customers, Vendors and Employees

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ, January 20, 2010 — Management Dynamics, a leading provider of Global Trade Management solutions, today announced the release of End-Use Manager, an on-demand solution that generates end-use surveys for parties involved in any cross-border transaction. The new solution allows a trade compliance team to comprehensively survey and collect end-use statements from customers, suppliers and employees, establishing a standardized process for managing and ensuring compliance with international trade regulations.

“Companies that manufacture and export licensable goods must ensure that their customer and the intended end-use are approved and in compliance with export regulations. However, today this is largely a manual process that is difficult to administer, especially across a global enterprise,” said Adrienne Braumiller, Partner, Braumiller Schulz LLP. “Management Dynamics’ End-Use Manager provides companies with the tools necessary to ensure that their shipments are delivered to the approved trade party and destined for friendly end-use.”

End-Use Manager can be flexibly deployed as a Web-based portal across any global enterprise and configured to meet the specific requirements of different business units. Surveys can be developed by business unit, transaction type, origin country and destination country, and populated with a pre-configured list of questions. In addition, all parties to the transaction are screened against the major sanctioned party lists.

Management Dynamics’ End-Use Manager offers the following key capabilities for companies to simplify trade compliance around product use and related professional services:

  • Enterprise Deployment – Implement an end-use process by geography, business unit, or product family with a flexible multi-organization deployment model and manage users with role-based security.
  • Survey Configuration – Develop a comprehensive repository of questions and manage assignment rules to dynamically assemble a complete survey for end-use statements by customers, vendors and employees.
  • Restricted Party & Critical Country Screening – Automatically screen each party to the transaction against a comprehensive list of restricted parties and embargoed countries.
  • Generate & Distribute End Use Statements – Dynamically generate end-use statements based on all associated questions as well as the results of Critical Country and Restricted Party Screening in a PDF format for easy distribution via email.

Review Audit Trail – Audit each transaction with complete visibility to the user and all survey questions and answers.

“Today many companies rely on an inconsistent and, often inaccurate, manual process to administer end-use surveys to determine if the intended use of their shipped goods is in compliance with export controls,” said Nathan Pieri, SVP Marketing & Product Management, Management Dynamics, Inc. “Our new End-Use Manager product makes it possible to manage the process centrally and distribute via a simple web-based solution for employees that must interact with customers, suppliers and contractors.”

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Category: Global Trade Management  |  Comment

Fiesta Gas Grills Keeps on Cooking with Management Dynamics’ Supply Chain Visibility

January 13, 2010, 9:17 am

Leading Manufacturer Streamlines Inbound Supply Chain to Efficiently Manage Growth

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ, January 13, 2010 — Management Dynamics, a leading provider of global trade management solutions, today announced that Fiesta Gas Grills, one of the largest North American grill manufacturers, has implemented its Supply Chain Visibility solution to support its expanded global procurement operations. Integrating its sourcing which is primarily from China to its operations in the United States and Canada, the global multi-mode solution has enabled Fiesta to improve customer service, reduce cycle times, better manage suppliers and proactively identify in-transit delivery issues.

“We needed a solution that provided visibility into our manufacturing and distribution process at the supplier level, the ability to generate commercial documents and a platform on which to coordinate all of our global operations. We found the ideal solution with Management Dynamics,” said Peter Perley, COO, Fiesta Gas Grills. “The Supply Chain Visibility solution could help us to double our business this year without having to add additional staff to our procurement organization.”

Management Dynamics’ Supply Chain Visibility (SCV) solution connects Fiesta Gas Grills with its multiple overseas suppliers, logistics providers, brokers and carriers on a single global platform to communicate critical purchase order, shipment and inventory information and to support collaborative logistics processes. With real-time shipment visibility, Fiesta can offer its national retail customers, order tracking with visibility into nine stages of the manufacturing process for better inventory management with less frequency of stock-outs. In addition, armed with essential information on each shipment from its suppliers, Fiesta’s procurement operations can make accurate decisions relating to diverting inventory or resolving bottlenecks.

“Global supply chain teams need real-time visibility to their supply network, yet the realities of today’s global supply chain – multiple trading partners with varying information systems and data definitions – can create major operational challenges for companies,”said Nathan Pieri, SVP Marketing and Product Management for Management Dynamics. “By moving from a largely manual manufacturing and logistics process to one that is automated infrastructure with Supply Chain Visibility, Fiesta Gas Grills has the control and decision support tools they need to reduce lead times, enhance customer service and increase sales in this difficult economy.”

About Fiesta Gas Grills LLC

Through quality craftsmanship and innovative designs Fiesta has become one of the largest North American grill manufacturers. Fiesta grills are cooking great outdoor meals in over 30 countries around the world.. Whether its our award winning Blue Ember brand, our Fiesta brand or our Grillrite brand our dedication to quality permeates our company. From the design teams through the manufacturing team to the in-house customer service representatives, every member of the Fiesta family is committed to providing each owner of a Fiesta grill “the best grill under the sun” and the ultimate in outdoor cooking experience.

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Category: Supply Chain Visibility  |  Comment

The Importer Security Filing is Just Around the Corner..

January 12, 2010, 10:11 am

Here’s a great article I found in Logistics Management that gives a basic overview of the Importer Security Filing (“10+2″) rule: Complying with the Importer Security Filing. The rule, which goes into full effect very soon – Jan. 26, 2010, will require importers of ocean freight to complete a properly executed Importer Security Filing (ISF). To comply with this rule, the importer must submit 10 pieces of data related to the container’s contents 24 hours prior to loading, and the carrier must submit an additional 2 items no later than 48 hours after departure.

In order to comply with this rule (noncompliance could result in fines and costly supply chain disruptions), importers need to have processes in place that will allow them to classify and store compliance-related product details; screen suppliers against government-maintained restricted party lists; communicate effectively both internally and with partners so that they will have the information needed to complete the requirements; and measure the process with performance metrics.

Implementing Global Trade Management (GTM) technology can mitigate the risk of non-compliance, fines and product delays resulting from Customs 10+2. The hidden benefit, however, is in deploying a level of automation that will allow importers to effectively shift to a Direct Procurement model. Ultimately, the price of complying with heightened security regulations will cost more, but this new business model promises to generate a new stream of benefits for the importer. For further information on complying with the ISF, and tips on how GTM technologies can help you, please check out our 10+2 Practical Guide.

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Suggested New Years Resolution: Improve Your Performance Management

January 11, 2010, 3:16 pm

More and more companies are becoming aware of the need for detailed metrics to track supply chain performance, according to a recent study done by the Georgia Southern University and the University of Tennessee on issues in transportation and logistics.

“What we’re starting to see,” says [Karl Manrodt, Associate Professor at Georgia Southern], “is senior management … trying to understand what those metrics are and should be.” The desire to monitor one’s own performance, so prevalent in school, never really goes away. At the same time, “it’s important for us to communicate what’s critical … to customers and suppliers. Let’s manage to that.”

Unfortunately many supply chain teams struggle to access data in multiple sources and formats and do not have access to the latest business intelligence tools. Implementing a Performance Management solution that integrates with your supply chain visibility and trade compliance processes can give companies the insight to make better-informed strategic decisions and improve supply chain performance.

Management Dynamics has a Performance Management solution that offers several important capabilities:

  • A portal to schedule reports, alert users when new reports are available and to distribute polished deliverable documents.
  • A dashboard to provide a consolidated view of key performance indicators and reports along with extensive personalization options.
  • Over 80 standard reports are available across all supported modules to manage key metrics such as cycle time, trading partner performance, landed cost, and data quality. Users also have the ability to create their own customized reports.
  • A web-based reporting tool to perform ad-hoc queries and multi-dimensional analyses with the ability to drill to operational details. Reports can be quickly customized by dragging and dropping data, inserting calculations, and adding graphs.
  • A business intelligence platform for developing strategic reports, analytics, KPI metrics, scorecards and personal and corporate dashboards.
  • Ability to scorecard carrier performance, compare transit times, analyze pricing trends, and track the history of all transaction costs through an end-to-end audit capability.

To learn more about this solution, please visit our website.

For more details on the study, please read this article on SupplyChainBrain (includes a link to a video interview).

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Category: Global Trade Management, Supply Chain Visibility  |  Comment