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News >> Technology >>
Supply chain management is biggest challenge
By agencies
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Monday, 02 May 2005, 19:30 IST
BANGALORE:Managing global supply chain is the biggest challenge in product development, according to a recent survey by the Infosys Technologies at the Electronics Supply Chain Association Spring 2005 symposium.
About 70 percent of 170 supply chain executives from 89 companies, who participated agreed that management of global supply chain was the biggest challenge for product development.
These executives represented the semiconductor industry, original equipment manufacturers, software vendors, distributors and electronic manufacturing service providers among others.
The survey confirmed that time to market was critical in the new product introductions, more so than quality of design or product differentiation. Results showed strong indication from supply chain executives that in a rapidly changing market, companies were willing to trade off optimization of product features, performance, cost and reliability, primarily because modular versions of the product were introduced on subsequent releases as newer technologies develop.
The survey findings also revealed that collaboration among design partners, suppliers and customers was the key element of effective and integrated product management and in the current new product development process, the collaboration environment was sub-optional.
In addition, a majority also indicated marketing and sales as well as engineering were the primary influencers during the new product development phase.