Intersil deploys Oracle supply chain tool: reconnecting dispersed manufacturing - Business & Finance

Electronic News, August 19, 2002 by Rob Spiegel

With outsourcing pushing manufacturing outside the corporation's four walls and out across the globe, it's becoming increasingly difficult for companies to keep systematic tabs on their own production.

The fury with which the market downturn came slamming down, leaving OEMs staggering with a large amount of oversupply, is just one example of the critical need for a visible supply chain. Intersil Corp. of Irvine, Calif., recently unveiled its attempt to keep an eye on its operations by deploying a global supply chain tool produced by Oracle Corp. of Redwood Shores, Calif.

The need for a coherent supply chain system can be counted in weeks, days, even hours. "It could take six weeks to shut off production externally," said Don Cross, director of Intersil's Global Customer Care Network. "I want to be able to jump through that hoop in six hours."

As the downturn worsened, Intersil faced increasing difficulty, Cross said. "I got a call from the CEO asking if we were slowing down the factory enough," Cross said. "I slowed it enough that they were screaming bloody murder. But was it enough? I don't know." Cross says there are two questions that need to be answered by a good planning system: "How quickly can they build a part? And how quickly can I make sure they're building the right part?" he said.

As part of the solution to the vexing problem of getting information from factories dispersed among EMS providers across the globe, Intersil turned to Oracle to deploy its advanced supply chain planning systems as well as its demand planning tool, both clustered on the Windows 2000 platform. Intersil has been running the system live for five months. Cross said he is already seeing the benefits of improved visibility and responsiveness to customer requests and changes in demand.

Intersil is using the supply chain system to fortify its efforts to outsource further. The idea is to keep connected to the manufacturing process even as it departs to the hinterlands. "Intersil is trying to shed itself of its manufacturing and turn into a virtual company," said Jonathan Oomrigar, VP of Oracle High Technology Industries. Oomrigar said Intersil's experience with planning systems was an asset in its deployment of Oracle's tools. "Intersil has been doing centralized planning for some time. They're a state-of-the-art company," Oomrigar said.

Intersil needed the new system to monitor production at other factories, a move away from only monitoring its own factories "We designed our planning system to manage our own factories," Cross said. "Now we need to manage the relationship [with EMS providers] and the operational component instead of managing the factory."

In the spirit of outsourcing, Intersil looked for a software partner to help develop the system. The company drew up 600 functional requirements and 13 planning scenarios to match against potential vendors. "In the final analysis, the team's assessment was that Oracle was the best," Cross said.