by Lauren Bossers
i2 and the i2 User Group have named the 2006 winners of the Ken Sharma Award for Excellence, which honors companies for outstanding achievements in supply chain management. The awards were announced May 11 and 12 at i2 Planet 2006 in Las Vegas. VF Corporation, a global leader in branded apparel, received the Chairman's Award. ADTRAN, a leading supplier of network access equipment for networking and telecommunications applications, received the award for the high-tech industry. Nicholas Piramal India Limited, a leading pharmaceutical company, won in the process industry category.
Now in its fifth year, the annual Ken Sharma Award for Excellence competition is open to hundreds of i2 customers with implementations planned, in progress or completed. AMR Research serves as the exclusive judge, evaluating the entries on the basis of vision, implementation depth and breadth, innovation, time to value and return on investment.
VF Corp. wins special Chairman's Award
i2 Chairman Sanjiv Sidhu presented the Chairman's Award to Ellen Martin, VF's vice president of Supply Chain Systems. "VF received the highest score in the history of the awards," Sidhu said. "The company is in a class by itself, with superior innovation in supply chain management and business process optimization" (see Interview, page 4). To meet the requirements of its everchanging business environment, VF implemented i2 solutions for forecasting, planning, tracking and replenishment operations. The company reduced its planning cycle time by 75 percent, increased customer-service levels by 15 percent and also reduced obsolescence.
In addition, the company has improved its on-time shipping performance and decreased inventory levels. "Using i2 solutions, VF operates a truly demanddriven supply chain," Sidhu said.
ADTRAN wins the high-tech industry award
ADTRAN implemented i2 solutions to decrease excess inventory and to free up working capital. As a result, the company reduced its inventory by more than 50 percent, decreased its planning cycle from five days to less than one day and benefited from daily inventory feeds from its contract manufacturers. "This allows ADTRAN to have complete visibility into its supply chain to determine the best strategies to accommodate customer demand,"said Tom Dadmun, vice president, Supply Chain Operations.
Nicholas Piramal India Limited wins the process-industry award
Nicholas Piramal India Limited (NPIL) implemented i2 solutions to centralize its planning activities and forecast domestic business activities. Final forecasting data are leveraged for production planning and reporting across the company's sales information systems. NPIL has improved forecast accuracy by 20 percent and reduced material inventories by nearly 30 percent as a result of using i2 solutions. It has synchronized material planning with capacity manufacturing, created more efficient production schedules and improved data management. In a statement read at the ceremony, Shailendra Bobhate, president, Global Supply Chain at NPIL, said, "I take this opportunity to thank i2 for granting us this award. The credit goes to the i2 team and my teams who worked on these projects and implemented successfully." The late Ken Sharma co-founded i2 Technologies with Sanjiv Sidhu in 1988.
Lauren Bossers is a marketing specialist at i2 Technologies. For more information on the Ken Sharma Award for Excellence, visit http://www.i2.com/customers/ksa_about.cfm. Email KenSharmaAwards@i2.com to receive information about how to participate in the program. |
