Ultriva Announces Record 2006.Orders Double While Customers Achieve 45% to 66% Reductions in Inventory and Up to 85% Shorter Supplier Lead Times CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Ultriva Inc., the world's largest provider of lean manufacturing Lean manufacturing is the production of goods using less of everything compared to mass production: less human effort, less manufacturing space, less investment in tools, and less engineering time to develop a new product. software, today announced that its business doubled in fiscal year 2006, which ended September 30th, 2006. This unprecedented growth has been driven by both expansion by Ultriva's current customers and new customers, leading the company to its current position where its software is installed in more plants worldwide than any of its competitors. Ultriva, which is privately held, did not release financial data for the period. One of the keys to growth in 2006 was the March release of Ultriva Electronic Kanban Electronic Kanban (sometimes referred to as eKanban[1]) is a signaling system that utilizes a mix of technology to trigger the movement of materials within a manufacturing or production facility. version 5.8. The new software includes benchmarking tools that allow customers to track and document hard dollar savings and operational improvements. Eight months after that release, customers are reporting consistent 45% to 66% reductions in inventory and up to 85% shorter supplier lead times. "Inventory reduction frees up cash while eliminating carrying costs Carrying costs Costs that increase with increases in the level of investment in current assets. ," said Ashley Stirrup stirrup, foot support for the rider of a horse in mounting and while riding. It is a ring with a horizontal bar to receive the foot and is attached by a strap to the saddle. , CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Ultriva. "The operational improvements our customers are achieving are even more important. An 85% shorter supplier lead time means that a manufacturer can be much more responsive to their market, giving them an incredible competitive advantage. As adopters of lean manufacturing move up the 'Lean learning curve,' we find them turning to Ultriva to help them establish a scalable, systematic approach to material replenishment that can be extended to include their customers and suppliers." Lean manufacturing initiatives have often struggled to document hard dollar savings. With Ultriva Electronic Kanban's new benchmarking capabilities, Ultriva customers who have achieved initial successes have used the benchmarking data to build a business case for rapidly expanding their lean programs across the company. Also in 2006, Ultriva announced pre-built connectors to SAP and Oracle's applications. These connectors enable SAP and Oracle customers to integrate Ultriva's lean manufacturing solutions without changing their existing SAP and Oracle applications. The future for lean manufacturing software appears to be headed on the same trajectory as Ultriva's growth. On November 3, 2006, the ARC Advisory Group announced projections that the software market for Lean and Six Sigma Not to be confused with Sigma 6. Six Sigma is a set of practices originally developed by Motorola to systematically improve processes by eliminating defects.[1] A defect is defined as nonconformity of a product or service to its specifications. will continue to experience rapid growth through 2010, nearly doubling the 2005 market (http://www.arcweb.com/txtlstvw.aspx?LstID=c03d68b5-b91d-4a6f-a38a-596 bac15aa6b). In March 2006, the Aberdeen Group Aberdeen Group is a provider of business-related research services. It has its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts and belongs to the Harte-Hanks group. Founded in 1988, Aberdeen's research is used by over 2. released a benchmark report of 300 manufacturers with 90% of the respondents indicating a commitment to lean manufacturing (http://www.managingautomation.com/maonline/research/download/view/Clo sing_the_Reality_Gap_The_Lean_Benchmark_Report_10813443). (Due to their length, these URLs may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.) About Ultriva Ultriva, Inc., is a leader in lean manufacturing software that drives lean processes across the supply chain - from suppliers to customers. Ultriva's flagship product A primary product of a company, which is typically why the company was founded and/or what made it well known. For example, MS-DOS, Windows and the Microsoft Office suite have been flagship products of Microsoft. CorelDRAW is a flagship product of Corel Corporation. , Ultriva Electronic Kanban, eliminates stock-outs while reducing inventory levels up to 75 percent. Ultriva Lean Scheduling complements demand-driven replenishment strategies by optimizing production schedules in real-time around the most variable customer demand. Ultriva Supplier Replenishment extends the replenishment capabilities of kanban Meaning "visible record" in Japanese, it is a system of notification from one process to the other in a manufacturing system. Kanban cards, which may be multicolored based on priority, are stored in a bin or container that holds the items. They describe the parts, supplier and quantity. to include schedule-based replenishment, discrete POs, min/max, consignment and VMI VMI Virginia Military Institute VMI Vendor Managed Inventory VMI Vertical Motion Index VMI Valtakunnan Metsien Inventointi (Finnish: National Forest Inventory) VMI Video Module Interface (vendor-managed inventory) replenishment methods. Ultriva's products are in use in more than 85 plants worldwide incorporating more than 1,000 suppliers and reducing manufacturing costs with industry leaders such as Rexnord, Emerson, Ingersoll-Rand and Invensys. Ultriva is backed by leading venture capital firms Name Location Founding date Managing Partners/Directors Specialty Capital managed 5AM Ventures Menlo Park, CA; Waltham, MA 2002 John Diekman, PhD (managing partner), Scott Rocklage, PhD (managing partner), Andrew Schwab (managing partner) life sciences $200M [1] : Labrador Ventures, WI Harper and Draper Richards. |
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