A corporate initiative by Ford Motor Co. to reduce direct material costs and identify opportunities for parts consolidation and efficiencies for existing and new vehicle programs, has led the company to tap Endeca Technologies' Spend Analysis Solution.
The solution integrates data from more than seven different source systems. These include purchasing, finance, supplier, engineering, and part catalog applications, offering sourcing professionals 360-degree visibility of part and supplier related data. The solution will also serve to improve collaboration between engineering and sourcing professionals by offering tools to evaluate the complex tradeoffs that occur during the new product design process.
The new application powers Ford's Global Commodity Hub, a portal which offers one-stop access to parts, program, supplier, technical attribute and cost target data. "Manufacturers are among the most information rich of all enterprises, but the ultimate value of this information remains limited by legacy systems that were never architected for such integration, exploration and discovery. We are now witnessing the beginning of a shift to a whole new class of information architecture that will unlock this latent value," said Steve Papa, CEO of Endeca.
