But the ability to improve customer relationships on a global basis justifies those challenges. "We can't expect to manage those relationships effectively if we don't have good information," Wellesley says. "It's like operating with one hand tied behind your back."
--Tony Kontzer
Included in GrafTech International Ltd.'s portfolio of industrial products are graphite electrodes--devices used by steel companies to melt scrap metal that can withstand temperatures of up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Barges and tankers carrying raw materials for GrafTech's products travel from suppliers all over the world to plants in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and throughout Europe. Graphite electrodes take two months to make, requiring the company to accurately estimate customer demand and the region of the world from which it will be coming.
GrafTech is creating a single global supply-chain-management and enterprise-resource-planning system using PeopleSoft Inc.'s EnterpriseOne software suite. The effort is part of a broad business-transformation strategy put in place three years ago to lower costs companywide. It includes closing inefficient plants and rerouting manufacturing to the best-performing ones, and making better-informed decisions about where to source materials. "We're a company that has a new vision for how we want to manage our business, and we want to really leverage our global size," says David Hilmer, GrafTech's director of IT.
But several years of a weak economy and a sluggish steel industry--GrafTech's largest customer base--led to uneven business results. Now, after two years of declining sales, GrafTech's annual revenue rose 20% to $713 million in 2003.
Discover the benefits of scalable backbone and network services for application and cloud providers.
Network automation is gaining momentum. Here's how you can drive this powerful technology to its full potential.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
