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3.4 ICT in enabling collaboration customer relationships and client service

ICT facilitates collaboration among companies and with clients and customers. Boeing Australia, for example, will partner with other Boeing companies to develop ICT applications for use in production. The company also levers off its parent – which is a customer as well as an owner/investor. In the aerospace and other industries, ICT vendors like to talk of ‘partnering’ with companies, but they are still essentially suppliers of products or services for them. Many companies like to keep an arm’s length relationship and do not want suppliers to be too closely involved in their business strategies.

ICT allows companies to develop close relationships with customers through on-line and Web-based ordering and secure, advanced communications systems. Success in this area often depends to a large extent on the level and sophistication of ICT use on the part of customers and sales representatives.

Prowler Proof Doors

Prowler Proof provides a wide range of products manufactured in fully welded aluminium. Each item is manufactured using precision electronic cutting equipment and state of the art welding machinery. All products are custom made to individual client requirements, and treated and powder coated to give a long lasting and attractive finish.

ICT is used to fully automate the order fulfilment process using Web-enabled technologies from order through to despatch. The on-line order process integrates with the production process that relies on ICT to fully automate production from cutting the aluminium strip, through welding , painting and packaging. There is no ‘batching’. ICT allows for a ‘production run of one’, with each order being an individual product.

The technology involves a great deal of complexity but provides for a high level of individual customisation.

ICT also allows companies to have a continuous engagement with clients following production, delivery and sale. Technology allows information on product performance to be relayed to manufacturers for monitoring, quality assurance and triggering service and maintenance actions. For example, Orica Mining Services embeds ICT into mining equipment to perform this task.

 

 

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  • Document ID: 29087 |
  • Last modified: 5 February 2008, 10:30am