The company is also looking at providing Web reporting for its majorprincipals. "Our principals want to know what is happening to theircompanies in Hong Kong in terms of profit and loss figures andinventory levels, and they want to see it on one page and have itdelivered in two days," Cheng adds.

On the CIO's role in SCM, Szabo believes CIOs have to be the continualeducator. "We need to show people the promise of SCM and explain tothem what they are missing if they are not looking at and carefullyanalysing what initiatives they should implement," he says.

Reaping Millions

Cementhai Chemicals Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Siam Cement, operates inone of the world's most speculative markets. The supply chain of themanufacturer of major chemical products including olefins andpolyolefins is both supply- and demand-driven: in an upcycle, whereprices are increasing, its supply chain has to be demand-driven; in adowncycle it needs to be supply-driven. In its manufacturingprocesses, having the right materials at the right time and in theright quantities is a key differentiator--and to achieve this it needshighly effective supply chain optimisation software.

Last October, Cementhai installed software from Aspen Technology Inc.to optimise its supply chain planning. This has revolutionised itsbusiness by increasing the responsiveness of its supply chain planningprocess, says Thamasak Setha-udom, e-Business Manager at Cementhai."In the past, we operated on the produce-to-stock model; today we areveering towards the produce-to-order model," he says. "Before weinstalled the software, it took us one week to plan our productionprocesses, and another one to two weeks to make adjustments to thesupply chain. With today's technology, it takes only three hours. In abusiness where demand patterns change every day, we no longer need tokeep huge stocks of inventory to cover these variations."