Eaton is a global provider of power quality and management systems that’s used to promising its customers “the high 9s” in systems availability. The New Zealand branch of Eaton (previously known as home-grown star SwitchTec, and then Invensys) aims to offer the same level of information availability to its customers around the world. “We don’t want the tyranny of distance to remind our customers that they are dealing with a manufacturer in New Zealand,” says Eaton’s New Zealand general manager, Richard Jenman.

That’s easier said than done when you’re working hours are so different from your customers, and customer service staff are inundated with emails about orders, shipping and proof of delivery. But Eaton found the solution with Viisibility, a New Zealand-developed system for building an Internet community of customers, suppliers, staff and stakeholders.

“We provide simple, cost-effective internet based information sharing services, which helps to improve responsiveness, information flow and proactivity across the supply chain,” explains Viisibility Systems managing director, Nick Shier.

Eaton New Zealand uses Oracle as its ERP system, managing orders and customers in New Zealand, production in China, and shipping hubs in China (2), the USA, New Zealand and Belgium. While Oracle is eminently suitable for this task, Eaton finds it harder to share their information with community members outside its Christchurch office.

The investment in buying ERP licenses for new users, writing reports for each community member and managing the system would overwhelm potential returns.

So Viisibility sits over the top of Oracle at Eaton, as well as the various systems run by trading partners and logistics providers, and receives hourly updates on new orders, changes to existing orders and shipping information through to proof of delivery. This data is extracted from Oracle, and systems run by the other community members, and is transferred to the Viisibility servers based in secure Tier 1 data centres in Auckland and Sydney. Rules defined by Eaton ensure that their data is secure and only visible to those who need to know.

To the Eaton community, Viisibility is a secure, configurable web-site that shows all of the information they need. Notifications are sent out automatically once orders are loaded, if production timetables are changed, when orders are shipped, and when they are delivered.

End-of-day reports on customer activity and company performance are pushed to the appropriate recipients.

Shier jokes that not only does Viisibility work 24 hours a day, but it doesn’t take sick leave, doesn’t visit the bathroom and is never talking to another customer when you need information urgently.

April 2007

Proactive customer service
For Margarita De Garrow, sales support administrator for Eaton’s markets in North and South America and India, Viisibility means one thing: “No more paperwork”

Order acknowledgements are generated and distributed automatically, shipping documents are loaded into Viisibility and the customer notified immediately.

“We used to spend a lot of time on the phone, email or fax, notifying customers of changes and updates, or replying to their questions. Now, the customer can see their information at any time, is notified of changes and has all documentation readily available. That means that both the customer and I can be more proactive.”

As an example, different parts of a small four line item order placed with Eaton may be shipped from any of the hubs around the world. And, frequently, a customer will require one part of the order in advance of the others. “Now both myself and the customer are in the position where we can collaborate online to identify such orders, arrange air freight shipment on one component and send the rest by sea. That saves the customer money and increases their appreciation for Eaton.”

With Viisibility’s flexible structure, Eaton is also able to attach documents to each line item of an order so that shipping from the world-wide hubs appears seamless to the customer.

Ease of installation
Viisibility was scoped, installed and productive at Eaton New Zealand within a month. Shier explains that ”Viisibility is able to reflect a customer’s business processes and add functionality, like shipping and delivery data, very easily. Reports are simple to generate and don’t require the knowledge of complex or proprietary report writers.”

“For Eaton New Zealand we were able to provide accurate DIFOT reports (Deliver In Full On Time) immediately, dramatically reducing the time spent generating just that one report.” “Viisibility is system independent, so we don’t only work with Oracle, we work with any ERP system. There is a reason we have two i’s in our company name, we provide a window into our client’s data so it can be shared - and thus improve communication and productivity within the community.”

Viisibility’s clients rent the system, meaning expenditure is operational.

Export success
Viisibility has been so successful for Eaton New Zealand that other parts of the Eaton Corporation are now using the system. “Some of our biggest customers are others in the Eaton Group – they have seen what we have and they want it,” says Jenman.

“Eaton Corporation is an acquisitive company, we have bought several different manufacturers in the power quality and management space – and they all have different systems. Now we are beginning to implement Viisibility across the group with two key benefits; firstly, the customer service benefits that we have noticed and, secondly, our head office management use the system for up-to-the-minute KPI, or dashboard, reporting. The system is brilliant for adding real value to the data we have.”

For more information
Viisibility Systems Ltd
www.viissupplychain.com
Nick Shier
+64 3 379 4300
info@viisibility.com