OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwire) -- 09/14/09 -- Kinaxis(TM), provider of the on-demand supply chain management service, RapidResponse(TM), has offered complimentary access to the August 2009 Aberdeen Group benchmark report entitled "Multi-Enterprise Manufacturing: The Role of Visibility and Collaboration in Driving Responsiveness," which looks at the emphasis companies are placing on increasing network-wide supply chain responsiveness.

In today's dynamic and global economy, and as a result of demand volatility, supply disruptions and the accelerated influx of new products, it is increasingly difficult for companies to effectively manage every stage of their supply chain. Unexpected events and ever-changing conditions continue to increase the risk to the supply chain, triggering split decisions from operations staff across different time zones and cultures. Critical business decisions are made every day, and a lack of visibility and responsiveness can wreak havoc on a company's operations and financial performance.

The Aberdeen report focuses on the ways companies are addressing these issues and the types of solutions they're implementing to increase visibility and, in turn, collaboration and responsiveness across the supply chain and among their partners.

"Companies can no longer rely on a core group of experts to make the critical decisions necessary to effectively manage a multi-enterprise global supply chain," says Nari Viswanathan, vice president and principal analyst, supply chain management practice, The Aberdeen Group. "Improving supply chain visibility is top-of-mind for those companies looking to regain control of their supply chains and better manage those responsibilities, which have now been spread over the network. We have entered a new paradigm of customer-driven, global supply chains, and those organizations with the agility to respond quickly and effectively to sudden changes will find themselves benefiting from Best-in-Class results."

After surveying discrete supply chain industry participants, Aberdeen found that those companies enjoying Best-in-Class performance shared similar approaches to managing a multi-enterprise supply chain, such as:

- dramatically increasing their visibility into the most granular manufacturing processes and operations;

- creating a more flexible and agile supply chain;

- enabling effective and efficient decision-making;

- implementing higher levels of integration and B2B connectivity; and

- executing more collaboration among manufacturing and supply chain processes.

Kinaxis is helping companies achieve Best-in-Class results by offering the key capabilities required to improve supply chain visibility and responsiveness. The Kinaxis on-demand service, RapidResponse, ensures a company is capable of assessing risk and responding to unanticipated events. For example, RapidResponse:

- Establishes one version of the truth across a multi-enterprise supply chain-regaining control over the availability and accuracy of demand and supply chain data is a key step in increasing operations performance

- Provides companies with early warning of events and activities that pose a risk or opportunity to the business-having immediate and actionable information ensures adequate runway to course correct

- Delivers a robust and proven methodology and toolset to quickly bring onboard new sites and integrate their critical supply chain data-compatibility with ERP systems ensures a speedy and efficient implementation

"RapidResponse provides breakthrough capabilities that allow manufacturers to identify quickly and address immediately the critical operational issues occurring across multiple sites and partners, a necessary function in today's dynamic economy," says Trevor Miles, director, product marketing, Kinaxis. "With the rising complexity of global supply chains, we have continued to meet our customers' needs for increased visibility across the supply chain, collaboration with trading partners, and agility in their processes and operations, which all lead to greater supply chain responsiveness. We ensure our customers are actively engaged in coordinating the activities of a virtual supply network by providing a single version of the data to all stakeholders, thereby guaranteeing easy access to mission-critical information."

Download a copy of the report here.

About Kinaxis

Kinaxis(TM) helps manufacturers manage increasing business complexity and achieve operations performance breakthroughs with its proven solution for demand and supply chain planning, monitoring and response. Kinaxis RapidResponse is an on-demand service that enables collective risk tradeoff and response to change by empowering front-line decision makers with integrated tools for supply chain visibility, demand management, supply management, sales and operations planning (S&OP) and supply chain risk management. Global leaders such as Casio, Jabil, Qualcomm, and Raytheon are delivering superior customer service and gaining competitive market advantage with RapidResponse. For more information visit http://www.kinaxis.com/or the Kinaxis blog at http://www.21stcenturysupplychain.com/.

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