LOW-COST ALTERNATIVE TO EDI

摘要

DDM Plastics, Inc., Tillsonburg, Ontario, is a Tier 1 supplier of bumpers and instrument panels to Toyota, Honda, Isuzu, Mazda, and other Japanese automakers, and a Tier 2 supplier to the Big Three. For several years, Charlene Sherman, DDM information systems manager, tried to implement electronic data interchange (EDI) communications with the company's suppliers, but faced resistance both from the suppliers and from DDM's own purchasing department. Downstream suppliers balked at the significant capital investment required for a proprietary EDI network. Meanwhile, the purchasing department at DDM believed it should not force its suppliers to change the way they do business—even though the OEMs had required DDM to do exactly that.