| Pelion Systems Champions Manufacturing Process Optimization Michael Bittner - January 31, 2006 Background Globalization and outsourcing are proliferating within the manufacturing industry, and most successful companies are implementing demand-driven business models as they seek ways to capture, shape, and respond to the demands of the dynamic global marketplace. This is because as demand visibility improves, manufacturers are called upon to respond to that demand more quickly and with more predictable results. Thus, increasingly, organizational visibility into the capacity and performance of production assets, whether wholly owned or outsourced, is needed to support decisions about where and how to meet production demands in a profitable and predictable fashion. In sum, manufacturing operations today are characterized by a significant need for factory transformation management... |