Intel spreads RosettaNet gospel to SMEs
When Intel Corp. set out four years ago to streamline its online business transactions using standards defined by RosettaNet, it was surprised to discover that implementing the Partner Interface Processes would require not just a technology ramp, but a complete re-engineering of its business processes.
Looking back, that may have been the easy part. The real stumbling block was getting trading partners to sign on to what many perceived as an elitist standard-with implementation costs as high as $1 million in the early days, said Prashant Agarwal, program manager for materials at Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.), who until recently led the company's RosettaNet effort.
Speaking at a recent Electronic Supply Chain Association conference in San Jose, Calif., Agarwal said that as of 2004, Intel had implemented 23 Partner Interface Processes (PIPs) with more than 300 partners on both the buy and sell sides. But while RosettaNet startup costs have settled into a more tolerable range of $50,000 per PIP, the price of entry is still too high for small and midsize companies.
"It took four years to get this going with 300 key suppliers, but we have 40,000 small and medium suppliers globally," Agarwal said. "In order to plug the rest of our supply chain into the RosettaNet standard, we've got to develop new implementation methods."
Last year, under the auspices of the RosettaNet standards body, Intel started working on a low-cost way to roll out PIPs with a broader base of suppliers. The program, RosettaNet Automated Enablement (RAE), was formally launched in April and initially targets a startup cost of $5,000 to $10,000 per PIP. Eventually, Intel aims to reduce that even further, to about $1,000.
"If we can get to the second tier of our trading base, we will get 85 to 95 percent of our trading base automated and will also significantly [improve] the data quality," Agarwal said.
Designed as an automated mass-deployment model, RAE will reduce deployment time and eliminate the need for proprietary manual or semiautomated processes, according to RosettaNet.
To avoid the need for investment in new IT systems, RAE lets trading partners view transaction information in multiple electronic formats. In Intel's RAE pilot, trading partners complete and submit electronic forms using Adobe Acrobat software or the free Adobe Reader. The supply chain integration platform is based on tools provided by E2Open and hosted on secure servers by Intel. According to RosettaNet, software providers including GridNode, GXS, IBM, InSync Software and TAG Business Tools have also pledged RAE support.
"Our goal is to validate a group of partners and recommend RAE solutions to them. They can choose which one to use, and it will be compatible with what Intel is doing," Agarwal said.
Intel's first RAE pilot is expected to end in the third quarter.
Copyright 2004 © CMP Media, LLC
Original source at http://www.my-esm.com/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163702405
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