August 4, 2005

i2 Technologies announces today that ON Semiconductor is now live and receiving value from i2 Inventory Optimization solutions.

ON Semiconductor began its implementation of i2 Inventory Optimization with an initial project designed to help the company receive value quickly from a limited deployment. That project focused on optimizing inventory targets across all areas of the company, limited to one primary user and several key stakeholders.

The complete rollout entailed the implementation of i2 Inventory Optimization workflows across the enterprise to a broader group of stakeholders, and focused on the complete process of performance management. As a result of the implementation, the i2 solution is now used across various business functions including planning, finance and marketing.

"We have completed the stabilization period on i2 Inventory Optimization and we have been able to maintain service levels while reducing our inventory by three days. During this same time the order lead times our customers place on us have shrunk by 20 percent.

Without i2 Inventory Optimization we would have needed to significantly increase inventory levels to maintain service levels in the face of this change in order lead times," said John Mallon, director, Supply Chain Solutions, at ON Semiconductor.

"ON is a long-time customer of i2 software and services and we are delighted with the improved visibility and inventory utilization we experience from the Inventory Optimization tools. This solution helps our business understand and anticipate market trends, so that we can make more competitive decisions and better serve our customers."

When business conditions change, ON uses i2 Inventory Optimization to segment and re-segment its customer and product portfolios in a matter of hours. These strategies can be updated quickly and then deployed across the business.

According to ON, the ease and speed of inventory performance analysis resulting from the software implementation enables cross-functional visibility for the collaborative investigation of problem solving. The company reports it now can perform rapid what-if analysis of differentiated service level and postponement strategies in order to evaluate the impact of these strategies before actual deployment.

"ON Semiconductor is leading the charge in the high tech industry by exemplifying what is truly possible with i2 solutions. We are energized by our work with customers like ON who are constantly pushing the envelope and looking to do more with their supply chain investments.

With this rollout, ON has taken supply chain management disciplines from the realm of a few experts and opened them up to the broad organization. They have institutionalized a plan-do-check-act business process for inventory performance management across sales and operations management functions.

With the help of i2 solutions, they are able to continuously monitor customer buying behavior and proactively re-configure the supply chain and inventory positions to minimize costs while maintaining excellent service levels," said Dr. Adeel Najmi, Solution Executive, Inventory Optimization, i2.

i2 Inventory Optimization is designed to enable companies to segment customer and product portfolios for the design, configuration and deployment of customer service strategies and service levels. Based on this, the solution recommends what inventory to carry, where, in what form and how much.

Furthermore, i2 Inventory Optimization can support monitoring of actual service level performance and identification of root causes of problems enabling continuous learning and process refinement. i2 will host a free web seminar featuring ON Semiconductor on Aug. 16, 2005 at 11 a.m. EDT.

The companies will discuss how ON Semiconductor reduced inventory and maintained excellent service levels using i2 Inventory Optimization.

Source: i2 Technologies Inc.