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Quadrem mit Kostensenkung durch Online Handel Digging for Discounts by Richard Brown, Line56 Thursday, June 28, 2001 Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but nobody loves the alluring allotrope of carbon more than Anglo American, one of the world`s largest miners of diamonds, gold and platinum. After all, extracting diamonds helps the $20 billion company sparkle financially. Ken Owen, senior vice president of e-commerce at Anglo American’s Johannesburg, South Africa site, explains that requisitions by telephone were once the mainstay of purchasing operations equipment involved in unearthing the jewel from gem-encrusted mines deep beneath the sprawling veldt outside the city. Of its $7 billion annual procurement budget, Anglo American spends most on day-to-day items, such as explosives, fuel and chemical reagents. There are also security and insurance products to be bought, and spare parts with a long lead time for delivery. Capital infrastructure, such as surface plants and underground shafts, require maintenance or replacement on a planned basis. “You know that something is available somewhere in the system, either in a shop or with a supplier. If it is outside the scope of the person authorizing it, he has to go up a level to get the requisition authorized. It then goes on to a buyer to see if he has an item in stock by checking his inventory. If not, it is sent out by telephone on an RFQ to a number of relevant suppliers.” Though Anglo American has over 600 suppliers connected to its EDI network in South Africa, it made an undisclosed investment in an e-marketplace to speed e-business. That`s where Quadrem comes into the picture. Anglo American is one of 20 founding equity partners in Quadrem, an industry-sponsored marketplace for the global mining, minerals and metals industries. Founded in June 2000, Quadrem links firms representing $70 billion in procurement expenditure. Other founder members include Alcan Aluminum, Alcoa, The Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited (BHP) and Rio Tinto. Mike Efting is chief executive officer of Dallas, Texas-based Quadrem. He is unruffled about doubts over cooperation between mining industry rivals. “The mining companies that have a stake in Quadrem can cooperate at a different level to those behind other consortia - because they don’t really compete. So if you produce gold and I produce gold, the gold market is fairly well set up and sufficient to allow us to sell all the gold we can mine. “We don’t have a lot of sales and marketing people out there competing with each other. Barrick Gold doesn’t see Anglo Gold as a competitor - except in mine site acquisitions. But even there, the mining industry is used to cooperating because they all own percentages of each others’ mines.” For example, Anglo American has a substantial investment in the world`s diamond industry through its investment in associate company De Beers, held through DB Investments. Recently, Anglo American used Quadrem to procure parts for heavy earthmoving equipment, and to buy aggregate and crushed stone used in concrete and asphalt production at a platinum mine in Rustenburg, an hour’s drive north west of Johannesburg. Owen recalled that the aggregate was acquired for over $1 million via a reverse auction that required suppliers to precisely define technical specifications, quantities and time of delivery. “It lasted 30 minutes. We had five suppliers. There was an initial bid and one of the guys came in very low. Other suppliers’ bids came in towards the end. The first bidder dropped his bid again and that was the end of the auction. I don’t think we made a lot of money on it, but we calculated we made between five and 10 percent on the best paper bid that we had.” Anglo American received nine paper bids, with five of these nine taking part through Quadrem. Quadrem’s Efting says “They’re serious in terms of resources and the investments they’re making in taking costs out of the supply chain. So they understand it’s important to go from an EDI to an XML environment.” But it’s not just stake-holding buyers that testify to Quadrem’s effectiveness. Motion Industries of Birmingham, Alabama is the world`s largest supplier of bearings, mechanical, electrical and fluid power transmission replacement parts and hose products. With annual revenues of $2.4 billion, Motion (a subsidiary of Genuine Parts), serves over 165,000 industrial companies throughout the U.S., including Rio Tinto and Bethlehem Steel. Ellen Holladay, chief information officer at Motion Industries, says “Where marketplaces are concerned, our customers make the selection. We service large customers that have sophisticated e-business initiatives and we’ve been pretty pleased as a supplier participating in Quadrem.” Joe Balog, Motion Industries’ director of e-commerce partnerships, explains that his company provided catalog content to Quadrem from which its buyers could select from over 7,000 stock-keeping units. Motion’s MRO product inventory is the most extensive in the world, with nearly 2 million items. He remarks “The first Rio Tinto location that’s being truly in production with us on Quadrem is Kennecott Copper in Utah. They were the driving force in getting us interested in dealing with Quadrem.” Rio Tinto is another founding shareholder in Quadrem. Kennecott buys bearing, belts and motors from Motion. “They are usually a pretty good size, with a high dollar value. We like that type of business,” says Balog. Motion did not supply to Aluminium.com, MetalSite or MetalSpectrum, sites that collapsed or ceased trading in the last few weeks. “We were in the process of dealing with MetalMaker.com - before they too closed their doors,” he reveals. Balog explains that Motion had a pre-existing contract with Rio Tinto that established pricing levels for each location before Quadrem was introduced. “This means that people can still buy from us on a daily basis without going through an RFQ process because they are already pre-approved.” Holladay says that the proportion of its trades passing through Quadrem will be driven by customer demand. “The bigger the percentage, the better. But customer adoption rates really drive this. We just participate in what they want to do and that will determine what percentage of our business will be conducted electronically.” Balog confidently asserts, “If I had an opinion, it would be that Quadrem may be one of the marketplaces that survives. They’ve done a pretty good job, their people are easy to work with and they know what benefits suppliers and the buyers.” “Taking cost out of the supply chain is critical to a mining company’s success," claims Efting, “because they can’t affect the price of sales. Unlike automobiles, chemicals, plastics and other industries, when their costs go up, mining firms can’t raise their prices. They’re a victim to whatever the market dictates is the price for platinum, gold, silver or aluminum.” Richard Brown`s story is part of a twice-weekly series looking at real B2B implementation experiences. If you have a story you`d like to share, contact us at prinbox@line56.com -ed |
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| aus der Diskussion: | Commerce One --> Countdown to extinction? |
| Autor (Datum des Eintrages): | Eboerse (28.06.01 19:16:52) |
| Beitrag: | 1,512 von 2,018 (ID:3840858) |
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