HP continues cutting costs in its supply chain

Filed in archive News on January 31, 2006

With thousands of products delivered each day, operations in nearly 200 countries, multitudes of far-flung suppliers, demanding customers, and a rapidly flowing new product pipeline, HP (Palo Alto, CA), continues cutting costs in its supply chain.

Managing Automation reported today that winner of managing Automation's Supply Chain Mastery Award in 2005, focuses on continuous improvement in its supply chain to eliminate waste and inefficiency.

"We are always putting the customer first," says Gianpaolo Callioni, director of supply chain strategy at HP. Toward this end, the company has built a powerful supply chain portfolio that provides the flexibility it needs to deliver products to customers the way they want to receive them. This includes the capabilities of five supply chains -- no touch, low touch, configure-to-order, high volume, and solutions and services -- and four routes to market (value direct and volume direct plus partner-assisted value indirect and volume indirect). This highly flexible repertoire allows HP to mix supply chains and routes to address complex customer needs. It also allows the company to optimize costs as products move through their life cycle by permitting an initial emphasis on velocity and a shift to cost management as a product ages.