Fully customized to the individual needs of the user, Inspur is able to design and implement a supply chain that can drastically improve production efficiency.
Recently, Inspur Information, a leading IT infrastructure solutions provider, announced its agile, flexible, and secure supply chain was awarded for excellence by Harvard Business Review. The agile supply chain, driven by cutting-edge digital technology and diverse applications, is able to efficiently perceive and solve diverse customer needs and requirements, and acts as a model for the industry going forward in the cloud-data-AI era.
Inspur’s supply chain integrates the entire process of demand, R&D, production, and delivery. Based on a joint design manufacture (JDM) model, the supply chain is designed and customized to customer specifications. It is able to provide continued security while pivoting away from traditional large-scale standardization to mass customization.
Inspur’s supply chain was created in response to the diversified technologies and demands of the cloud-data-AI era. This includes diversified computing with near infinite combinations of CPUs, GPUs, and accelerators being utilized together in various configurations. Consequently, in addition to stability and reliability, customers now demand heterogeneous computing, high-speed interconnection, and energy savings. In response to this, Inspur combines business model innovation with intelligent technology to provide the mass customization needed by modern businesses with its agile supply chain.
Inspur implemented its own version of its customized supply chain with impressive results. Server production capacity increased fourfold, production efficiency increased by more than 30%, manpower investment decreased by 75%, TCO decreased by 31%, delivery cycles shortened by 60%, and delivery & deployment speeds increased to an astounding 10,000 nodes per day. This achievement was made possible via a focus on being agile and being secure.
Agility grants speed in supply chains
Inspur’s supply chain is JDM-based, and oriented to the specific needs of the customer. Intelligent facilities have integrated ERP/MES/WMS/PLM/CRM/APO/SRM information systems. With data acting as the core, Inspur improves transparency, visualization, and elasticity of smart manufacturing. This allows for on-demand design, rapid production and fast delivery.
At the R&D level, the integration of an end-to-end IPD system and a strategy of “platform + modularization” has formed an agile R&D system. Inspur establishes a triangle organization model composed of the customer manager, product manager, and R&D engineer. The system dynamically mobilizes the whole supply chain based on changes in customer demand. This implementation in R&D resulted in Inspur’s development cycle times decreasing from 1.5 years to 9 months, and prototypes being delivered within 3 months.
This agility extends to Inspur’s own manufacturing capacity. It has built the world’s leading intelligent flexible production base. It can concurrently produce 10 different types of cloud server nodes. It integrates six core intelligent information systems, including ERP, MES and WMS, more than 30 automated nodes and 120 data collection points. This allows Inspur to easily accommodate the demand of sudden large orders. In conjunction, production is better suited for handling more complex products such L12 rack systems.
Security and traceability through the entire supply chain
Inspur also has a high level of supply chain security management. The Inspur supply chain covers a wide range of processes and technologies including component and system traceability, automation, integrated data systems, and blockchain to provide customers with data safety and security. The trusted supply chain process is held to the highest security standards. Inspur’s intelligent factories are optimized to seamlessly integrate data and systems used to log and verify all pertinent product information, enabling a complete source of traceability from materials receiving through final system assembly.
Inspur servers are certified by ISO/IEC 20243, also known as O-TTPS (Open Trusted Technology Provider Standards), which means Inspur systems are designed reduce the potential threat of malicious contamination and counterfeiting of ICT products and to ensure the integrity of hardware and software throughout the life cycle of ICT products. The suppliers, integrators and distributors involved in this product line are providing an end-to-end product security guarantee.
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