Foxconn Case Study

Electronic delivery chain guarantees success in the hectic production cycle
The accelerating pace of the electronics industry's production cycle requires shorter delivery times from suppliers and places increasingly tough demands on the production machinery. Foxconn Oy, a Finnish subsidiary of Foxconn Group, one of the world's biggest electronics contract manufacturers, joined forces with Anilinker to take the utilization of ANI SupplierWeb to a whole new level. After a five-year development project, Foxconn now has access to a fast system that guarantees transparency across the delivery chain.

Foxconn's objective was to ensure functional process integration in both the customer and the supplier interfaces. The fully controlled prognosis-order-delivery-invoice process has made itself irreplaceable to the company. "Our clients provide us with prognoses and stock balance data all the time. If we didn't have a transparent and functional system where this information can be forwarded to our suppliers without delay, neither we nor our suppliers would stay in business," says Purchasing Manager Heikki Rossi. Anilinker's SupplierWeb system allows prognosis information to travel across the entire chain very quickly.

Fast and transparent
When Foxconn and Anilinker launched the system development work, a key requirement in addition to transparency was extremely fast implementation of the system with new suppliers. "At its simplest, our system does not require close integration of information systems. We can implement the system with a new supplier in 15 minutes".

One of the most useful ideas was to use the SupplierWeb data stream to measure the suppliers' capacity. "Based on figures derived from SupplierWeb we are able to measure our suppliers' delivery reliability and other aspects related to the supplier's capacity."

SupplierWeb has become an integral part of Foxconn's purchasing activities. "Our purchase organization would be much heavier if this system didn't exist. Now it only takes two people to run the operative purchasing activities for the Lahti and Hollola plants."

A purchase model based on prognoses
Foxconn makes use of an order system based on consumption forecasts and stock status. In this system, purchase orders are only made under exceptional circumstances. Order confirmations from suppliers are not required either. "SupplierWeb sends the prognoses, order confirmations and delivery notes on a message level. We send prognosis information, and the supplier confirms the delivered quantity through SupplierWeb."

For sales invoicing purposes, Foxconn uses a self-billing solution provided by Anilinker in which they are not required to send separate invoices; instead, the client pays for the products based on electronic delivery information and automated receipt. "We are planning to introduce a similar system with our key suppliers."

ANI SupplierWeb is already being used at Foxconn's plants in Finland and Hungary. The Group's other units, for example in China, are also interested in the system. "The system has the potential for a more widespread introduction," Heikki Rossi estimates.

Global high-tech services
Foxconn Oy is part of the Taiwanese Hon Hai Group that offers electronic components and contract manufacturing. Foxconn Oy focuses on the Group's European operations. The company's registered office is in Lahti. The Foxconn Group (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd) specializes in providing components, modules, component assembly and related services to the leading global companies engaged in the computer, communications and consumer electronics companies. Foxconn is Taiwan's biggest industrial enterprise and the biggest exporter in Greater China.

RosettaNet aims at shared operating models
One of the key common denominators in the Foxconn-Anilinker cooperation is the RosettaNet standard. "For us, RosettaNet represents an information management and transfer tool which our major clients have chosen to use. There are 72 nodes between our biggest client and Foxconn that we must be able to control from the delivery chain perspective. Standard tools are an absolute necessity," Heikki Rossi emphasizes. In its most recent cooperation project Anilinker carried out a RosettaNet conversion that allowed the client's production facility to connect to Foxconn's capacity-prognosis-confirmation process.

RosettaNet includes more than 400 major corporations from the IT, electronic component and semiconductor industries. Their objective is to create and implement standards for multilateral processes in the electronics industry. Anilinker offers companies RosettaNet process workshops, the design and implementation of RosettaNet solutions, and services related to the introduction and use of RosettaNet processes.