Du Pont sets sail with web supply chain system

Du Pont has entered a new phase in its rollout of a web-based supply chain system, dubbed TransOval, which is designed to help the company better handle marine-based transportation of its products.

The first shipments to be part of the new system - for Du Pont's package and industrial polymers unit - are in transit now, said Mark Smith, global logistics technology manager at Du Pont.

The package and industrial polymers unit is the first division to go live with the new marine capabilities. The US phase of the marine implementation is due to wrap up in January.

The rollout of the multimillion-dollar system began in 2000 and is expected to be completed by the end of next year. Ultimately, the company said, it will save $75m (£41m) by reducing the amount of inventory it must keep on hand and cutting three days from inventory cycles.

The system is built on Version 4 of Global Command and Control Centre (GC3) logistics and transportation software from Global Logistics Technologies (G-Log).

The GC3 system is able to list which container on a vessel holds what inventory, information that could be used to reroute inventory on the fly if necessary.

Although G-Log is releasing updates to GC3 with new marine abilities, Du Pont is concentrating first on stabilising the rollout of the existing iteration, Smith said.

"We're committed to 4.0 because we've got to manage the production rollout schedule versus upgrading the software. We're not upgrading till we've finished the rollout," he said.

Marc L Songini writes for Computerworld