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Ivalua NOW 2020 (dispatch 2): La licorne française va directement pour la route moins fréquentée

05/05/2020 By

 

(Editor’s note: This is what you get when the boss suggests writing in French during a long quarantine. Read to the tune of that Def Leppard sugar song. The link has background music.)

Come online
Source this way
You and me buy
Hey Hey!

Direct, it needs a BoM, we got it going on
Sourcin’ like the lightning in a thunderstorm
Lookin’ like an app, but we manage the scrap
Procurement buyer, can we be your platform? (your platform?)

Razzle ‘n’ a dazzle ‘n’ a wizard on the screen
Engineering genius, baby, works all night
Sometime, anytime, savings in green
Ubiquitous platform everywhere, yeah, yeah

So c’mon, take a test drive, spin it up
Break the old ways, fire it up!

Score some savings for me
I’m gonna use the BoM
Score some savings for me
APQP on!
Score some savings for me
I can’t get enough …

I’ve got sourcing style
From my brain to my smile, yeah!

Listen!

(Headline translation: The French unicorn goes straight for the road less traveled!)

Ivalua has the engines in le nouveau coupé français revved to the max and is going all in on the race to be the masters of the direct universe, doubling down on direct in a serious way with screenshots of upcoming functionality released in its direct material innovation showcase at Ivalua NOW 2020, being streamed online earlier today.

Ivalua currently has at least nine major enhancements in the development queue, with (the beginnings of) seven major enhancements being planned for the next two releases, namely:

  • Cost driver & target cost management
    See details on this in our earlier post from Ivalua NOW 2020. This development is expected to span two releases.
  • Sourcing optimization
    Also previously mentioned, this is a functionality we’ve been waiting on for years that will also span at least two releases.
  • New product introduction
    Enhanced support for the end-to-end processes of definition, design, material spec, sourcing, acquisition, storage, sales, delivery and support that will likely see more upgrades in the future.
  • Planned order collaboration
    To better co-ordinate post-award and pre-order/order management activities that will span at least two releases.
  • Subcontractors
    Possibly by tapping out to a workforce marketplace, this will support the identification, tracking and management of subcontractors.
  • Out-of-the-box SAP integration
    To better support bi-directional data pulls and pushes, with functionality being delivered over multiple releases.
  • Quality/PPAP
    Quality and the production part approval process will be introduced in the next release.

Ivalua, being a fan of all the greats, has one vision like a few of their peers, and that vision is a single, unified platform for direct-enabled N.P.I. from design, through sourcing to delivery that ties together engineering, sourcing and procurement, suppliers, quality management, manufacturing and launch!

In the next release, starting with their BoM Lifecycle Manager, you will be able to define a bill of materials (BoM), define a sourcing cost breakdown with cost drivers and target drivers, define a sourcing event, create optimization scenarios, evaluation product quality (with advanced product quality planning, or APQP), select an award, cut a contract and then start collaborating on the procurement through scheduled line order collaboration. We’re waiting anxiously for a full demo of the optimization, which will permit scenarios and allow users to define constraints with easy-to-use wizards (limit component X to 3 suppliers, etc.) and then compute the lowest cost and indicate how many rules were met/enforced in the computation.

The newly enhanced APQP capability looks well thought out with multiple phases and the ability to define multiple tasks in each phase as well as track progress.

And finally, as every IT department knows, while hard to demo, any out-of-the-box SAP integration will be applauded by partners and customers alike.

And even though they’ve been building the procurement engine for 20 years, if you think they are about to slow down before they’re the Bugatti of the procurement world, you’ve got another thing comin’!

Vivre le rève!