BANGKOK (04/10/2000) - Beginning in Asia and looking to expand globally, Advanced Manufacturing Online Ltd. (AMO) will position itself as a business-to-business solution provider for the high-tech manufacturing industry. AMO sees huge opportunities in the Thai manufacturing market, with its multinational company customers as a base, especially in the high-tech manufacturing arena.
Speaking at the opening of AMO Thailand's offices, Pat Cathey, senior vice president, AMO global sales, said that the company was committed to the Thai market and would concentrate on servicing the emerging market.
"This company was established by two Asian guys with the concept of creating a virtual integrated supply chain for manufacturing. This includes time to market to make shorter product life cycles, just-in-time functionality with real time supply chain management, outsourcing and mass customization such as Dell's business model.
AMO has positioned itself as a key part of the supply chain management ideology to provide end-to-end integrated solutions for customers, with its business focused on the more lucrative business-to-business (B2B) market and not the business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce. It also provides a global supply Web known as Ecnet, which acts as a virtual global supply chain for high-tech manufacturing industry.
"Ecnet is an Internet-based platform that seamlessly integrates all supply chain activities including planning, procurement, investment management, logistics, distribution and payment between trading partners. We provide solutions and services for any company to work in partnership with other companies, not providing hardware or software," said Cathey.
Ecnet capabilities include the ability to understand transactions being placed from different platforms. For example, an IBM RS6000 running SAP R/3 would quite easily be able to communicate with a Sun Ultra60 running Solaris. Also supported is an HTML (hypertext markup language) Web interface, FTP protocols, e-mail notification workflow process, exceptional validation and business intelligence.
Founded in December 1995, AMO focuses on e-markets for high-tech manufacturing in Asia, representing over 50 percent of the market worldwide.
"AMO's main focus is on the hi-tech manufacturing vertical market," he added.
Meanwhile, Chris Crawley, vice president of AMO Asia said: "AMO has positioned itself as a key part of the supply chain by creating end-to-end, Internet-based, mission-critical solutions. We are focusing on commerce, collaboration and content, for example, we are helping customers to reduce inventory costs. AOM works with seven leading worldwide consultant companies including MacKinsey to study business models for making solutions.
According to the study's finding added Cathey, AMO's B2B business model helped overall cost savings, while total revenues were also increased.
Asked why the company had chosen to come to Thailand, Cathey said that with so many multinationals having businesses here, service had become a priority.
Additionally, many more companies were eyeing Thailand as one of the safest and more open places to have in business in the region. Presently in Thailand, leading hard disk company Seagate, is one of a few firms that has turned to AMO's solutions.
Furthermore, the company has introduced its so-called value-added service ECpart or concept of community. The plan is to help hi-tech manufacturing companies find the right virtual market for their products on worldwide market level.
According to AMO executives, ECpart is the best solution for high-tech manufacturing companies with inventory issues. The growth in Thailand was around 50 percent last year for 1999 with some 57 manufacturing plants announcing plans to migrate to the system in the near future.