3Com Corp yesterday unveiled a $30m investment to build a European supply chain center at its Blanchardson site in Ireland. The move comes as part of an ongoing shake-up at the company to streamline its manufacturing and supply chain operations. Last month 3Com sold its Palm Computing manufacturing site and the 550 staff who make the devices in Salt Lake City to Manufacturers’ Services Ltd (MSL).
The investment in Ireland is for a center that will link all of 3Com’s manufacturing facilities in Europe via the creation of a new 170,000 square-foot customer order center. The new facility will take care of the distribution and supply chain operations across the UK and Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark and Austria. The Santa Clara company currently has 1,000 employees in Blanchardson, Ireland and will add a further 250 jobs over the next four years as the supply chain center is built.
3Com claims that its moves to improve its operational efficiency have so far resulted in a reduced cash-to-cash cycle. The number of days elapsed between payment of suppliers and collection of money from customers is at its lowest point in recent history, company spokespeople said, although would not divulge by how much it has improved. 3Com says this is largely due to a decline in days sales outstanding (DSO), better collection efforts, improved linearity of orders and shipments, combined with a continued reduction in inventories.
The new center in Ireland will consolidate data from all of 3Com’s manufacturing operations, inventory systems and suppliers and provide a single, unified view of the supply chain, according to John McClelland, senior VP of the supply chain department at 3Com. By streamlining our own operations and information sharing with our suppliers, customers and channel partners will give us greater flexibility and reduce our time-to-market, he said.
Separately, 3Com took the wraps off enhancements to its NBX 100 voice and data switch. Release 2 of the platform, available early next month, will enable companies to hook up 200 users to a single NBX 100, a 30% increase over the product’s existing capability.
The NBX is part of a new breed of integrated voice and data systems that let companies route both sets of traffic over a single system. It consists of a chassis that runs the systems voice management software, as well as handsets that plug into an existing LAN. It positions the products at more sophisticated call center environments, according to Ed Wadbrook, 3Com’s director of voice solution. New features include caller-to-agent routing services, call queuing, calling groups and multilevel reporting services. The NBX 100 is priced from $14,000, including handsets. Release 2 will be free to current NBX 100 users.
