IT'S 2 a.m., seat 19A, somewhere between Singapore and Silicon Valley. I've already read 85 email messages from colleagues, customers and suppliers in six countries. My laptop's battery is running low. So is mine. But the Internet never sleeps. Like most greying electronics executives, I've used the Internet for the better part of two decades. But I've only learned how much it means to my business in the past 24 months.
Back in early 1994, I cofounded Manufacturers' Services Limited (MSL), which at the time consisted of Kevin Melia and me, some good ideas, and a plan to build an international company. We aimed to focus on reducing customers' cost of ownership by providing worldwide electronics manufacturing services. Today, we have six sites in the US, Europe and Asia, 600 employees, and more than 60 customers - some of the biggest players in the telecommunications, computer and electronics industries.
The Internet is as much a part of our core business as our 15 SMT lines. Increasingly, it's how we provide services to our customers, our suppliers, and our colleagues, as delivering immediate access to information is almost a prerequisite for doing business.
Each morning, I expect daily electronic updates on the status of components on order, materials on hand, and the current production schedules from Ireland, Singapore and Spain. Regardless of where the management team may be based, we all have access to the same information. Posting the latest information on pricing and component availability extends this real time knowledge to our customers and suppliers as well.
When we're on site, we use the corporate email network; a gateway links everyone to our partners. When we're on the road, the intranet is our lifeline. A global database tracks component and material requirements worldwide, monitors inventory online at each site and records the purchasing histories of our customers.
All of this information is updated daily, and accessible on the corporate network and our intranet, both to our management and to those customers authorised to come inside the firewall. This information strengthens our forecasting models, improves global procurement strategies, and ultimately reduces the customer's bottom line. It gives customers the updates they crave, and new control over work in process.
Common ground
The Internet provides a common meeting ground, wherever we are. Our first facility, in Ireland, was five time zones and an ocean away from our Massachusetts HQ, and eight hours away from some of our key employees in Silicon Valley. We retained all of the site's original customers, based throughout Europe and the US, who were accustomed to using email.
This acquisition was quickly followed by an additional site in Minnesota. Both sites relied on - proprietary networking technology, and we were committed to - building our network on industry standards. We installed several Unix servers, including a Sun Netra server for Internet access and the foundation of our corporate intranet. We were up and running five days after signing our first deal.
This pace of activity has continued, with new acquisitions every few months, and new technologies rolled out every few weeks. The Internet has provided important common ground, since all our acquisitions had proprietary - and otherwise incompatible - networks.
Frequently, engineers and customers at multiple sites work together online to resolve routine hiccups. We've seen this rapid access to information improve quality, shorten time to market, and minimise interruptions.
For example, a few months ago a customer in California suddenly needed major design changes to a product called a VME based MPEG processor, which was already mid way through its six week production schedule. The design teams in Valencia and Sunnyvale went online with the customer's engineers, and effectively worked around the clock, redesigning the board to improve "manufacturability" and reduce production time by 10 per cent. Information, including some extremely large CAD files, was distributed in real time. The new design went into full production - in a matter of days, and our customers were able to meet their customer's deadline for delivery.
A Web shopfront
As a global company, the Web extends the services we offer. We communicate directly with our customers' and suppliers' banks and frequently use EDI over a value added network to expedite payment. In the near future, we'll migrate this activity to the Internet.
A decade ago, it would have been impossible to build a multi national business in just two years. For us, it's only the beginning; the Web is helping us eliminate the physical boundaries that used to limit growth.