Look beyond the shop floor: Agility isn’t just achieved from internal operations, but by crafting agile relationships with suppliers. Chrysler, for example, has knitted together a variety of information sharing and collaboration tools for its suppliers, including web-based transaction processing, and an “Integrated Volume Planning” application that shares sales and forecast data back through the supply base, and collaborative design tools.

Share lots of data: Break down the cultural and related barriers to broadly sharing supply chain information with suppliers and distributors.

Put timely data to work: Take steps to capture and communicate more data in real time. More widespread use of mobile data collection devices can play a key role in improving data timeliness, and agile companies are adding event notification and response systems to take advantage of real-time data. Chrysler tracks something like 400,000 events/steps in its supply chain processes, enabling the company to synchronize delivery with suppliers in a just-in-time mode for 95% of its parts and assemblies.

Get close to your partners: It’s a two-way street – the information flow needs to be not only from your company to your suppliers, but from them back to you as well. The article cites a partnering effort between Boeing and GKN Aerospace, in which Boeing’s actual consumption is fed directly into GNK systems, dramatically improving its production scheduling and reducing overall cycle times. GNK states it has reduced inventories by 35% as a result of the effort. The system was a product of detailed discussions between cross-functional teams at both companies.