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The implementation is already paying off for the shipper, which can now produce accurate trade documents for all of its origins and destinations. Fairchild's new ability to provide auditable shipping records and electronically archived, retrievable trade documents has made a difference on several fronts, including higher customs-clearance rates, fewer shipment delays, reduced inventory-carrying costs, and improved customer service. According to Scribner, transactional errors and associated costs have also been minimized.
Standardizing trade-compliance activities across all of Fairchild's manufacturing and shipping operations is especially beneficial, says Scribner, who no longer has to piece together information gleaned from a mix of homegrown and outdated systems used at various company locations. "We now have a stable platform that we can run worldwide in a standardized environment," he says. "Everyone sees the same thing; employees can move between locations and continue to do their jobs exactly the same way."
With the main integration already complete, Scribner is pleased with the results and is happy that his company's export technology is back on the leading edge, where he says the company prefers to stay.
"If you'd asked me ten years ago how technologically advanced we were, I would have laughed because we were just terrible," Scribner says. "Since becoming an independent company, however, we've gone forward with [technology improvements] 150 percent. We're using all of the latest software technologies that we can possibly afford to buy."
| Author Information |
| Contributing Editor Bridget McCrea is a freelance writer who frequently covers logistics technology and distribution strategies. |
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Before Fairchild Semiconductor upgraded its global logistics system , its key challenges included:
- Maintaining trade compliance across all business units, including 11 acquisitions
- Simplifying international trade processes between multiple foreign nations
- Standardizing export processes
- Maintaining strict compliance with U.S. export and re-export laws
- Identifying country-specific trade requirements
With the new system in place, Fairchild Semiconductor has seen benefits in the following areas:
- A more seamless trade-compliance process
- A 90-percent pre-clearance rate for international air shipments
- Shorter transit times
- Accurate and standardized trade documents for all origins and destinations
- Increased consistency of documentation
- Reduced shipment delays
- Lower inventory-carrying costs
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Headquarters: South Portland, Maine
2004 fiscal revenue: $1.6 billion, up 15 percent from $1.4 billion in 2003
2004 fiscal net income: $59.2 million, up from a net loss of $81.5 million in 2003
Key business units: Interface & Logic Group in South Portland; Discrete Power and Signal Technologies Group in San Jose, Calif.; Power Device business in Puchon, South Korea; Analog & Mixed Signal Group in West Jordan, Utah; and Optoelectronics Group in San Jose
Products: Performance power semiconductors used in electronic devices for the computing, communications, consumer, industrial, and automotive markets. Includes dozens of categories, such as diodes and rectifiers; analog and digital filters; microcontrollers; photosensors; analog, digital, and power switches; transistors; voltage regulators; and more. | | |
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