Kinaxis® Inc. (TSX: KXS), the authority in driving agility for fast, confident decision-making in an unpredictable world, and TraceLink Inc., the leading digital network platform company, today announced a new partnership that will enable agile collaboration and exception management between manufacturers and their suppliers.
By combining the power of concurrent planning through the Kinaxis RapidResponse® platform with the multienterprise collaboration capabilities of TraceLink’s Supply Chain Work Management powered by the Opus platform, companies will be able to get ahead of growing supply chain disruptions like late shipments or supply shortages and drive improvements in key performance indicators like order cycle and cash-to-cash cycle times, all through better communication and collaboration across their supplier network.
“The partnership with Kinaxis is an exciting step toward delivering Industry 4.0 network connectivity to improve business processes across the end-to-end supply chain,” said Shabbir Dahod, President and CEO of TraceLink. “Our Opus platform enables decision makers to connect companies, people, processes and systems through business networks to drive better resiliency and agility in supply chains. Together with Kinaxis we will be able to empower businesses to concurrently plan directly with their suppliers.”
The joint offering will connect RapidResponse to TraceLink’s authenticated network of more than 286,000 unique healthcare and life science entities to support advanced supply chain planning. Manufacturers will automatically notify suppliers to high-priority planning exceptions and create a collaborative working environment for rapid resolution. Suppliers will also be able to easily alert manufacturers to potential supply disruptions from their side.
“I am excited to hear this news,” said Frank Binder, Global Head Supply Chain Management at Santen, and customer of both Kinaxis and TraceLink. “The integration of Kinaxis and TraceLink’s platforms will give me actionable visibility to critical exceptions, it will give teams from across our supply network the digital capabilities required to resolve exceptions faster, and it will improve the overall quality of the supply plan.”
TraceLink will join Kinaxis as a Solution Extension Partner under the Kinaxis PartnerLink program. Solution Extension Partners increase the value customers can gain from RapidResponse by delivering digital inputs and developing domain-specific applications that leverage the power of concurrent planning to extend the capabilities of the platform.
“Companies that are able to manage their supplier risk can better adapt to disruption and as a result have more resilient supply chains,” said John Sicard, CEO of Kinaxis. “Our job is to offer the best tools for our customers to quickly respond to supply chain risks and opportunities and feel confident in their decisions. This partnership with TraceLink will create new opportunities for direct supplier and manufacturer collaboration.”
