Not every company which implements Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) needs customized software. At Molex, for example, they use Slim4. From its European service and distribution centre in Eindhoven, the Nasdaq quoted Molex organisation provides a wide variety of electronic components to large telecom companies such as Motorola and Nokia. VMI is an established principle in this sector, so Molex is required to manage the stocks for many of its customers.

The ERP system at Molex is APS (Advanced Planning & Scheduling) based and, whilst having sufficient functionality, it is a big system and extremely difficult to implement totally; forecasting and inventory management exist in different and unrelated modules. Slim4 provides forecasting and the stock required to meet it together in a visually pleasing and understandable way. With Slim4 multiple warehousing capability, Molex can manage stocks at its customer’s sites, and thus offer VMI.