1. Introduction
1.1 Company Profile
Operating in more than 80 countries and a turnover of US$ 6.6 billion in 2014, Rockwell Automation (RA) is one of the major player in the industrial automation and information industry. (Rockwell Automation, 2014) It can find its roots in 1903, when Lynde Bradley and Dr. Stanton Allen established the Compression Rheostat Company. Just a few short years later, it was renamed to become Allen-Bradley Company. In 1985, the company was bought over by Rockwell International, which was considered a manufacturing conglomerate in the 1980s that had dealings in Space, Aircraft, Commercial Electronics, Automotive Products, Printing Presses and Industrial Automation. The conglomerate began to spinoff the different business units in the 90s and in 2001, Rockwell International Corporation changed its name to RA. (Funding Universe, n.d.; Rockwell Automation, n.d.)
The company currently operates in 2 segments:
• Architecture & software
- Contains key elements of the RA control and information platforms, software application and automation components.
• Control products …show more content…
It also allows RA to focus on its core competencies. Although lower fixed costs is achieved as there is no need to rent space to store inventory as well as costs such as labour to manage inventory, it needs to take into account of the variable costs that has increased. When RA utilizes more space, the 3PL will charge accordingly. With the high variety of product offerings to customers, RA has to carry more finished good inventory to ensure availability to customer needs. With the implementation of PCBA minimart concept, again these safety stock require storage space and in turn drive up the inventory holding costs. Not to mention that RA also keep high levels of inventory at the raw materials level to cater to the demand uncertainty, these also utilise storage
1.1 Company Profile
Operating in more than 80 countries and a turnover of US$ 6.6 billion in 2014, Rockwell Automation (RA) is one of the major player in the industrial automation and information industry. (Rockwell Automation, 2014) It can find its roots in 1903, when Lynde Bradley and Dr. Stanton Allen established the Compression Rheostat Company. Just a few short years later, it was renamed to become Allen-Bradley Company. In 1985, the company was bought over by Rockwell International, which was considered a manufacturing conglomerate in the 1980s that had dealings in Space, Aircraft, Commercial Electronics, Automotive Products, Printing Presses and Industrial Automation. The conglomerate began to spinoff the different business units in the 90s and in 2001, Rockwell International Corporation changed its name to RA. (Funding Universe, n.d.; Rockwell Automation, n.d.)
The company currently operates in 2 segments:
• Architecture & software
- Contains key elements of the RA control and information platforms, software application and automation components.
• Control products …show more content…
It also allows RA to focus on its core competencies. Although lower fixed costs is achieved as there is no need to rent space to store inventory as well as costs such as labour to manage inventory, it needs to take into account of the variable costs that has increased. When RA utilizes more space, the 3PL will charge accordingly. With the high variety of product offerings to customers, RA has to carry more finished good inventory to ensure availability to customer needs. With the implementation of PCBA minimart concept, again these safety stock require storage space and in turn drive up the inventory holding costs. Not to mention that RA also keep high levels of inventory at the raw materials level to cater to the demand uncertainty, these also utilise storage