ICT and e-Business Impact in the Furniture Industry - empirica

ICT and e-business impact in the furniture industry3 Deployment of ICT and e-business applicationsThe main objective of this chapter is to provide a up-to-date description of the state-ofplayin e-business in this sector and to outline major developments in the frameworkconditions for ICT usage. This broad picture of sectoral e-business activity is the basis fora more analytical assessment on drivers and impacts of ICT adoption presented inChapter 4. The presentation of the empirical evidence has been structured into thefollowing main themes:Access to ICT networks & endowment with basic infrastructure: Section 3.1looks at companies' access to ICT networks and their endowment with basicinfrastructure. The objective is to assess the sector's overall "e-readiness", i.e. thebasis for doing business electronically.ICT and e-business for design and modelling of new products and integrationwith manufacturing and marketing & sales. Furniture manufacturers face manychallenges when designing and modelling new products, these include the difficultyin exchanging the information with the shop floor as well the supply and sales chain.Advanced 3D modelling tools have demonstrated tremendous potential forimproving the efficiency of generating product information needed for the productionof furniture pieces. Now the key is not only to increase the efficiency of thegeneration process, but to link this information with the product data workflowthrough the development and manufacturing process. The study provides anoverview of the main applications for integrating design and production. The CATIManufacturing Survey 2007 assesses the level of uptake and the impacts of theseapplications. The study provides examples of innovative companies, such as thoseimplementing green33 design of environmentally and ecologically friendly materialsand processes.ICT for value chain integration and process efficiency (Section 3.3). The EUfurniture industry is an assembling industry, firms’ activity is generally organisedaround a network of third parties and business partners, suppliers of raw materialsare often very concentrated and the incidence of material and service cost onproduction value is quite high. Even slight improvements of efficiency in the supplychain management produce significant cost savings. Therefore improving theefficiency of production and supply chain processes is a key objective. However,the potential for improvement is not the same for all players involved and thedegree of exploitation of the potential advantages may vary remarkably across subsectors,size and country. This section analyses how ICT are used to improvebusiness processes in the value networks of the furniture industry sector.ICT potential for sales and customer service (section 3.5). This section presentsevidence that marketing and customer service is becoming a major focus of e-business activity even in traditional manufacturing sectors, notably in the context ofglobal competition. The European furniture sector is witnessing an increasingcomplexity and concentration of distribution. As many of the business customersoperate through central purchasing organisations at the EU level, small furnitureproducers risk to be excluded due to their insufficient supplying capacity. As33Including design for waste prevention in the first place and design for better materialsmanagement facilitates the handling of products at the end of their service life.38