Network Equipment Technologies, known as Net.Com, provides the building blocks for high-performance, wide area networks. Its 1,750 customers in more than 75 countries include telecommunications carriers, government and military agencies, and other global enterprises.

Immediately after 9/11, Net.Com's orders from government customers dramatically increased to the point that they now account for almost 70 percent of sales. But doing business with the government requires an internal balancing act. Once a firm accepts an order from the government, this order takes precedence over other orders in the queue. Without jeopardizing relationships with any of its partners, Net.Com wanted to meet all customer demand, while maximizing revenue and margins by successfully managing its supply chain.

According to Jeff Range, Net.Com's vice president of operations, the company needed to improve management of its order fulfillment process using a solution that would operate seamlessly within its Oracle ERP environment. The company was managing customer commits manually, based on a standard 20-day lead-time. With these manual processes in place, employees spent most of their time expediting orders and responding to events, rather than anticipating supply and demand.

In an effort to improve revenue and margins, Net.Com sought a quick solution that would apply business rules that matched corporate goals and objectives while decreasing fulfillment lead-times and setting balanced inventory levels. Net.Com turned to the processes and operations supported by supply-chain software from Valdero Corporation.

"With Valdero, Net.Com has experienced impressive results with significant improvements in customer service," says Range. "Valdero applies weights for the orders based on business rules and contracts, enabling Net.Com to make solid commitments to customers on product information and delivery times."

Using the software, the company has improved order to delivery by customer requested date by 58 percent and cut book-to-ship lead times by 25 percent. On-time delivery has gone from 60 percent up to almost 90 percent, which has accelerated cash flow for the company.