Founded by Indian American billionaire Sanjiv Sidhu in 1988, i2 Technologies Inc Tuesday announced partnership deals with Caterpillar, the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines and K-Mart, the supermarket chain store serving all 50 American states and having business operations in Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands. The announcement was made before more than 7,000 new economy decision makers at Planet 2000 San Diego, the world's largest B2B e-business conference.

With the help of i2 Technologies Inc, Caterpillar plans to transform its supply chain, logistics, planning and customer management business processes. It will create an e-marketplace using the i2 Trade Matrix(TM) platform to link itself up with its supplier and dealer base and create a high velocity, build-to-order environment for enhancing collaboration.

On the other hand, i2 Technologies Inc will acquire certain Caterpillar software for component procurement and sourcing, which will be integrated into the i2 Trade Matrix solution. Caterpillar has also licensed an extensive suite of I2 software to optimize its internal operations. The proprietary software program for component procurement and sourcing is known as Web Engineering, Cataloging and Procurement (WECAP). The combined solution will be rolled out to the more than 180 suppliers currently using WECAP and potentially to all 21 Caterpillar business units.

"Installation has begun, and benefits will be immediate. In its first full year of operation, we anticipate a $100 million cost reduction. That number should grow significantly in subsequent years, making an important contribution to Caterpillar's target of taking more than $1 billion out of our cost base in the next few years," said Mr Glen Barton, chairman and chief executive officer of Caterpillar.

Mr Sidhu said his company's mission was to deliver $50 billion in value to its customers by 2005.

Under the agreement signed between i2 Technologies Inc and the K-Mart Corporation, K-Mart has agreed to license i2's intelligent e-business solutions to transform its supply chain execution. The two companies have also agreed to focus on a next generation retail solution that will span functions throughout the value chain to improve its strategic, financial, demand and merchandise, besides planning, design functions, sourcing, logistics, transportation, and reporting functions.

"We have seen i2 help many of our suppliers become more competitive, so we were confident that i2 is the right technology partner to help us achieve our goals," said Mr Randy Allen, K-Mart's executive vice president strategic planning and chief information officer. Through its tie-up with i2, K-Mart plans to automate its store processes so that store personnel have more time to interact with and help customers. The implementation of the project, which is scheduled to begin early next year, will link K-Mart to the worldwide retail exchange for more efficient procurement. Caterpillar's relationship with i2 spans more than 10 years, beginning with a pioneering effort to improve planning capabilities at Caterpillar's Joliet component manufacturing facility. Caterpillar has more than 67,000 employees worldwide and had sales and revenues totaling $19.7 billion in 1999.

The company plans to achieve $30 billion in sales and revenues by 2006. K-Mart has 2,164 retail outlets.

The Dallas, Texas-based i2 Technologies Inc enables companies to make their e-business operations cost-effective and to allow businesses to create both private and public marketplaces. It has more than 5,000 employees and maintains offices worldwide.

India Abroad News Service