This interview is an abridged version of a broader conversation with executives from IBM and Sunsweet Growers Inc. To listen to the full interview and others in the Progressive Manufacturing Roundtable series, click here.

It would be difficult to think of two manufacturing companies that are more different from one another than IBM Corp. and Sunsweet Growers Inc. A $91 billion high-tech manufacturing giant, IBM competes globally against some of the world's largest technology providers. Sunsweet, on the other hand, is a $250 million maker of dried fruit products and often competes against small, regional, low-cost providers. Yet, the two companies do have some things in common. Over the past few years, both have made improving their supply chains cornerstones of their business strategies. And, for their efforts, both have been named Managing Automation Progressive Manufacturing award winners in the Supply Network mastery category. IBM was the High Achiever winner in the category in 2006, and Sunsweet was a Progressive Manufacturing 50 award winner in 2007.

Recently, Managing Automation Executive Editor Jeff Moad spoke with Tim Carroll, vice president of global supply chain operations at IBM, and Harold Upton, vice president of strategic business processes at Sunsweet, about how their companies plan to continue to gain competitive advantage by streamlining their supply chains.

Q: Your companies have made significant improvements over the last couple of years in supply chain operations, both in reducing costs and satisfying customer demand. How much room is left for improvement? Are we just scratching the surface so far or have we substantially achieved what is out there to achieve?

Carroll: I think that we recognize and understand in our environment that it's never-ending. There's an end state that you desire to get to, but there are always improvements you need to make to get to that end state. We've been fortunate with the work that we've done on our own integrated supply chain since 2002; just take a look at the enormous results that we've had year-on-year.

I'll give you an example. Last year, we saved IBM over $6 billion in costs, improved payment terms by more than a day, and we've reduced our order-to-fulfillment cycle time by as much as six days to our clients. As we continue to drive for the process improvements by using lean, Six Sigma, etc., we continue to see this as evolutionary.

Upton: I would agree with Tim. It's a continuing effort. We have made tremendous strides and we've seen significant payoffs. The question is, how much further can you go for how much dollars? I don't think that we're looking at bringing back another big win [like] we did this last three or four years. But I also don't think that if you look long term at today's model that it's going to be around forever. What I mean by that is I think ... consumer patterns are going to challenge our distribution models as we know them today. So, I think there is a lot of opportunity [for the whole supply chain model] to be reinvented.

Q: Obviously, when it comes to demonstrating, both internally and externally, what you can achieve in terms of your supply chain performance, metrics are key. What do you feel should be measured and how are those metrics changing?

Upton: We obviously measure lead time, cycle time, inventory rates, customer fill rates, and those are pretty traditional. I think that you have to maintain focus on those, but that's the infrastructure; I don't think that's the end result.