Superior Essex, Essex Furukawa Partner With Waybridge On Agile Digitization Initative

ATLANTA, GA — Superior Essex, the parent brand of Essex Furukawa Magnet Wire, Superior Essex Communications, and Essex Brownell, today announced its expanded partnership with Waybridge, a supply chain operating system for raw materials. The announcement will continue the Vision 2030 efforts for Essex Furukawa Magnet Wire through agile digitization of the company’s manufacturing plants in Europe, North America, and Malaysia.

Superior Essex is among one of the early adopters of Waybridge’s platform, utilizing the technology at two of its North American magnet wire manufacturing plants — in the U.S. and Mexico — since August 2021. This latest expansion will incorporate Waybridge into 9 new plants located in Canada, Germany, Italy, Serbia, and the U.S.

Making innovation part of sourcing — and holistic sustainability —  has been a focus of  Strategic Sourcing VP, Scott Wilde. Expanding the partnership with Waybridge is as much an innovation as it is a technical advancement.

“We knew that to provide our customers and suppliers with the most optimal experience, we needed to streamline our operations and be able to predict supply chain issues, like stockouts, before they impacted us, and our customers,” Wilde said.

“As soon as we partnered with Waybridge, the way we viewed our full inventory and our overall workflow process completely changed. We’ve now been able to access critical predictive information that allows us to be agile when dealing with supply chain issues before they affect us. We’re excited to continue leveraging Waybridge’s vast expertise and technology throughout our global business.

Inefficient supply chains and stockouts can cost companies more than just direct sales loss — they can increase logistics costs, damage a company’s brand image, and ultimately hinder future demand. Reasons for stockouts can be traced to multiple points in the supply chain including an unexpected increase in demand, shipment and supplier delays, human error, and lack of accurate inventory data.

Waybridge’s Stock & Flow feature directly addresses and mitigates the challenge of knowing current and future inventory positions by aggregating data from shipping forecasts, real-time shipment locations, predicted ETAs, and production plans to offer customers unparalleled predictive capabilities. In 2021 alone, Waybridge allowed Superior Essex to avoid four material stockouts that would have directly affected our customers.

Another supply chain tool that can be problematic for companies like Superior Essex is Excel. While it remains a widely used tool to collect and calculate data among players in the raw materials supply chain, these spreadsheets are often static and manual, meaning they are prone to human error. Through Waybridge’s interconnected platform, Superior Essex was able to reduce company-wide Excel usage procurement by 90% and reduced email volume around procurement and tracking by 50%.

“It’s a testament to the impact of supply chain digitization that one of our first customers has been so impressed with the results of our technology that they are expanding its implementation into plants across the globe,” said Scott Evans, CEO and cofounder of Waybridge. “Superior Essex is a true forward-thinker in the commodities space and understands the importance of standardization on a common platform to benefit not only themselves, but their customers and their suppliers, making them an ideal partner for us.”

“Superior Essex has provided Waybridge with incredible product feedback since the start of our partnership, which has allowed our product to continue evolving, benefitting all of our customers across the board,” adds Kyle McCarter, Waybridge’s Chief Product Officer. “As one of the largest magnet wire products in the world, we truly value Superior Essex’s insights as both a build partner for us and also a major participant in global markets.”

Superior Essex currently requires all of its North American material to be managed via Waybridge and will be looking to expand its technology into Asian plants in the near future.

About Superior Essex

Superior Essex is the parent brand of Essex Furukawa Magnet Wire, Superior Essex Communications, and Essex Brownell. It has over 3,000 employees in 11 countries, on three continents. Superior Essex is the leading, global provider of magnet wire and is on the forefront of communications fiber application as well as Power over Ethernet (PoE) technology. It is instrumental in creating disruptive technological advancements in the electrification of the automotive, energy, and industrial sectors. Superior Essex is committed to pioneering smart building technology while also setting the pace on sustainability. Superior Essex is Everywhere You Live and Work®. Additional information is available at superioressex.com.

About Waybridge

Waybridge provides unprecedented visibility into the commodities supply chain, connecting all parties and partners onto a single intuitive platform. Our platform allows customers to have end-to-end visibility into their physical materials transactions. Waybridge blends the expertise and vision of commodities and technology experts to create an intuitive platform that makes the exchange of raw materials smarter, faster, and better. Learn more at Waybridge.com or reach out to us on LinkedIn or Twitter.