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Electronic Supply Chain Interlock (ESI)

Electronic data management and communication system for supply chain collaboration

ESI Commodity is the main application in ESI. It allows registered and approved suppliers to conduct business with IBM, via the council coordinator.
The registration cycle starts when an IBM coordinator asks ESI to include a supplier and a supplier coordinator, register them with one or more councils and later approve them. Once approved, this supplier coordinator can register and approve other people and delegate ESI functions to them.
Transactions done with IBM via the registered councils are all logged and kept for future reference and for audit purposes.

It is a on-demand web based application
Enhances communication and collaboration between IBM and its partners
Enables IBM to securely exchange any type of business, engineering and workflow data between suppliers, partners and contract manufacturers
Single and multi company forms
Hybrid storage architecture (Domino and Db2)
Dynamic architecture provides ability add new function at a low cost
Common web interface for IBMers and non-IBM users
IBM and supplier users access ESI outside the firewall and authenticate against Web Identity (WI) directory
Data retention controls, providing a single point of information retention for auditability
It is deployed in AHE environment
Integrates with eXplore back end system for part data
Interfaces with Part Number Data Base / Part Number Ref Tool
Interfaces with DPL (denied party list)
Interfaces with third party reporting tools (i.e. Brio)

You may find additional information in the following pages:

ESI Overview page

ESI Help page

ESI Task page (restricted access)