Is the shortest distance between two points a straight line? Not if you look at the Sun Microsystems global manufacturing supply chain.

Not long ago, Sun built its products to a forecast in domestic manufacturing plants, then shipped the finished products to a nearby distribution center. When customers placed orders, they were sent directly to them.

But building to stock and building domestically are no longer the most profitable ways to do business. Instead, manufacturing is much more of an on-demand global event.

A manufacturer like Sun is likely to wait to build an order to a customer's specifications rather than build to what it thinks might sell. What's more, manufacturers will use a combination of low-cost suppliers in China for basic assembly, value-added manufacturing centers in Mexico and Eastern Europe, and third-party logistics (3PL) providers in the United States and Europe for transportation and distribution.

To see it on a map, the second approach is anything but a straight line from order to delivery like the old model. But according to Eugene McCabe, Sun's executive vice president for worldwide operations, this second path reflects the reality of competition in a global market. He calls it the "migratory supply chain."

"The term is not mine," McCabe says. "But it's the best description of how Sun is responding to a manufacturing world that has changed."

To manage the migratory supply chain, Sun recently revamped its manufacturing and supply chain processes. The project included the development of an internal supply chain management and execution software system. That system synchronizes all the activities across the supply chain to manufacture, customize and deliver a product to a customer in a unique configuration.

"What we set out to create is a system that will support a one-touch supply chain," McCabe says. "The goal is that you only touch it once, which is the first time you build it."

What the migratory supply chain implies is that manufacturers face a stiff head wind if they intend to set up shop and produce from one fixed location. Instead, like nomads moving to the best grazing land, Sun and other manufacturers will migrate operations to wherever the right conditions exist for a specific process.

There's a name for that approach: outsourcing. The migratory supply chain contends that the location of outsourced manufacturing facilities is likely to migrate to new areas as business conditions change. In fact, McCabe assumes that the right combination of labor and currency exchange rates today will probably not be the same next year.

Since it is now someone else's job to manage the manufacturing and distribution operations, Sun takes on a new role. Its job is to provide the systems and discipline that can manage the circuitous route an order takes along the migratory supply chain, from the time Sun receives an order until a customer is up and running.

The reasons were simple, says McCabe. A little more than two years ago, Sun began to direct ship orders to customers, bypassing the DC.

That was easy if a customer ordered a standard product that didn't need customization or ordered just one product. But if a customer wanted to modify the software, a standard product still needed to be shipped in-house where an engineer could make the changes. Otherwise, a technician had to make the changes on site. The company also did not have a process in place to easily coordinate the delivery of orders with products from multiple suppliers.

"Two things happened almost simultaneously," says McCabe. "One is that we wanted to build to real customer orders, rather than do configurations later at the customer's site. The other is that we wanted to get out of stocking finished goods."

That said, Sun spent nearly 18 months creating a new supply chain management solution that allows it to synchronize custom orders across a global supply chain.

The whole process is driven by actual orders rather than a planned forecast. It begins when a customer goes to the Sun Web site and places an order for a custom-designed solution.

Lead times for parts and products as well as in-transit lead times for delivery have all been programmed into the supply chain management system. That allows Sun to commit to a ship date at the time an order is placed.

When the order is received, the system breaks it into its component parts and parses the individual orders out to the right supplier. When a supplier receives an order, they either commit to the delivery schedule or decline.

Once all of the suppliers have committed to the order, manufacturing begins. The initial assembly of servers and workstations is performed at a series of manufacturing plants in low cost areas. Currently that's China, but it could migrate to another region in Asia.

The semi-completed units are then shipped to a configuration center in Mexico or Eastern Europe. There, the product is customized to customer specifications, including the installation of software, employee passwords and other information that used to be done by technicians at a customer's site. Sun also creates a configuration file for any modifications to the software that can be loaded at the factory during the testing phase. This eliminates the need to reprogram the computer once it's installed.

Once a supplier has completed its task, it sends an alert to the system. When all suppliers say they're ready, the system notifies the appropriate transportation providers that the order is ready for pick up. Since an order may include other products not manufactured by Sun's contract manufacturers, multi-product orders are shipped to a merge and crossdock center managed by a 3PL. From there, the whole order is delivered to the customer.

While the process bears little resemblance to how Sun and its competitors once did business, McCabe believes that in the new economy it is the model of the future.

"What we're doing is thinking globally and using a global manufacturing strategy," McCabe says. "Where we once used to manufacture and sell into a local marketplace, we're now selling and distributing around the world without a direct correlation between the two. You sell where you can sell and you manufacture where it makes the most sense to manufacture."

Wherever Sun's operations end up, the right supply chain management system will straighten the line and shorten the distance between order and delivery.