Founded in 1997, Nusa Keihin Indonesia (NKI) manufactures component parts for Indonesia’s automotive giant Astra International as well as for export to Japan. As the company’s size, range of products and scale of operation grew, it had to work out increasingly complex monthly reports for its principals and it could no longer rely on its legacy accounting system. When effort to add more capability to the tailor- made legacy application failed, it began searching for an efficient and cost-effective solution. With the help from Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Mitra Integrasi Informatika, NKI implemented Microsoft Dynamics AX. Today, the time to prepare the end-of-month report has been reduced from two weeks to only a few hours, and the staff at the finance department has never had to work overtime to finish it.

Situation

PT Nusa Keihin Indonesia (NKI) is a joint venture between Astra International’s subsidiary PT Astra Otopart, Tbk. and Japan’s Keihin Seimitsu Kogyo, Co., Ltd. Based in Indonesia, it specializes in machining and sub-assembling of automotive parts. With only 63 employees, it manufactures Floor Shift Levers for cars and trucks made by Toyota, Daihatsu, Isuzu and Hino. It also produces machined crankcase covers and Hub for motorcycles. Most of the products are used locally while a small volume is exported to Japan.

When the company was still in its infancy, they were able to produce reports such as end-of-month financial summaries using a simple, tailor-made general ledger application.

However, although they were already using Microsoft Excel®, data was still printed out. It was the responsibility of the Finance & Accounting Department to consolidate all the data and produce the end- of-month reports.

Soon the headquarters began to ask for more data and a variety of monthly reports. This was necessary, as Astra International was a publicly-owned company. “It was not uncommon that my staff had to spend several nights working overtime to get these reports done in time,” said Lily Herawati, Finance & Accounting Department Head, PT Nusa Keihin Indonesia.
“There were times when we even had to stay overnight at the office to finish it, while Astra kept moving its deadline forward,” she added.

Clearly, the existing application was no longer adequate for their tasks. NKI then asked a software house to add more functionality and capability to the existing application, but after one year of unsuccessful attempt they completely abandoned the project. “We were all frustrated, as data consolidation still had to be done manually,” recalled Lily.

Her department faced was an even bigger challenge after Jardine Cycle & Carriage, Ltd. became one of the main shareholders of Astra international, which meant that more data in different report formats had to be prepared.

Solution

NKI then began looking for an alternative solution. In mid 2005, Lily and her team were informed that PT Metrodata, Tbk., one of the largest and oldest IT providers in Indonesia, was holding its annual METRODATA Solution Day.
“At the exhibition, we were able to compare a number of potential products from different independent software vendors (ISVs) using different platforms. We were impressed by the user-friendliness of Microsoft Dynamics AX,” said Lily.

“It seemed to ideally meet our key selection criteria, which included ease-of-use, the right functionality for our tasks, and affordability,” she added.
However, the real decision was made only after Microsoft Indonesia came to NKI to demonstrate the powerful features of the solution.
Microsoft Dynamics AX Finance and Distribution modules were implemented in January 2006 with the help of Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII), Metrodata’s IT solution provider arm.

The trial was started in April 2006. Parallel run was carried out for only one month. “In May 2006, we started to only use Microsoft Dynamics AX as we had verified and were very satisfied with its data integrity,” said Tutuka.

Although it was not a determining factor, the Microsoft brand somewhat helped NKI obtain quick approval from its principals. “We just informed them that we were going to use a Microsoft product,” explained Tutuka.

Benefits

Microsoft Dynamics AX helped NKI meet the deadline for report submissions, accommodate constantly changing principals’ demands for data, allow individual department to access more information online, “Microsoft Dynamics AX has made our operation far more efficient without requiring excessive investment and end user training,” said Tutuka.

Speed of data consolidation was one of the main benefits. There was no longer any need to work overtime to finish the reports, despite the fact that the amount of data has grown in line with the increase in transactions

“After lunch time on the first day of the month, I already have the information on our production figure from the previous month,” said Tutuka.

As data is now entered by individual department and verified by the supervisor before posting, data accuracy has improved. At the same time, the reduced workload allows the staff at the Finance & Accounting Department to be deployed to other duties. “This enables our company to grow without requiring additional manpower,” said Tutuka.

The various departments in the company also have access to more information. Each time they issue a PO, they are able to track the progress and have some idea as to the date their orders of materials will arrive. “This helps them plan their production schedule better,” said Lily. “In addition, they now have the ability to control their costs,” she added.

One final benefit that NKI has reaped from their use of Microsoft Dynamics AX is the familiarity of the interface, which helped facilitate the transition. “We are basically Excel users, and the similarity in the interface meant that we were able to plunge into it and start using the solution without requiring too much assistance,” said Lily.