Automotive industry case studies

Auto components supplier cuts receiving cycle-time by 50%, cuts costs by 30%
To feed assembly lines that supply components such as powertrain controllers, infotainment systems, and body controllers to major automakers, Continental Automotive receives eight truckloads of parts from its 160 suppliers every day. A manually intensive process received those parts, logged into Continental’s SAP system, and found storage for them. But it lengthened cycle times and increased costs. To support the company’s lean-manufacturing initiative, Continental adopted a custom receiving solution from Xterprise, a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner. The solution is based on Microsoft RFID technology and its extended application platform, along with Xterprise application software and Motorola hardware. The solution has cut the receiving-cycle time by 50 percent and the associated costs by 30 percent. The solution was half as expensive as the most competitive proprietary UNIX solutions.

BMW takes employee collaboration to new heights with communication software
BMW AG employs over 100,000 people worldwide and maintains 24 production sites in 13 countries. Global project teams depend on communication and collaboration to design new products and bring them into production. Quickly bringing new models into production is critical to maintaining the company’s edge against competitors. BMW has 11,000 employees taking advantage of the instant messaging and presence capabilities of Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007. To expand on these capabilities, the company deployed Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. BMW expects employees to take advantage of improved desktop sharing, plus audio and video conferencing capabilities, to collaborate with coworkers and business partners. The company also hopes to reduce audio and Web conferencing significantly by replacing services from the leading online meeting vendor.

Global company boosts agility with server to desktop virtualization
Ingersoll Rand is a global manufacturing company with diverse product lines. Recent growth by acquisition contributed to an already decentralized, heterogeneous IT infrastructure. To simplify management of its global IT environment, Ingersoll Rand standardized on Microsoft® technologies and deployed a virtualization solution using Windows Server® 2008 Hyper-V™ that spans servers and desktops across the enterprise. Ingersoll Rand has already avoided approximately U.S.$570,000 through server consolidation and virtualization software savings. In 2009, it expects its desktop virtualization solution to simplify the deployment of Windows Vista®. By administering its virtualized environment and physical network resources with Microsoft System Center integrated management tools, Ingersoll Rand can further support its infrastructure optimization goals, driving IT efficiency and business agility.

Global manufacturer enhances “Culture of Speed” with new communication tools
To help its enterprise run more efficiently, Gates Corporation, a leading manufacturer of automotive and industrial belts and hoses, needed a monitoring system that could provide comprehensive reporting data on its 400 business-critical servers. By migrating to Microsoft® System Center Operations Manager 2007, Gates is benefiting from object-level server monitoring and accurate, reliable in-depth reporting. Consequently, Gates estimates that it will improve manufacturing productivity by 10 percent, boosting annual revenue by more than U.S. $10 million. Additionally, to maintain its customer service lead, Gates equipped employees with new software that helps them communicate more effectively. As a result, employees are more effective in working together to serve customers, and the company is better able to take advantage of the latest innovations, while saving U.S. $1 million in IT costs.

Honeywell uses smart tags to improve interoperability, save $1.5 million annually
Honeywell Transportation Systems employs thousands of engineers who design engine-boosting systems and other automotive products. Early in the design phase, they consult parts data that resides in an SAP R/3 ERP system, and parts drawings that reside in a Linux-based product data management (PDM) application. Engineers spent hours each week retrieving data from these systems using Windows XP-based desktop computers. The IT staff then created an Office Business Application using smart tags, an interoperability feature in Microsoft® Office Professional Edition 2003, to create quick links from any Microsoft Office file to these enterprise engineering systems. Engineers click on a smart tag to access SAP parts data or PDM designs. Honeywell has realized a U.S. $1.5 million annual productivity savings from its solution and is able to make faster decisions while speeding design cycles.

Manufacturer delivers materials faster with enterprise resource planning software
Voith Turbo is part of the Voith Group. Founded in 1867, it is one of Germany’s largest privately-held industrial groups. Voith Turbo specializes in high-precision drive mechanisms for engines with customers including MAN AG, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo. Until recently, the company held stock data on disparate systems, which meant there was no single view of data across its 39 international distribution centres. Employees had to enter details of stock manually which was time consuming and led to inaccuracies. This, in turn, made it difficult to monitor stock levels and distribute materials efficiently. At the end of 2002, Voith Turbo deployed Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV enterprise resource planning software. Now, the company can view accurate data on its stock levels across the organisation and deliver materials faster.

Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift Europe - Forklift Manufacturer Improves Business Processes, Reduces Costs with xRM
To improve the forklift configuration and ordering process, the company deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Because of the flexible xRM development platform that underpins Microsoft Dynamics CRM, MCFE created several customized applications. By using xRM to rapidly develop relational business applications, MCFE has increased employee productivity, improved its ability to respond to business needs, reduced development costs by 60 percent, and improved order processing times.

Nissan improves decision making, cuts costs with unified communications solution
Nissan Motor Company, one of the world’s largest car manufacturers, wanted to help employees in distant locations work together more easily. It also wanted to reduce the cost of business travel by using an affordable Web conferencing tool. In September 2007, the company began evaluating Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 with the Microsoft RoundTable conferencing and collaboration device. With presence capabilities, employees can now check a colleague’s availability at a glance and get answers to quick questions using instant messaging. Using RoundTable, employees who previously traveled to offices overseas now meet virtually and can see and hear all participants with a 360-degree view of each meeting room. For Nissan, this solution encourages teamwork among employees and faster decision making, which is an imperative in the highly competitive automotive industry.

Snowmobile Manufacturer Supercharges Dealer Management with the xRM Platform
Polaris Industries is one of the largest off-road vehicle manufacturers in the world and a recognized leader in the snowmobile industry. To provide support to customers and a network of 1,500 dealers, the company relied on a group of disconnected applications. Because these systems did not share information, Polaris could not effectively track individual dealer issues. Polaris evaluated several solutions and chose Microsoft Dynamics® CRM, which is built on the xRM application platform layer, because of its superior technical flexibility and cost effectiveness. After deploying the solution to its various support operations, Polaris continues to make use of the xRM platform to accelerate development and deployment of line-of-business applications unique to the company, including a dealer extranet and e-commerce Web site.

Subaru Canada - Automotive Distributor Provides Employees with Anywhere Access to Messages
Subaru Canada will use Exchange Server 2010 to save mobile employees more than 15 minutes a day, while also saving money on phone charges, because the employees no longer have to dial in to check voice-mail messages. The company will also take advantage of Exchange Server 2010 to provide users with larger mailboxes at a lower cost, deliver a highly available solution while improving IT efficiency, and more easily comply with regulations.

Toyota Web site more discoverable by search engines with Microsoft Silverlight and iCrossing
ToyotaFishing.com is a microsite targeting fishing enthusiasts that helps Toyota promote the Toyota Tundra pickup brand. Originally developed in Flash, ToyotaFishing.com performed poorly in search engines, making it difficult for customers to find the site. Furthermore, updating content on the site was difficult and time-consuming for Toyota under the original architecture. To improve search engine optimization (SEO), iCrossing re-architected the site using Microsoft Silverlight, which significantly enhanced the discoverability of the Web site by search engines, and dramatically streamlined overall site update operations.

Vehicle parts manufacturer streamlines production and delivers new customer value
Accuride had an IBM iSeries–based Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) solution that required frequent attention from IT personnel and was expensive to operate. The company used the Microsoft® application platform to build a new solution that not only improves integration, but also streamlines production planning and provides customers visibility into certain manufacturing processes. Developed in four months with assistance from MPS Partners, the solution has improved factory operations and delivers new customer value. Accuride is realizing technical benefits as well, including high developer productivity, minimal deployment costs, reduced ongoing costs, and a decreased IT workload. Furthermore, the solution’s scalability, reliability, flexibility, and ease of management will help Accuride take advantage of the solution in the future.