As one of the largest and most important economic sectors by revenue, the automotive sector has long been a busy and competitive marketplace. As such, automotive OEMs and parts manufacturers are constantly fighting the same battle to streamline operations, boost productivity and increase efficiency. With industry players being judged on their initial capital expense, ongoing operating costs and time to market, an ERP solution, which tracks all aspect of their operations and helps them manage their entire business processes is a commodity they can’t do without.

With lean manufacturing being embraced throughout automotive manufacturing, no parts manufacturer can afford to have an inventory surplus so inventory optimisation, an integral part of any ERP system, is key to managing this. Full traceability of stock together with materials tracking is key to helping any automotive manufacturer to respond to demand.

Take SYSPRO user Titan, a specialist component manufacturer. The company previously moved into a number of new markets, focusing its manufacturing capability on smaller sized engines and clean technologies. With demand high in this sector, Titan needed to increase its time to market by better linking its raw materials and production capacity to the shop floor. SYSPRO, together with Advanced Planning and Scheduling provision, has enabled the company to increase productivity and more accurately match its capacity to demand, giving it the ability to plan and schedule material deliveries in line with what is currently available in the production department.

In a mass production market like the automotive industry, full traceability is critical to operations and manufacturers have to be able to identify any supply chain or production issues before they lead to production faults. It’s too late noticing a problem when you are half way through 12,000 units – just think of the waste you will be creating. An ERP solution allows automotive manufacturers to instantly track the DNA of any part, at any time, to ensure that quality management is always high on the supply chain agenda.

And the most effective ERP solution will be able to seamlessly integrate with complementary software that further enhances the production process. Think how many workers a company as established as Titan has. How can one person get the best out of every worker at any one time? By integrating SYSPRO with an Equator HR solution, management can monitor staff productivity and then compare this with their SYSPRO reporting data to ensure that the company is operating at full capacity at all times, and poised for market growth.

For Mark Martin, Systems Manager at Titan, the key requirement for the company was always a fully integrated solution. After looking at a number of options, it was the functionality and scalability of SYSPRO that best suited Titan’s requirements. He explained: “We needed a solution that would provide us with seamless integration into our other business systems and that was scalable enough to grow with us and not be restrictive. K3 presented a number of demonstrations of SYSPRO and it became clear to us that this solution not only offered us that scalability but would also easily integrate with other systems to become one single solution. That is what set it apart from the other options available to us.”