It must have taken a lot to finally convince a successful old-school manufacturer to even consider adopting ERP, so there!
A Japanese metal processing company specializing in auto parts and supplying to 17 of the world’s established automakers—including BMW, Audi and Porsche and every Japanese automaker—has finally embraced enterprise resource planning (ERP).
Up until recently, its eight million automotive components produced each month for 150 different products had been managed by legacy systems put together and maintained manually.
The system, while noteworthy for helping to sustain the firm thus far, has finally been unable to rapidly respond to the requirements of new projects. It has also been too dependent on individual skills and on the operations of a limited number of employees.
With the pressing need to standardize and reduce the workload of the core production management system of its business, Fujikin decided to adopt a cloud-based ERP solution.
Production management in the Cloud
The firm’s legacy production system had to be supported in the move to ERP, and the new solution needed to support future business requirements and reduce operational workloads through the cloud.
Additionally, Fujikin wanted an ERP solution that was focused on production management, with support for its purchasing, sales and inventory management. Any tender that already accommodated 85% of its existing business would be at an advantage. The incumbent ERP solution also had to have the ability to support the requirements of planned future business partners without customization, and help to standardize systems that do not rely on specific employees. Through this standardization and use of a cloud-based ERP, the firm expects to reduce its workload by 170 man-hours per month.
After careful evaluation, the company selected Infor to provide its Software-as-a-Service cloud ERP suite for manufacturing industries, as its new production management system. The production-focused solution, purpose-built, optimized and delivered on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform, is expected to be fully operational by January next year.
According to Kenji Arakane, the firm’s president: “Going forward, Fujikin will continue supporting automakers around the world and making the world a better place through Japanese manufacturing expertise. To achieve this, we needed to adopt Infor’s SaaS solution so we can always utilize the latest industry-specific functions as we evolve. With this, we are laying the foundations for driving standardization and rapidly expanding our business.”
While the adoption of ERP is only a subset of true digital transformation, it is a good start, and forms a firm foundation for traditional firms that want to remain relevant in the post-pandemic era.
