A division of one of the world’s leading automotive suppliers that engineers and manufactures optimized electrical/electronic distribution systems need to modernize its report generating systems. From bussed electrical centers, sensors, and thin profile switches for automobiles to high-speed, high-density interconnects for the communications market, the company is continually introducing innovative technologies to enhance the customer experience. Yet, when it came to managing its own invoices, reports and more than 500,000 pages of paperwork per month, the company needed some technology savvy. Over time, the company’s print services had become costly and cumbersome, requiring four print centers just to produce reports. What the company needed was a modern, efficient system for generating and distributing reports – one that could control printing costs and ensure rapid, reliable access to mission-critical information. So, in conjunction with a key initiative involving ASA’s decision support systems, an electronic report distribution system was implemented that would help minimize the company’s cost burden while maximizing the value of its legacy reporting environment.

A leading manufacturer's operations span the globe; yet its product development processes lacked the same global synergy. Inconsistent business processes and disparate systems made it difficult to optimize engineering capabilities on a regional basis as well as achieve a global architecture. Its two major applications – the legacy Bill of Materials (BOM) system and Math-based system – managed different product data within completely disconnected envi-ronments. The legacy BOM managed parts information but did not provide visualization or position information. Likewise, the Math system allowed users to visualize information including the fit and physical information of the part itself, yet lacked the ability to provide configuration rules for the products to which the part belonged. Although the company dedicated significant resources toward synchronizing its core math and parts releasing systems, these systems needed significant improvements. To maintain its competitive edge, the manufacturer needed to find a more robust, cost-effective solution for managing its global engineering capabilities. The company set out on a two-fold mission: to transform its critical product development processes and IT systems and integrate its engineering systems within a global architecture. Once these were implemented, the company needed to ensure that customers would benefit from these new, high efficiency products. ASA’s software tools for promoting newly launched products were implemented that allowed company sales reps and marketing managers to effectively communicate and coordinate product positioning, messages, and presen-tations of these new products.

Multiple legal restrictions related to environmental issues require manufacturing companies in Europe to precisely record the materials they use during their processes and in their products. In recent years, many European manufacturers realized the benefits they could reap by implementing a standardized format for exchanging material information across the entire supply chain. High-end consulting organizations were asked to carry out a study to ascertain the most cost-efficient data exchange environment and determined a centralized IT-based approach made the most sense both economically and productively. EU legislation proposed for 2000 went a step further to include an end-of-life directive that forces many manufacturers that sell in Europe to take back product at the end of their life cycle and recycle a high percentage of the materials used to produce them. To reach that goal meant adopting a sophisticated materials information exchange system that would reach across the supply chain. ASA’s web-based tracking systems were a key component of the final solution for several of these manufacturers.