Manufacturers face daily challenges in their effective management of inventory, and more specifically, having real-time visibility into their supply chain. For manufacturers, a lack of collaboration with their suppliers can mean shortages, excess inventory, longer cycle times and often, higher costs.
QAD customer Yanfeng Automotive Interiors (YFAI) India found themselves struggling with some of these very challenges. YFAI is the global leader in automotive interiors. Headquartered in Shanghai, the company has approximately 110 manufacturing plants and technical centers across 20 countries and more than 33,000 employees globally. For more than 30 years, YFAI has been designing, developing and manufacturing automotive interior components for the most well-known automotive brands in the world. YFAI India (Yanfeng India Automotive Trim Systems) is the company’s India-based production facility specializing in the manufacture of instrument panels, door trims and gear box consoles.
Lack of Real-Time Data Leads to Excess Costs
For years, the YFAI India team managed their procurement process manually in a spreadsheet and found that all too often the changes and fluctuations in the forecast weren’t reflected in real-time, leading to excessive air freight charges that were needed to keep up with customer orders.
After a discussion with their QAD team, YFAI India determined the QAD Supplier Portal was the perfect solution to their supplier management needs. The QAD Supplier Portal is a supplier collaboration, management and inventory visibility solution that runs in the QAD Cloud. It allows manufacturers and suppliers to share information about inventory, scheduling, purchase orders, shipments and more.
Once implemented, YFAI India realized a 25 percent reduction in inventory and the elimination of shortage and overage problems, and a 90 percent reduction in missed deliveries among other great benefits.
The alerts and exception notifications made available in the QAD Supplier Portal help YFAI India to better manage inventory delivery and quality issues from suppliers, enabling both YFAI and their suppliers to more proactively optimize the performance of their production schedules.
QAD Supplier Portal for Automotive ERP
With the QAD Supplier Portal, manufacturers can see a reduction in inventory investment, order and shipment costs, procurements costs and an elimination of many of the errors that were a result of manual processes. Over all, it can lead to a huge improvement in the visibility of their supply chain as well as the mitigation of risks. Manufacturers can communicate purchasing and replenishment requirements to their suppliers as soon as customers’ demands change.
“Since implementing the QAD Supplier Portal we now hear from our suppliers – ‘The Supplier Portal is easy to use and no other customer of ours gives us such crisp and clear schedules as YFAI India’.” – Sandeep Kularni, YFAI India, General Manager/CEO
For more information on some of the other great benefits YFAI India discovered after implementing the QAD Supplier Portal, read the full story.
