Brose quickly accesses information using ViewDirect TCM, a Web-based archive that consolidates existing diverse storage systems and provides tight integration with SAP R/3.
The Brose Group, headquartered in Coburg, Germany, and partner to the international automotive industry, employs 8,000 people working at 30 locations in 20 countries. It supplies products for more than 40 vehicle brands and to automotive seat producers.
Just-in-time manufacturing no longer exists at the company, instead just-insequence is the order of the day. Such methodology delivers parts to assembly lines in the exact sequences in which they are installed.
When a car body is ready, for instance, the vehicle maker issues a release order to Brose specifying the time window — sometimes as little as 2 hr — for delivering a door system to the assembly line. To support such an optimized supply chain, Brose quickly accesses information using a Web-based archive that consolidates existing diverse storage systems and provides tight integration with SAP R/3.
Searching for information that might be stored in paper files, a legacy archive, diverse file servers, or tape archives took too much time at Brose. In addition, the company needed to meet regulatory requirements such as GDPdU (regarding the digital audit of operating results) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which requires an archive of tamperproof electronic documents.
Brose uses ViewDirect TCM, a fully scalable Web-based total contentmanagement tool from Mobius, and archives 80,000 to 100,000 documents/month. The documents, which originate from about 7,000 directories, flow in from SAP and other applications, as well as in the form of scanned paper documents. There are also various types of documents associated with SAP files — from invoices to CAD drawings.
ViewDirect TCM also manages inbound and outbound human resources, supply demand, multimedia and finance-related images, and reports. It then associates them with SAP business objects including sales/purchase orders and employee, customer, and vendor records.
Up to 2,200 SAP users at Brose sites in 20 countries access the ViewDirect TCM archive. The system lowers operating costs and improves employee efficiency. Employees quickly find documents, complete tasks that once took up to 30 min in seconds, and answer queries on one call.
