Key Strategies to Increase Productivity and Growth in the Automotive Industry

The automotive industry comprises a wide range of companies and organisations involved in the design, development, creation and marketing or selling of motor vehicles. It is one of the world’s largest economic sectors in revenue.

Like other sectors, the global automotive business is experiencing rapid change. Even as it braces itself for the impact of trade wars and economic slowdown in India, OEMs are rebuilding their organizational structures to create lean and efficient set-ups. The auto sector has begun to prepare for several potentially disruptive challenges: Industry 4.0, stricter emissions regime, and the massive push towards electrification. This worldwide restructuring of their operations and supply chains is aimed at being profitable in a time of unprecedented change. The ultimate key strategy to build a world class operation automotive company is a robust ERP software for the automotive industry.

The top key strategies to create a road map to successful automotive company are:

1. Integrated shop floor

The manufacturing process is becoming increasingly integrated with the larger manufacturing ecosystem. With big data and robotics, every vehicle part manufactured can now be tracked online making real-time adjustments in production possible. This data can be looped back into the manufacturing ecosystem, to inventory management, defect tracking, production scheduling and time to market response. With the IoT global supply chains are transforming as suppliers track usage patterns, and respond to changes anywhere in the global business, in real time.

ERP solutions are enabling smart integration helping OEMs work ever more collaboratively with their worldwide supplier networks, even choosing the right suppliers across various component categories to ensure alignment with manufacturing requirements. This is helping OEMs lower operational costs and enhance their return on investment.

2. Automated process automation

Big data is transforming OEMs from not just being car manufacturers but also users of diverse software from design to product updates, and CRM. From shopfloor to factory gate, and from dealer showrooms to aftermarket service, automation is driving change and enhancing productivity. Moreover, compliance requirements for eco-friendly materials, and emission norms is generating data in their trillions that can be analysed to create value across the entire manufacturing process. This is where a robust and best fit ERP solution can unlock value enabling OEMs to create an agile and profitable manufacturing organization.

3. ERP Integration with financial functions

The financial functions of any company needs to be aligned to the realities of the manufacturing process to make inevitable profits. Here is where ERP can help OEMs to make their operations more cohesive, weeding out inefficiencies and identifying synergies. ERP solutions can create a connected value chain that comes from supplier portals and can be linked to the OEM’s financial modules. This helps the tracking of RFQs, bills, invoices and their impact on revenues, in real time.

4. Shift to cloud-based solutions for remote working:

To benefit from best in class technology, OEMs must invest in best fit ERP solutions that are comprehensive and perfectly fit into their business needs. Legacy systems can serve the purpose up to a point but the advantages of having a cloud platform is essential to staying ahead of competition. The future belongs to cloud-based ERP systems that are easier to implement and manage, and integrate men, machines and materials seamlessly. This provides real time access to all stakeholders from a data perspective without having to compromise on potential benefits that would be lost with multiple systems

5. Mobile-enabled ERP software

Mobile-enabled ERP solutions can empower employees across functions to align with challenges from supply to production, purchase to invoicing, and inventory management. A mobile-enabled solution guarantees a real time response to the challenges of auto manufacturing. It enables users to work remotely with a single click anytime anywhere, resulting in quick responses and productivity.

Expand ERP software — India’s best fit ERP company is creating end-to-end changes in manufacturing business processes both strategically and from an operational perspective: From shopfloor scheduling to alignment with both vendor and customer touch points, ERP solutions bring on to one platform data accessible across an organization and its various managerial functions. With ERP, dependence on static data is over. Access to granular data enables OEMs to optimize production, inventory management and supplier chain management and remain aligned to market realities

The future belongs to an automotive organization equipped with best fit ERP solutions designed to adapt and be flexible to change and yet be responsive to the voice of the customer. With over 15 years of market experience, we have been able to curate a best fit ERP software for the automotive industry which can seamlessly integrate all business processes and drive maximum ROI.

A case study of one of our clients is cited below for a better understanding of how essential is an ERP software for your business growth.

Client Case study:

Trishan Exports Private Limited started exporting cycle parts and accessories to countries such as Bangladesh and China from the year 1999. Soon they grew into a powerful export house and increased their range of exported goods to steel, textile, rice, tea and cutlery. They had multiple offices working from Ludhiana, Delhi, Kolkata and Singapore.

They also expanded into the hospitality business in the form of Dee Empresa business hotel located in central Kolkata in the year 2007.

Challenges they faced:

• They needed to reduce the amount of redundant telephonic and email communication between the two major operating locations of Ludhiana and Kolkata.
• They also wanted to stop the practice of calling or emailing every time a user at one location completed a document and the user at the other location needed to act upon it.

Solutions provided by Expand ERP

• Since any document prepared using Expand becomes easily available to the concerned users immediately after being saved there is no need to communicate the same. This resulted in saving a considerable amount of time and increased productivity. The documents could be prepared and released much faster than they could have been previously.
• The process of approving an order which was being created at Ludhiana could easily be carried out by a director sitting at the Kolkata office almost immediately after the order was recorded in the system. This made life easier for both the initiator and the approver.
• Expand also facilitated integration with Dee Empresa’s hotel management suite by capturing the financial aspect of the hotel business into the very same database.
• Through unique features which let the users import the day to day financial activities of the business with the click of a button allowed the users to extract the exact financial entries which were required to be posted into the books of accounts.

Therefore, with a robust and comprehensive ERP software on cloud, like Expand ERP, any automotive company can reach desired goals and stay abreast in the competitive market with ease. To know more visit our website or call 9007026542