SPOTWORX GmbH
Case Study

Automotive

Initial Situation & Challenges

An automotive manufacturer with over 1,500 employees and production and warehousing facilities in Austria had set up a supply network consisting of more than 320 suppliers in Europe and Asia. The wide variety of different items and suppliers led to an increasing amount of complexity and a lack of transparency in all areas from order placement to final delivery. To enable smooth processes and ensure product availability despite these “blind spots”, the client was forced to expend an extremely high administration and coordination effort. Expensive emergency transports and large safety stocks were often needed in order to deal with unexpected problems.

Solution

After a detailed analysis of the client’s structures, processes and requirements, the SPOT Purchase Order Management Module was chosen to deal with these challenges. SPOT digitizes the procurement process, including the tasks and responsibilities of all involved parties, to enhance transparency along the supply chain and enable all parties to prevent and react to discrepancies as early in the process as possible. Based on the target delivery dates and standard transit times, the SPOT Purchase Order Management Module defines the latest acceptable completion and pick-up times as well as deadlines for completing certain actions such as placing a transport order. The system automatically escalates any discrepancies from the agreed process and proactively initiates the steps to de-escalation.

The implementation of the cloud-based application SPOT with its Purchase Order Management Module brought transparency to the procurement and reduced costs while maintaining the same levels of product availability. Minimization of communicative and administrative effort provided relief for the operating units. Discrepancies are now detected early so that the responsible parties can intervene in time to restore the target process. Thanks to the enhanced transport planning, emergency transports have been reduced and container utilization has been enhanced. Standardized and system-driven workflows ensure process security from the point of order to final delivery.