Automotive

Exel numbers finished vehicle, as well as OEM automotive component manufacturers and aftermarket parts suppliers, among users of EFACS E/8. Each are able to respond to their specific market pressures with the assistance and flexibility of their EFACS E/8 integrated manufacturing system.

It is no surprise that EFACS E/8 is such a good fit for a sector in which the tools of manufacturing excellence and continuous improvement such as Lean, Kanban and Just in Time (JIT) were first developed.

Flexibility to changes in demand combined with faster response times and greater economy are driving forces throughout the automotive supply chain. EFACS E/8 is able to assist in meeting these challenges through elimination of waste, maximisation of efficiency and optimum utilisation of plant, inventory and personnel.

EFACS E/8’s end to end integration of tender and supply chain management, materials resource planning, quotation, sales and customer relationship management into a single database ensures that pull strategy inventory, manufacturing and purchasing processes can be applied with great effectiveness. As can other tools of lean manufacturing, such as vendor managed inventory and consignment stock.

The EFACS E/8 browser based interface is easily deployed onto thin client mobile devices and used with bar coding and RFID to provide highly responsive Shop Floor Data Collection (SFDC). This real time data on material consumption allows more effective planning than can be achieved using forecast values. Production capacity planning can be optimised and smoothed and waste through delays minimised. Bar coding and RFID are technologies that can also be used to streamline goods receipt as well as assembly and despatch of finished products.

Effective product lifecycle management can be achieved using EFACS E/8 Engineering Change Controls (ECN) and its fully integrated mechanisms for serial number and batch traceability. The EFACS E/8 inventory control procedures are easy to align with the stringent quality assurance and quarantine requirements demanded by the automotive industry. The capability for version controlled document management and the option to link CAD/CAM systems to bills of material all make EFACS E/8 a product of choice for the automotive industry.