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Background
A tier-1 Fortune 150 automotive supplier headquartered in the Midwest manufactures automotive interior systems and is the world's fifth-largest automotive supplier. The company's world-class products are designed, engineered, manufactured, validated and delivered by over 120,000 employees in more than 200 facilities located in 33 countries.

The automotive supplier has grown to meet the changing needs of the industry and today it exclusively serves the global automotive industry and manufactures all six primary interior systems:

• Seats
• Instrument panel/cockpit
• Door and trim
• Overhead
• Flooring and acoustic
• Electronic and electrical distribution

The company takes pride in its reputation for quality, outstanding customer relationships and flawless execution. It continues to build on this reputation by adopting innovative new technologies that enable more efficient and effective operations.

The Goal
The company wanted to adopt an automated procurement solution that could span its entire organization and give it visibility into purchasing behavior enterprise-wide. This type of solution would enable it to standardize its procurement processes and more effectively meet volume-purchasing targets with suppliers and optimize inventory levels worldwide.

This solution needed to be easy-to-use and easy-to-implement, because the company did not want to incur the cost and effort associated with implementing yet another enterprise IT system. It also needed to be able to provide seamless integration with the company's supplier base so it would not be disruptive to
existing relationships.

The Challenge
With all of its acquisition activity, the company's plant operations had become out of synch. Its disparate systems could not effectively share information, which impeded the ability to transfer best practices across locations. The company needed a way to overcome these issues and unify its procurement processes enterprise-wide.

Operational decisions happened on a plant-by-plant basis which no longer supported the overall business objectives.  Without structure and a system to support wise purchasing habits across all sites, the potential purchasing power with current supplier partners could not be leveraged.

To accomplish this, the company needed a Web-based solution that could effectively link the company with its suppliers and provide automated replenishment and inventory management capabilities. Optimizing manufacturing efficiency and customer satisfaction was, and is, of paramount importance. This meant that the new procurement solution needed to be able to ensure optimal inventory levels at all times to minimize inventory costs without impacting manufacturing operations.

The Solution
The company chose Datastream 7i Buy as its solution for automating the procurement of industrial parts and services. It currently uses Datastream 7i Buy to standardize the purchase of non-production goods and supplies across 65 locations in the United States and Canada which enables the company to:

• Synchronize its procurement processes with its supplier partners
• Facilitate effective purchasing habits across all facilities
• Track and manage parts usage, stock levels
• Complete the business automation process

The company is now able to consolidate supplier partners and track employee purchasing across all sites. This was critical because it provided the opportunity to implement best practices for cost-efficient purchasing. In addition, Datastream 7i Buy enables the company to update item pricing and availability of requisition and purchase-order items. They can also electronically transmit purchase orders, all from a single platform.

Three years into the implementation, the company has achieved a triple-digit return-on-investment and increased supplier-agreement compliance from 10% to 79%.

The Result
The results gained from the Datastream 7i Buy deployment speak for themselves. Three years into the implementation, the company has achieved triple-digit return-on-investment and increased supplier-agreement compliance from 10% to 79%. The outcome is lower procurement costs, lower inventory costs and more efficient manufacturing operations.

After evaluating multiple options, Datastream 7i Buy proved to be the most effective procurement solution. It is a straightforward, easy-to-use system that provides seamless integration with the company's supplier partners. The aim is to continuously improve processes and product quality through the latest technologies, and Datastream 7i Buy has helped the company achieve these goals.