Automotive supplier tracks supply chain with
XML server
Our lives rarely hang by a single thread. But often enough, we do
depend heavily on small and inconspicuous items, like screws or
sensors no bigger than a fingernail. Every day, millions of motorists
rely on each component of their vehicle having been expertly
manufactured and fitted. Automobile manufacturers and their suppliers
therefore have a vital duty to their customers. In fact, the
manufacturers of safety-critical vehicle components, such as seats or
seat belts, are required by law to keep detailed records of the
manufacture, performance testing and fitting of each product.
In the past, tracking this production and test data was extremely
expensive for auto makers. They accumulated stacks and stacks of
documents containing the necessary information. It usually took
several days to obtain the answer to an inquiry from this heap of
figures, texts and graphics. For the new Fiat 192,however,it 's a
totally different story: Since June 2001, the Lear Corporation,
supplier to the Turin-based automobile manufacturer, has been using
Software AG 's Tamino XML Server to record, archive and manage all
manufacturing, testing and assembly data for this new vehicle 's
seats.
With 120,000 employees and 300 locations in 33 countries, Lear is
the fifth largest supplier of products for the automotive industry and
is the number one manufacturer of car seats. Umberto Garro, IT Manager
at Lear Italy, comments on the current situation:" The crucial
competitive advantage nowadays is the ability to access a
comprehensive information source very quickly and on a company-wide
basis. Modern Internet technologies present both an opportunity and a
challenge to bring together company locations and processes in such a
way that they guarantee a seamless and largely automated flow and
exchange of information across the world. This applies to our sector
in particular, since it is characterized by global interrelations
between suppliers and just-in-time production."
Lear 's IT managers decided to base their new tracking system on
the eXtensible Markup Language (XML).XML can describe the content
structures of all kinds of documents and data - from complete websites
to tables or graphics - in the most appropriate way for each
application. "In a few years 'time, no company in the automotive
sector will be able to manage without XML, since this sector relies
more than others on seamless and unbroken process chains between
manufacturers and suppliers," Garro emphasizes.
The media-neutral nature of the standard was crucial for Lear 's
first XML project. The company collects complex information for each
seat from texts, statistics and diagrams. This is all information
which is difficult to store in the rigid rows and columns of
relational databases.
For this reason, Lear Italy 's IT managers made plans to use XML
not only for the exchange of information between applications, but
also as the basis for data organization, using Tamino XML
Server." As soon as we were sure that we wanted to build our new
tracking system around XML, it was only natural that we would use
Tamino as our database," explains Garro.
In May 2001,Lear started to implement the first solution using
Tamino in its Cassino (Italy)factory. Three Lear employees
successfully completed this project in only six weeks. Now Lear
benefits from a largely automated flow of information to assist it in
the manufacture of seats for the new Fiat 192.Its personnel can now
collect production and test data for all safety-critical components
right at the production line. Before they fit a component, they simply
scan its bar code. No more manual intervention is needed to collate
and archive this information. This is done at the moment the component
is fitted so that the application can link all data with the
respective order number.
After a seat is completed, the production management software
brings the data together in a comprehensive XML document, which it
immediately stores in Tamino. The records stored here contain
technical information on the production machinery used, for instance,
as well as statistics giving information about the manufacturing
process, such as the number of parts of a particular kind produced on
the same day. Structured data is also stored, which records the
production process and its various phases, as well as diagrams and
graphics, which make it much easier to interpret the data.
It doesn't matter which country they are located in. Employees
working in production control can access the manufacturing data for
each and every seat within seconds. All they have to do is enter the
chassis number in their computer to retrieve all related documents.
They might do this after an accident, for example, to clarify whether
the active components of a car seat were functioning properly."
The new XML and Tamino-based tracking system significantly
rationalizes and speeds up our dealings with production data, from
collecting the information to storing and retrieving it. The extent to
which this procedure has freed up our workforce has not yet been
measured. However, we are sure we have made significant time and cost
savings," says Lear Italy 's IT Manager.
After the success of the pilot project in Cassino, Lear plans to
extend the use of this technology to the production of all accessories
for Fiat.
www.lear.com
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