Tokai Rika Expands Production Facilities to Europe

Implements ERP solution to support Czech subsidiary, integrate with Kanban

Implements ERP solution to support Czech subsidiary, integrate with Kanban

El Segundo, CA, and Eindhoven, The Netherlands — November 5, 2003 — Glovia International, a subsidiary of Fujitsu and a provider of extended enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for engineer-to-order and high volume manufacturers, this week announced that Tokai Rika has selected glovia.com to support its newly established production facilities in Europe.

Tokai Rika is an automotive supplier producing automobile control systems and components as well as security devices. The move to establish a new subsidiary in the Czech Republic is part of Tokai Rika's global strategy to realize optimal production and create extensive supply networks that will encompass its four major markets in Japan, Asia, Europe and the Americas, according to the company.

The company said it has subsidiaries throughout the world and supplies components to a list of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Toyota, SAAB, Volvo, Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. The company employs 10,000 people in 13 countries and has FY2003 sales of US$2.02 billion.

Tokai Rika said it selected Glovia for its automotive solution, which includes Customer Releasing, electronic data interchange (EDI) and Kanban.

Glovia Customer Releasing integrates automotive release maintenance with demand creation, planning, shipping and accounting. The EDI information, such as orders, forecasts and advanced shipping notices, will be fed directly into the Customer Releasing module and the production system. The Kanban application is fully integrated in glovia.com.

Fujitsu Consulting Japan played a major role in defining the requirements for Tokai Rika and supported them in conducting a feasibility study. Fujitsu Consulting Europe's knowledge of the Japanese manufacturing style and their direct connection to Japan was instrumental for a successful project, Glovia said.

Isaki Sugiura, vice president of administration at Tokai Rika Czech Republic, commented, "Glovia understands the unique challenges and requirements facing global automotive supply companies. Integration with Kanban was one of the key requirements as it is used to control the production line and the material flow. The pilot demonstrated a more than 90 percent fit of Glovia's pre-configured ERP system with the business processes of Tokai Rika. Our goal is to have the plant ready to ship from the first of January 2004 and the new plant is expected to employ nearly 250 people during the year 2004. This is a big challenge but we are confident that we found the right partner in Glovia to accomplish this."

"For years we've worked closely with automotive suppliers, developing functionality to support the automotive industry as it evolves," said Ben van Eck, EMEA managing director at Glovia International. "glovia.com allows a tight level of process integration between Customer Releasing and Supply Chain Management, enabling Tokai Rika to realize schedule changes and improve allocation of resources through real-time processing of data and customer requests."

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