SDCExec.com |

Long Beach, CA — December 11, 2007 — AGC Automotive, the world's largest automotive glazing supplier, has tapped Apriso Corporation to implement its FlexNet Operations Execution System to improve adaptability on the company's production line while enhancing visibility across its global supply chain.

The ambitious project will initially comprise 13 of AGC Automotive's 15 facilities and network of external production centers and warehouses located across Europe, with an expected timeframe for completion of just under three years.

Faced with a growing need to increase operational efficiency, AGC Automotive said it recognized that a real-time operations system could complement its enterprise resource planning (ERP) deployment, providing the necessary integration layer between plant floor operations and corporate-level planning. The resulting objective is to improve responsiveness while contributing to achieving "best-in-class" customer satisfaction.

"We are impressed with Apriso's automotive industry knowledge and ability to cost effectively provide an operations system with real-time visibility, all the way across our global supply chain network," explained Luc Pirau, IT manager at AGC Automotive Europe. "As we engage in our ERP roll out, I feel better knowing that Apriso tightly integrates with enterprise applications such as ERP, demonstrating how well the two systems complement each other to improve overall operations performance."

Manufacturers with multiple production or supplier locations face increased complexity to improve operations management. Apriso said its FlexNet solution is designed to address these challenges by providing an adaptive platform to establish, distribute and maintain standardized business processes across the enterprise. With real-time visibility to business processes the company said it is possible to identify opportunities for improvement and then immediately implement those changes.

The Apriso FlexNet platform was designed as an enterprise application built on business processes, rather than as a plant floor application built on hard-coded commands. By taking this approach, Apriso said it is easy to create a "Center of Excellence" to identify "core" processes suitable for usage throughout the organization. It is through this approach to global deployment that the rollout plan could be accomplished: Once a best-practice process has been identified and tested, it may be deployed to every location. The benefits Apriso said it has noted from such a standardized approach include improved operational performance, lower training costs for employees and better aggregate results from continuous improvement programs, such as Lean manufacturing initiatives.

"IT systems supporting automotive manufacturing can be quite complex. This is especially true when integrating highly repetitive shop floor operations with enterprise applications, such as ERP and PLM," clarified Fred Thomas, industry director for automotive manufacturing at Apriso. "Apriso has refined this process to achieve lower cost, higher quality and improved operations execution performance."