IBM > Case Studies > YAZAKI Europe Limited: Ensuring rapid, cost-efficient order fulfillment and quicker insights into business performance

YAZAKI Europe Limited: Ensuring rapid, cost-efficient order fulfillment and quicker insights into business performance

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

Europe

Country

Japan

Product

IBM® DB2® with BLU Acceleration
SAP for Automotive
SAP ERP
SAP ERP Human Capital Management
SAP Just-in-Time Process for Suppliers
SAP Supplier Relationship Management
SAP Business Planning and Consolidation
SAP Business Warehouse

Tech Stack

IBM DB2
SAP ERP
SAP Business Warehouse

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Cost Savings
Productivity Improvements

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Database Management & Storage

Applicable Industries

Automotive

Applicable Functions

Logistics & Transportation
Procurement

Use Cases

Predictive Replenishment
Supply Chain Visibility

Services

System Integration

About The Customer

YAZAKI Europe is a major player in the automotive industry, specializing in the production of customized wiring harnesses for car manufacturers. The company operates in a highly competitive and dynamic environment where timely delivery of parts is crucial to avoid costly delays in production lines. When an order is received by YAZAKI Europe, parts are usually manufactured, packaged, and dispatched on the same day. The company has major operations across Europe with a workforce of more than 40,000 employees in 51 locations and 20 countries. It is an important partner for the automotive industry.

The Challenge

YAZAKI Europe, a leading automotive supplier specializing in the production of customized wiring harnesses for car manufacturers, was facing challenges in meeting the automotive industry’s demand for same-day delivery. The company's continuous growth was impacting its ability to analyze performance and complete its end-of-month consolidation and reporting processes for its headquarters in Japan. The company needed to eliminate delays and manual processing in its logistics to ensure extremely efficient operations. The company also needed to boost its data analytics capabilities for its finance and controlling departments to accelerate the delivery of complex financial reports.

The Solution

To increase productivity and streamline processes across all its European business divisions, YAZAKI Europe engaged IBM and its hosting provider All for One Steeb, also an IBM Business Partner, to optimize its IT environment and boost the performance of its SAP application. The company deployed IBM DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows in a configuration tuned for optimal performance of the mission-critical SAP ERP applications. To boost analytics performance for its finance and controlling departments, YAZAKI Europe decided to take advantage of IBM DB2 with BLU Acceleration after testing an in-memory database solution from another supplier did not yield convincing results in terms of performance and IT costs.

Operational Impact

Eliminated bottlenecks in its dispatch process, enabling fast, efficient just-in-time processing without building up backlogs.
Avoided expensive overtime and airfreight, allowing staff to work more productively, reducing business risk and giving the company the confidence that it can deliver to tight deadlines at all times.
Accelerated the delivery of complex financial reports with BLU Acceleration, enabling rapid decision-making by group-level executives in Japan.

Quantitative Benefit