Interview... Yanfeng Andao to comprehensively improve the level of transportation management information.

Yanfeng Andaotuo Seating Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yanfeng Andaotuo") was established in 1997, formerly known as "Yanfeng Johnson", to provide high quality and high-performance for major Chinese automakers such as SAIC, Dongfeng, Changan, and GAC. Full chair, as well as seat parts and solutions such as metal frame, mechanical devices, and foaming. As a leading enterprise in China's automobile seat industry, Yanfeng andotuo is not only a leader in performance, but also a pioneer in information construction.

 

Since the establishment of the company, Yanfeng Andaotuo has actively explored informatization, and began to build enterprise-level application software such as ERP system and Workflow in 2012. In 2018, it has fully laid out 11 subsystems of six major systems including MES, material pulling system AMP, process management MPM, transportation management system TMS, etc. Among them, TMS system is the first cloud product application system implemented by Yanfeng Andaotuo, which leads the industry again and is implemented jointly with Kejian, bringing about management efficiency improvement, logistics cost reduction and efficient collaboration between upstream and downstream of the supply chain.

 

Clear information construction ideas

Let data create value

 

Today's enterprises, especially some collectivized and diversified enterprises, have been established for more than 20 years, which is also the 20 years of China's economic rise. During this period, China's automobile market has continued to grow, and its sales volume has ranked first in the world for many years. This also provides Yanfeng Andaotuo with the most suitable development environment for growth. The company has grown rapidly year after year and has grown into a leader in China's auto seat industry with a market share of more than 30%. At present, Yanfeng Andao Tuo has set up 64 branches (subsidiaries) and 80 manufacturing plants in 27 cities across the country. Not only that, Yanfeng Andotuo has also successfully expanded its business to the world, with manufacturing bases and offices in overseas markets such as Thailand, India, Europe and North America.

 

With the gradual expansion of business scale, how to manage dozens of factories, hundreds of upstream suppliers and downstream carriers with high efficiency and low cost has become an important consideration for the further development of Yanfeng Andao, among which, the continuous improvement of information level is undoubtedly one of the most important means. In 2016, Yanfeng Andao Tuo proposed "to be a data-driven company", in 2017, he proposed "data governance", and in 2018, he further proposed "data to create value". This shows the importance he attaches to information construction.

As the head of the company's IT department, Huang Yinsheng, director of the information technology department of Yanfeng Andao Tuo Seat Co., Ltd., on the basis of his predecessors, led the team to speed up the construction of the whole company's new system architecture and combed in detail the three major stages of information construction in Yanfeng Andao Tuo in the past ten years.

 

First stage

Established ~ 2011

The introduction of information technology, the company's processes, business through the office automation system for preliminary management, mainly to achieve the data into the system, but the system is isolated from each other.

Second stage

2012-2015

Fully focus on the company's organizational structure adjustment, business process improvement and update, IT architecture planning. Landmark events such as the launch of the SAP system, a comprehensive combing of the company's functional departments, business units and processes, breaking through the original system boundaries, greatly improving the level of information technology.

Third stage

2016 so far

Focusing on data, on the one hand, under the influence of "industrial 4.0" and "made in China 2025", the importance of data to the development of enterprises is further highlighted; on the other hand, under the rapid expansion of business, it is necessary to meet the needs of internal staff reduction, efficiency increase and cost reduction, and the requirements for IT technology are getting higher and higher. Information construction is highly valued by the company's management and has become an important strategic direction for the company's development.

 

At the beginning of 2018, in order to transform to intelligent manufacturing and intelligent factory, Yanfeng Andaotuo optimized and improved the existing information system on the one hand, and on the other hand, combined with the needs of enterprise development, comprehensively planned the blueprint of the overall information application architecture of the future factory (see fig. 1), including 11 subsystems of six major systems: production and manufacturing execution system, material pulling system, process management, equipment management, quality management and transportation management (TMS).

Xiao Qixin, senior manager of data governance project of Yanfeng Andaotuo Seating Co., Ltd., said that the purpose of this layout includes: first, to help strengthen data flow direction and management; The second is to realize the interconnection of the whole system and break the barriers between systems. The third is to reduce the system operation and maintenance and response costs of dozens of factories. The fourth is to help realize intelligent and transparent future factories and ultimately enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises.

 

"Our goal in 2019 is to build a data application platform technically, find suitable application scenarios in business, explore cases where data applications create value, and build a lighthouse factory." Huang Yinsheng stressed.

 

Precise pulse

Joining Hands with Kejian to Eliminate Pain Points in Transportation Links

 

In the blueprint of the overall application architecture of the future factory, TMS system is an important information system that connects all factories in Yanfeng Andotuo and cooperates with upstream suppliers, downstream customers and many partners.

Talking about the original intention of building the system, Huang Yinsheng said: "on the one hand, there are profound problems to be solved, on the other hand, we see a far future." In today's industrial environment, the importance of information needless to say. With the development of the industry and the deep integration of informatization and industrialization, customers have higher and higher requirements for logistics services. Yanfeng Andaotuo needs to open up the entire supply chain and effectively coordinate logistics resources with operation management. A number of internal and external factors make Yanfeng Andao Tuo in the transport management link there is an urgent need to solve the pain point:

 

First of all, the transportation management functions are scattered. Carrier development, carrier qualification examination, logistics system planning and specific transportation demand plan, order distribution performance, carrier assessment and freight examination are divided into two levels: the company's central functional department (headquarters purchasing department) and each factory, which results in certain deviation or disconnection between transportation planning and execution.

 

Second, transportation costs are high. For example, the lack of coordination with local carriers often results in carriers not having a plan to pick up goods and not being able to book crosswalks, resulting in higher transportation costs due to uncertain waiting.

 

Third, the entire supply chain lacks transportation management tracking, and can only be supervised afterwards, not early warning. Therefore, once the supplier's transportation vehicle has problems in transit and cannot arrive in time, it will directly affect the factory production.

 

Fourth, the transportation mode needs to be optimized, such as the choice of transportation routes and the decision of transportation vehicle strategy, which need to be based on a large amount of business data.

 

Fifth, the allocation and withholding of back-end financial expenses, the freight accounting process adopts the traditional management method, and the freight settlement is not fine and reasonable enough. In addition, it also involves issues such as the safety of drivers entering the site, information interaction, collection, etc., and the lack of professional information system support for transportation management.

 

In order to meet the growing demand for transportation management and build an intelligent transportation management system suitable for its own business characteristics, in 2018, Yanfeng Andao Tuo finally chose Kejian as a TMS system partner through investigation and investigation on product functions, business matching degree, product maturity and scalability, operation and maintenance capability, cost, industry experience and other aspects. "Kejian not only has good products, but its product philosophy is also a good match for Yanfeng Andotuo. Based on the consideration of products, business needs, company development strategy and other comprehensive factors, we think Kejian is the best choice for us." Huang Yinsheng stressed.

 

First in the industry

TMS Cloud Efficient Collaborative Supply Chain

 

Yanfeng Andao Tuo and Science Arrow are once again exploring the construction of information technology, and the first in the auto parts industry, the successful deployment of TMS system to the cloud. For Kejian, meeting the business needs of Yanfeng Andao Tuo also provides a good case for the enrichment, expansion and advancement of its TMS products.

 

Judging from the implementation effect, Yanfeng Andaotuo has fully covered all transportation business scenarios of each business unit through the online TMS cloud (see Figure 2 for specific functions), and has established a standardized transportation management process at the company level. Through data governance as the guidance, business connection is more convenient and faster, operation efficiency is improved, and supply chain management capability is extended.

Specifically, the TMS cloud system application has the following effects:

 

🔶 First, the information is fully connected.TMS is integrated with various information systems, so that no matter from the pull information of MES system or the forecast information of SAP system, the transportation demand of multiple systems can be gathered, which is convenient to realize the unified scheduling and management of transportation resources.

 

🔶 Second, transportation management is carried out efficiently.Based on more accurate information, it helps to develop more efficient transportation plans, such as matching various parameters in transportation routes through pre-set rules such as order assignment and ticket assignment, setting assignment strategies, automatically matching carriers and transportation methods, and planning transportation routes. At the same time, it can automatically match the optimal contract, and automatically calculate the freight and surcharge of each waybill, strengthen the control of transportation costs, reduce the manual operation errors in the logistics operation process and reduce the workload.

 

🔶 Third, the transportation process is transparent and visible.For example, through the GPS function, combined with the flexible electronic fence system to automatically record the vehicle entry and exit time, to ensure that the status of the waybill is updated in real time, the data is complete and accurate, to achieve real-time tracking of the vehicle transportation location, but also to determine in advance whether traffic jams will bring delivery risks. At the same time, it can also track and confirm the order status according to flexible and diverse operating terminals such as computer terminal, mobile phone APP and WeChat terminal. In addition, based on the loading rate and the statistical data of each path, through big data analysis and data mining, but also promote the optimization of the upstream business MRP level, help to further promote business growth.

 

🔶 Fourth, the logistics freight tracking, settlement allocation more clear.Through the TMS system, the freight split has changed from the previous standard price to a more focused on the indicator of unit volume weight, and the freight settlement is more realistic and reasonable. From the point of view of cost analysis, more sophisticated cost accounting can not only ensure the rationality of the company's internal cost structure, but also provide more reasonable quotations to customers, which is conducive to the expansion of later business. At the same time, TMS cloud is interconnected with SRM Portal and SAP, realizing a full-process solution for carriers to reconcile accounts in TMS, print invoicing notices in SRM Portal, and pay vouchers payable in SAP.

 

🔶 Fifth, data security is guaranteed. By renting the cloud management database, you can enjoy independent data management permissions to ensure data security.It is worth mentioning that the speed of enterprise information and enterprise IT infrastructure construction, inseparable. Multi-system collaboration is inseparable from the support of data transmission channels. Yanfeng Andao Tuo uses ESB and peripheral systems for data transmission, IoT and peripheral systems for data transmission, TMS systems deployed in the external network, and EDI and external network systems for data transmission, thus building a solid and secure TMS system infrastructure.

 

On the whole,With the help of Kejian TMS Cloud, every process of Yanfeng Andao Tuo transportation management has been refined and a large amount of true and accurate data has been accumulated, laying a foundation for further business improvement and efficiency improvement."Accurate decisions must be based on accurate data." Huang Yinsheng once again stressed the importance of data. It is reported that in the next three years, Yanfeng Andao Tuo will gradually apply Kejian TMS cloud to all factories to help the overall improvement of the information level of the whole company. Xiao Qixin said that in the future, Yanfeng Andaotuo will further explore the direction of ensuring data security, stability and supporting business continuity through information upgrading.