YOKOHAMA Europe

With a broad product spectrum, YOKOHAMA Rubber Co., Ltd. is the sixth largest manufacturer in the worldwide tire market. The tires of the Japanese manufacturer are distinguished by their excellent braking behavior and precise handling. As a subsidiary of the Japanese YOKOHAMA Rubber, YOKOHAMA Europe GmbH in Düsseldorf, Germany coordinates the business from distributorships as well as the original equipment business in the European market. For the replacement/spare parts business with the tire manufacturers, YOKOHAMA Reifen GmbH operates in the German market.

About the Project

In the tire business, YOKOHAMA has similar challenges. The company traditionally sells its products to end customers by means of large chain stores. In this business, a multitude of specific contract, delivery and invoicing processes must be followed. With YOKOHAMA’s previous IT-landscape, this was not possible, however.

Due to the lack of integration, the operators responsible could not provide any information regarding the status of each order. YOKOHAMA therefore decided to switch to a standardized IT-solution: to it.automotive supplier, the SAP Business All-in-One based partner solution from NTT DATA Business Solutions, since this solution offers the midsized company the processes, business scenarios and forms that are exactly tailored for the industry.

With the FIT GAP analysis, an intensive agreement of the business processes to be taken into consideration was first carried out with the company headquarters in Japan. This was continued with a crash course about development. Then with the help of the NTT DATA Business Solutions Coaching approach, together with permanent protoyping, a comprehensive transfer of knowledge took place in the company during the project: not only did the YOKOHAMA key users learn to deal with the new system – custom settings were also jointly addressed. The improved version of the system was periodically presented by the key users to the steering committee. Not only were interdepartmental integration issues addressed,the project goals became the focus for all participants.

In this manner, software for Financial Accounting, Equipment Accounting and Controlling and the modules for Sales and Materials Management were implemented within 120 days for 21 users in the company. The external tire warehouse in the Logistics Center was also integrated into the solution, in order to permit a delivery time within 24 hours.

With this speedy implementation, YOKOHAMA had already achieved an essential goal: the company was immediately able to make use of a comprehensive, integrated and extensible ERP solution that could be adapted to the continually expanding corporate development. By default, it.automotive supplier offered the most diverse industry-specific functions that ideally mapped all processes which arose. And with the additional introduction of it.x-change as an SAP EDI converter, the company went a step further: supplier requests, detailed issue requisitions, credit notes, invoices and additional documents could be electronically transferred in a seamless manner and jointly used by manufacturers or suppliers throughout the world.

Faster processing of requests and orders was also possible and YOKOHAMA was able to further increase customer satisfaction. In addition to license delivery and maintenance, as a complete IT service provider, NTT DATA Business Solutions also took over the hosting and operation of the entire SAP application in its full-service dater center in Bautzen, Germany. There, the HP Servers, together with the MAX DB Database, provide the highest level of accessibility at all times.