ERP Brings Tier-One Auto Supplier Together

To call TOA USA LLC large is an understatement. And, the task of tracking and managing everything that goes on there, as well as everything that goes in and out is, like the size of the complex itself, truly massive.

TOA USA LLC produces body structures and suspension parts for numerous automotive OEMs, with inhouse processes including conventional and hot stamping as well as welding. The real-time reporting capability of a recent ERP-system implementation allows associates and management to “react immediately instead of finding out the next day about an issue yesterday or last week,” explains Bob Whyte, TOA USA vice president of operations and quality. “And, instead of waiting weeks or a month, we can access reports, including trends, when we want them. That’s a big change, making us all more effective.”

Presses, primarily mechanical, range in capacities from 250 to 3000 tons, with six dedicated hot stamping lines added to the mix. TOA USA’s formidable welding capabilities include 180 workcells and 559 robots. While the company buys its tooling—progressive, transfer and tandem dies—it houses a large toolroom for maintenance and repair. Materials routing through TOA USA include cold- and hot-rolled steels, with the majority galvannealed dual-phase 590.

TOA USA has leveraged these robust capabilities to grow steadily. As a measure of its growth, the operation has expanded eight times in only 19 years of existence. Of course, with growth comes growing pains. Analyzing and acting upon an ever-increasing amount of data, in a timely manner to ensure productivity and quality, represents a huge challenge, as does funneling useful information to those within TOA USA, and those it supplies and purchases from. For example, the company must ensure the on-time delivery of some 90 truckloads of products to customers each and every day.

To meet such challenges, in 2015, the decision was made to seek out and implement a new ERP system. TOA USA ultimately chose IQMS as its vendor of choice, and after going live in the summer of 2016, adoption has increased across departments and processes.

A press-line workstation employs a computer notebook and printer that allow ERP-system data to be input and output, and provide automatic printing of labels corresponding to the parts produced.

With multiple solutions with multiple databases producing multiple spreadsheets, and departments trying to track other departments, often with old data, a solution was needed.

“We examined our current systems, which were old, and decided to explore other options,” Weller says. “We didn't want to look at data two days behind. We didn't want to have your systems and my systems. We wanted visibility into what's going on right now, and we wanted to see into lower inventory points—real-time availability and inventory tracking led us down this path.”

Delivers Real-Time Reporting

The 2016 rollout of the new ERP system covered shipping, accounting and inventory-control functions. In only a few years, the ERP solution has delivered numerous positives.

• Real-time production and process monitoring of data captured by sensors enable TOA USA to confirm that the correct job is running, which has virtually eliminated issues with labeling and production reporting. The monitoring also triggers alerts of abnormal conditions, allowing employees to take immediate action.
• Electronic data interchange (EDI) communications have significantly reduced manual entry, providing greater efficiency and accuracy. For example, TOA USA receives about 20 truckloads of steel from vendors each day. These vendors use EDI to send invoices as Excel files, which directly import into the IQMS-integrated ERP and MES system. The TOA USA accounting team then can access all of this information. Similarly, TOA Winchester, an Indiana-based Tier-Two sister company, ships 11 truckloads of materials to TOA USA with labels produced by its own ERP software. Using EDI, the Winchester subsidiary sends TOA USA a flat file with serial numbers that import directly into the IQMS system, removing the need for relabeling.
• Traceability in TOA USA’s ERP system enables the production team to quickly track down production dates and lot numbers in order to quarantine the concerned product. This allows for rapid identification and containment of suspect products, significantly reducing the likelihood that such issues will become customer concerns.
• Mobile devices play a greater role as Chromebooks at all work centers collect shop data. Additionally, production team leaders have tablets and make use of IQMS’s SmartPage tools and custom apps developed by TOA USA, which provide team leaders with insights into information from the ERP system that they can employ on the floor to better understand the production situation.
• Just in Time (JIT), critical in TOA USA’s warehousing and shipping, places scheduling demands related to raw materials and other supplies coming in the door, to stamping presses, to welding, to assembly to shipping products out the door. In addition to leveraging real-time monitoring, TOA USA uses work-center inventory tracking to JIT-move inventory into work centers. The company also uses automatic guided vehicles to deliver the inventory to cells. Together, these approaches address JIT demands while reducing workforce and forklift costs related to material handling.

• For the first time at TOA USA, all data reside in a single database. Storing data in the same structure assists in locating it and helps TOA USA move toward a single version of production and operation reality.