British motor racing engine manufacturer Cosworth will
continue to run a separate document management system, despite
standardising its business on SAP software from July.
Cosworth has improved relationships with its suppliers and
reduced product time to market since going live with a document
management system from EMC called Documentum eRoom.
The system, hosted by EDS, lets Cosworth share design documents
with its suppliers and customers and notifies them of any changes
to current documents.
Prior to using eRoom, the firm had no standard process for
sharing documents, according to Jeremy Hill, head of business
systems at Cosworth.
"It was out of control. Different groups had different
approaches to sharing documents, such as faxing designs, which
needed to be reassembled at the other end, or biking around
documents stored on CDs," he said.
Since Cosworth started using the system it has accelerated
product development and cut time to market.
"eRoom has helped us deliver an efficient and responsive
customer service and will help us extend this service to Williams
F1," said Hill.
The firm is now in the middle of a business process
re-engineering programme based around SAP Financial, HR and Supply
Chain products. Although Cosworth wanted to standardise its
processes and SAP had a portal system available for document
sharing, Hill said the firm would stay with eRoom.
"Everything works well and the cost is low," he said.
Although Cosworth will have to rewrite interface code to allow
eRoom to interface with SAP's supply chain systems, rather than the
legacy materials requirements planning system currently in use, the
additional work will be worth it, saidHill.
Users from partner companies needed little training or guidance
to benefit from the system, he said. "There are also hidden
benefits of improving collaboration with suppliers and partners.
They feel part of the process and this can improve supplier
commitment. It benefits our strategic relationship with
suppliers."
Cosworth has more than 400 employees across factories in the UK
and US. The UK division is due to go live with SAP in July with the
help of reseller and systems integrator Ciber UK.