ABOUT UNIPART
Unipart Powertrain Applications (UPA) manufactures GDI fuel rails, filler pipes and hybrid steel fuel tanks. UPA is one of Unipart Manufacturing Group’s (UMG) 4 business units, and is located within the UMG Headquarters in Coventry. UMG is a global specialist and leading Tier 1 automotive supplier. UMG pride themselves on lean principles, maximising efficiency and minimising waste. UPA’s world class facilities and technologies allow for the manufacturing of components to tight tolerances, providing a competitive service within the marketplace.
UPA develops on the 25-year heritage of “The Unipart Way” philosophy, underpinned by a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. Focusing on innovative product design and manufacturing, the most sophisticated technologies used in the industry are supported by an ongoing supply of some of Britain’s brightest and best trained young engineers. UPA faced numerous challenges that the Cedar Bay team were able to assist with, providing the support and foundations for UPA to prepare for future growth.
THE CHALLENGE THAT UPA FACED
At UMG’s Headquarters in Coventry, UPA previously used IFS Applications™ 7, hindering the company in their ability to work to the best of their abilities within their competitive market. UPA wanted to take significant steps to improve operational excellence with an overall goal of improving performance and customer engagement, to ultimately be able to secure long term growth and prosperity. Being able to improve stock accuracy was important to the organisation moving forward, to be able to improve the production process and meet the organisation’s objectives. Seeking to improve process efficiency and gain process traceability, whilst achieving a secure platform to move forward with future digital opportunities, IFS Applications 10 provided the best solution. With modifications to IFS Applications 7 resulting in higher maintenance costs, the reimplementation would see a reduction in UPA’s annual costs, further helping the organisation improve their performance.
HOW CEDAR BAY MET THE CHALLENGE
Once UPA made the decision to re-implement their IFS solution to IFS Applications 10, they appointed Cedar Bay as their IFS partner of choice to carry out the project. With Cedar Bay’s proven track record in the automotive and complex supply chain arenas, the team were able to use their depth of IFS knowledge to ensure the project ran smoothly.
The UPA team worked closely with the Cedar Bay team to implement, install and configure the solution. The Cedar Bay team assisted UPA over the period of 200 days throughout their 10-month re-implementation project at their Coventry site, working together to achieve the key business objectives and within the timescales and budget set out.
Cedar Bay provided both functional and technical support where needed and, in some areas, lead the process such as data migration from IFS Applications 7 to IFS Applications 10, ensuring that UPA could overcome all their challenges.
RESULTS
In the automotive industry, it is common for the production line to be closed for 2 weeks to allow for staff to go on holiday. UPA used this as an opportunity to launch their re-implementation project. The post go-live process saw 125 named users return to work from the shut down to a fully operational solution, enabling the new business processes and reporting to be utilised.
From a senior management perspective, the project was seen as a great success, delivering on the key drivers and with minimal issues at go live. UPA can now look to move forward with phase two with confidence.
