"More and more automotive companies conduct development and design with software, and extensively use ERP to manage all the corporate information. As they enhanced the management level and operation efficiency, they also raised their independent R&D capacity", said Gu Xianghua, assistant secretary general of China Association of Automotive Manufacturers (CAAM) in the interview. 

Recently, Dongfeng Motor Company Limited and IBM announced jointly that after their collaboration, Dongfeng had set up a complete set of mature information management system based on ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library), the best practice globally, which had substantially enhanced the operation and maintenance capacity and service quality of the corporate information system.

Informatization development is cost-effective and non-alternative.

With the rapid development of China's automotive industry, the market competition is getting increasingly fierce, and the profit space of automotive manufacturers is compacted continuously. It has become an immediate concern for automotive companies to rebuild the corporate operation, reduce cost, and improve profit margin with information technology. Generally speaking, it costs only hundreds of million RMB yuan for an automotive company to conduct an overall informatization development, but after one year of informatization rebuilding, the corporate cost can be reduced by 10 percent on average. Cost is reduced and efficiency is improved. It helps corporations to compete with rivals. For auto makers, informatization development is cost-effective and non-alternative.

A large batch of auto makers took the lead in terms of industrial informatization development. In 2001, the ERP system based on Oracle platform re-planned by Chang'an Group officially started up, three major models of finance, sales and manufacture systems got online successively. Chang'an thus became the usher of the informatization development of domestic major automotive groups. In 2006, FAW made the enterprise informatization development project which was named "project 251" to realize the goal of "digitalized management". Its establishment will realize the overall informatization of various links including production, procurement, sales, and accounting between the group and its subsidiaries.

With years of construction, the comprehensive informatization level of some large-scale complete vehicle manufacturers, especially joint ventures like FAW, Shanghai Volkswagen, Shanghai GE, Chana Automobile, and JMC have been relatively high. They generally adopted various corporate information technologies formed by the combination of modern information technology and manufacturing, such as CAD, FMS, CIMS, and ERP etc. Meanwhile, they possess their own websites and internal information system networks.

Informatized application changes "extensive operation" into "intensive management".

Informatization development directly enhanced the economic benefits of auto makers. Shanghai Automobile Gear Works is one of the first batch of automotive companies that realized informatized management in China. After the implement of informatized management, the time the company develops production plan was shortened from the former 6 days to 2 hours, and the inventory was reduced by around 25 percent while the sales grew by 40 percent. In Chana, the direct economic benefits brought by ERP implementation were as much as RMB189 million yuan in 2003.

From "extensive operation" to "intensive management", through the optimized supply chain management, informatization also greatly enhanced the operation and management level of automotive enterprises. For instance, in Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobile Co., Ltd., with the supplier relationship management and information exchange platform, the suppliers are connected with OEMs, thus can get information of planning, production, delivery, and settlement timely and conveniently. The "data bank" of the company can realize the unified management through the whole lifecycle of vehicles from the getting off the production line commercially to the new vehicle transportation, sales to outlets and then to terminal clients, initial premium and guarantee of new vehicles, the quality tracking, maintenance tracking, and to the final scrapping of vehicles.

For example, the informatization supports the independent R&D of Chana Group on three aspects. The first is product design. Informatization shortened the materialization cycle of R&D, reduced R&D time and R&D cost. The second is to discover problems in the R&D course rapidly with professional software so as to decrease the volume of technological changes in it and speed up the R&D and reduce cost. The third is to strengthen the information exchange between suppliers and manufacturers, quicken the suppliers' response in order to reduce R&D cost and enhance efficiency. Using product design platform, the auto R&D of Chana Group developed from the former 3 alternated car types design per year to the current design of 8 new car types and alternated car types, and has realized globally collaborative design, which enables the 24-hours, uninterrupted collaborative development with overseas design centers in Italy, Germany, etc.

In the meantime, the deepened convergence of information technology and auto industry directly promotes the rapid development of such newly emerging industries as automotive electronics, automotive e-commerce, and automotive information technology services, thus further enhances the overall competitiveness of the industry. As learned, China's auto electronic market have kept a growth rate of over 30 percent for several successive years, and its market scale has breached RMB100 billion yuan, becoming a new economic growth point in the auto industry. From substantial market like auto market and 4S store to virtual market like net transaction and online transaction, auto e-commerce is growing mature with a new business mode, and wining the trust of clients day by day. Moreover, informatization development of auto enterprises leads to the birth of a batch of auto information technology industries including Changchun FAW Qiming Information Technology Co., Ltd., Chongqing Hengge Information Technology Co., Ltd., Chery Information Technology Co., Ltd., Harbin Chiyeung Automotive Electrical Co., Ltd., and informatized interdisciplinary talents, providing technological and talent guarantee for the sustainable development of China's automobile industry.

Source : internet

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