Baan Wins Automotive Marketshare: More Than One Quarter Of World's Automotive Assemblers Are Now Baan Customers
15 July 1997
Baan Wins Automotive Marketshare: More Than One Quarter Of World's Automotive Assemblers Are Now Baan Customers
New Supply Chain Functionality, New Consulting Automotive Practices, and
Customer Counsel Fortify Company's Commitment
MENLO PARK, Calif., and PUTTEN, The Netherlands, July 15 --
The Baan Company (Nasdaq: BAANF; Amsterdam: BAAN), a leading provider of
enterprise business software solutions for the Automotive industry and other
key markets, today announced a broadening of its offering for automotive
customers. Today's announcement includes new product functionality for
extended supply chain management, the development of a customer advisory
board, and consulting alliance members launching new practices for automotive
customers. These new elements, coupled with the new automotive customers
recently signing with Baan, demonstrates Baan's on-going commitment to -- and
success in -- this critical market space.
"Baan is aggressively focusing resources to meet the needs of automotive
companies who want to leverage supply chain management techniques to gain a
competitive advantage in this rapidly changing industry," said Anil Gupta,
director of industry marketing for Baan. "We are listening to our customers
in the industry and are moving quickly to ensure that we have a world class
product and infrastructure to support them on a global basis."
"The success of any automotive company rides on the health and
competitiveness of its entire supply chain. This greater external dependency
requires each firm to maintain a keen eye on the whole supply chain and to
modify continually its own processes to optimize total, supply chain
performance," said Dr. Martin Piszczalski, automotive industry analyst. "BAAN
IV's Automotive solution and overall flexibility enables enterprises to span
the organizational and business boundaries of the supply chain for more
effective partner collaboration and, in the end, higher customer value."
Automotive Customers Select Baan
Baan has signed 100 automotive customers, including nearly one quarter of
the world's automotive assemblers. New customers this year include Navistar,
Donnelly, Sonauto and Shiloh, who join existing global customers including
Mercedes-Benz, Fiat, and Dana.
Echlin Inc., is a leading global supplier of quality
automotive products. "Echlin selected Baan because they continue to
demonstrate worldwide support for our U.S. based operations, as well as our
divisions in Europe, South America and Australia. Their product delivers a
comprehensive, enterprise-based solution with specific functionality tailored
to our industry," said William Tilt of Echlin. "We are impressed with Baan's
willingness to listen and make product changes that will benefit the
automotive industry as a whole."
European-based Sonauto S.A. imports and distributes automobiles from
Porsche, Hyundai, and Mitsubishi, as well as after-market parts. The company
will use Baan software for all aspects of the business, including providing
dealers with access to the system using Internet connectivity. The company
selected Baan based on its completeness of functionality required by Sonauto,
Baan's future product direction, as well as Baan's commitment to its
customers' success.
Shiloh Industries, Inc. is a vertically integrated steel processor that
supplies high quality blanks, stampings, and processed steel to the
automotive, heavy truck, and other industries. The company will use Baan
software in all of its automotive-related operations. Shiloh selected Baan
based on its multi-site capabilities, which will help streamline
communications among its eight operating divisions throughout the United
States. Other deciding factors included Baan's new relationship with
Hyperion, as well as its commitment to the automotive sector and future
prospects in the steel processing industry.
Fully-featured Product Delivers Flexibility Critical to Automotive
Customers
Baan's success in the automotive industry is based on its ability to
support a fully integrated manufacturing, schedule optimization, concurrent
engineering and program management environment for the Automotive industry.
This Fall, Baan will be enhancing the product for automotive assemblers
and suppliers with additional supply chain management functionality, helping
customers in the automotive industry improve their implementation of "lean
manufacturing." With this industry "best practice," inventory and associated
costs are significantly reduced as trading partners have increased visibility
into customer demand and can schedule resources, manufacture and ship based on
daily and weekly demands rather than speculated forecasts. New functionality
slated for the Fall release of BAAN IV includes integration of purchasing
schedules into the Master Production Schedules (MPS), RAN/DON/KANBAN based
scheduling support, and external CUM management that can handle and reset
model-year part count either annually or periodically. Additional
functionality for complex resource synchronization -- such as coordinating
manpower, machines, tools and materials with overall enterprise requirements -
is provided through Baan Synchronization, developed by the Berclain
engineering team.
Automotive-specific functionality currently standard in BAAN IV includes:
* Planning and shopping schedule releases
* Electronic KANBAN and JIT and container identification
* Self-billed invoicing
* Advanced shipment notification
* Enhancements for NAFTA reporting
Additionally, Baan supports key Automotive EDI transactions with standards
used in the United States, Europe, and Germany, including X12, Odette and VDA.
Other key functionality tailored to the automotive industry include work
breakdown and cost breakdown structures, program budgeting and change
management.
Automotive Enterprise Reference Models, developed using Baan's Orgware
offering, provide customers with a "template" to help map BAAN IV applications
to their business model by graphically laying out typical business processes
associated with the automotive industry's unique practices, reducing the
complexity and time of software implementation. Several Baan consulting
partners, including Baan Business Innovations (BBI), BDM International,
Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group/ICS, Ernst & Young, KPMG Peat Marwick LLP,
and Price Waterhouse have made automotive reference models available over the
past six months.
Consulting Partners Deliver Focused Expertise
In addition to the industry-specific templates and functionality, Baan has
formed new alliances with Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group/ICS and Price
Waterhouse. These are in addition to existing channel and consulting
relationships including BDM, Compuware, Crowe Chizek, Ernst & Young, and KPMG.
Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group/ICS has launched an Automotive Service
Line for Baan and designed an Automotive IndustryPrint(TM), to help ensure
rapid, high-quality, financially successful implementations of BAAN IV.
-- Price Waterhouse delivers enterprise-wide solutions to global clients
by integrating technology, organizational change and business process
improvements using Price Waterhouse's Baan Automotive Supplier Reference
Model.
Baan Automotive Advisory Council
Baan has formed an Automotive Advisory Council. The goal of this new
advisory council is to provide strategic direction and input to BAAN IV
product, service and support in the auto industry. Baan will have visibility
into new and emerging business practices in the automotive industry and will
be able to quickly incorporate them into its development plan to build a
world-class automotive solution. Members include Echlin, Navistar, Donnelly,
Mercedes-Benz, and Andersen Consulting.
About The Baan Company
The Baan Company (Nasdaq: BAANF; Amsterdam Stock Exchange: BAAN), delivers
its comprehensive enterprise-wide business management software to companies
requiring best-in-class manufacturing capabilities. Its products are fully
Year 2000 compliant and based on a flexible, multi-tier client/server
architecture which can scale to meet the needs of small, medium and large
enterprises. More than 2,300 companies use Baan in 3,600 sites worldwide.
Customers include assemblers and their entire value chain within the
automotive, electronics, process, aerospace and defense and other project-
based markets, as well as companies with hybrid manufacturing environments.
Baan's products uniquely support continuous business improvements through its
capability for Dynamic Enterprise Modeling. Founded in 1978, Baan has dual
headquarters in Putten, The Netherlands and Menlo Park, California.
SOURCE The Baan Company