Case Study: Automotive Lighting Reutlingen GmbH

Trubiquity's TRUfusion Enterprise managed data exchange solution helps Automotive Lighting boost efficiency, improve collaboration with global customers and suppliers.

Company Profile

Automotive Lighting, a subsidiary of Magneti Marelli, is a global leader in exterior automobile lighting with more than 13,000 employees in 21 locations around the world. Founded in 1999 as a joint venture of Robert Bosch GmbH and Magneti Marelli, Automotive Lighting designs and manufactures innovative vehicle lighting of the highest quality.

The Challenge

Improving costs, usability and collaboration with globally dispersed suppliers and customers.

As Automotive Lighting transitioned from a joint venture between Bosch and Magneti Marelli, the company conducted a review of its data exchange practices and identified several opportunities for improvement.

Automotive Lighting began the search for a central data processing center solution that allowed for automation and decentralization of data exchange and integration with the company's facilities in Europe, North America, South America and Asia. A key motivation for Automotive Lighting was the need for a managed solution that would handle operations and maintenance with an agreed service level agreement. Ultimately, Automotive Lighting sought a managed global data exchange solution that would help improve usability, cost, flexibility and collaboration with the company's globally dispersed network of customers and suppliers.

The Solution

TRUfusion Enterprise for managed file transfer and hosted operations.

After a competitive evaluation of solutions offered by three other competing software providers, Automotive Lighting selected TRUfusion Enterprise, Trubiquity's hosted solution for managed file transfer and workflow process automation. Automotive Lighting selected Trubiquity after stringent review based on several criteria, including user-friendliness, competitive costs and the robust functionality of the TRUfusion Enterprise managed operation solution.

Trubiquity delivered TRUfusion Enterprise as an automated CAD data exchange system for four Automotive Lighting sites around the world and more than 300 users, including CATIA V5 integration as the main CAD system. As part of the implementation process, Trubiquity seamlessly integrated nearly 200 customers and suppliers into TRUfusion Enterprise by migrating data from Automotive Lighting's legacy system, with scalability that has since allowed the system's scope to expand to more than 850 partners. The legacy system had an internally developed portal that was initially connected to TRUfusion Enterprise. Later, it was replaced by TRUfusion Enterprise Portal, which is a standard solution used by many Trubiquity customers. The new system also extended CAD data exchange for Automotive Lighting via Trubiquity's TRUeurex-c for OFTP V1 and OFTP2. Automotive Lighting continued data exchange work during the migration and integration process without interruption.

The Results

TRUfusion Enterprise for managed file transfer and hosted operations.

The TRUfusion Enterprise solution for data exchange and process automation helped to boost productivity for Automotive Lighting with no additional training required for its users. Operations are run by workflow and users quickly adapted to the new system's navigation.

By 2011, the TRUfusion Enterprise system managed nearly 7,300 jobs annually for Automotive Lighting and handled transactions with 851 partners with 2,300 contacts externally as well as 317 users spread over four geographic locations internally. The return on investment has been excellent, as the cost savings provided by TRUfusion Enterprise has allowed Automotive Lighting to amortize the transition costs of the project within the first 12 months.

"Trubiquity provided a complete system for managed operations as well as support services for installation, data exchange operations, monitoring and running the ticket system where issues and requirements are entered," said Bernhard Klar, R&D CAD Support Manager for Automotive Lighting.

Automotive Lighting is presently evaluating opportunities to extend the TRUfusion Enterprise system to other sites in Italy and Spain and extending the OFTP2 connection to additional European customers. The customer also has future plans for additional PLM/PDM integration.