Enhancements Help Automotive Suppliers Drive Collaboration, Improve Responsiveness

Atlanta - Apr 21, 2008
Infor today announced a new version of Infor ERP TRANS4M to help automotive suppliers improve collaboration with customers and enhance communication across multiple production sites, enabling a quicker response time to changes in the supply chain. New additions to Infor ERP TRANS4M 8.26 include a Microsoft® .NET-based navigator, web services capabilities, electronic data interchange (EDI) enhancements, event management, and automated shipping processes, features that can help automotive suppliers gain real-time visibility into information required to keep global supply-chain processes running smoothly.

''To succeed in today's hyper-competitive market, automotive suppliers must seize opportunities to expand their customer base, respond quickly to customer needs and be more nimble,'' said Wolfram Schmid, Infor's director, automotive product marketing. ''The new capabilities of Infor ERP TRANS4M can help automotive suppliers respond to these requirements and grow their business by delivering robust, business-specific capabilities that enhance operational efficiency, drive collaboration with their customers and help bring new customers online faster.''

Infor ERP TRANS4M 8.26 provides rich EDI enhancements that help a supplier satisfy requirements for the electronic transfer of documents such as shipping paperwork, purchase orders and barcode labels, improving efficiency and collaboration with customers. These EDI enhancements include updated business rules built-in, so that automotive suppliers can remain in compliance with their customers' requirements and quickly expand their operations to accommodate new customers, without requiring time-consuming EDI updates or customization. When a new customer is added, TRANS4M automatically adjusts to meet any new rule sets and incorporates these into existing purchasing processes. This ability can help to reduce risk while growing their business, which can be a significant competitive advantage to automotive suppliers.

''TRANS4M is a flexible, easy to use solution that helps us stay in compliance with the fast changing EDI requirements of our customers, enabling us to continue to provide quality service even as our customers' needs change,'' said Dave Falater, IS manager for CME Automotive LLC. ''We are confident that our partnership with Infor ensures we are well-positioned to meet the challenges of the industry today, tomorrow and well into the future.''

With TRANS4M's enhanced web services feature, different systems can communicate with one another via the Internet, allowing automotive suppliers to more easily access data from multiple systems. This feature also enables easy integration with other Infor solutions, such as Infor EAM (Enterprise Asset Management), which provides a consolidated approach to maintaining an enterprise's assets, a particularly powerful combination for managing equipment in support of lean manufacturing and other continuous improvement programs.

The new version of TRANS4M features a .NET-based navigator for enhanced usability. Many automotive suppliers have multiple plants and locations, and TRANS4M enables companies on the .NET platform to manage and monitor remote plant implementations from a centralized location. TRANS4M's .NET navigator also allows user-friendly customization, so automotive suppliers can add and design their own dropdown menus to connect to multiple TRANS4M accounts, multiple Infor and third party applications, as well as web pages for enhanced productivity.

TRANS4M 8.26 also provides an event management framework that allows the identification of business-critical events that would require rapid response, such as a stock outage. The framework allows automotive suppliers to easily create customized and tailored monitors for events and trigger alerting processes so that users can take the necessary action.

Additionally, TRANS4M's improved shipping capabilities enable automotive suppliers to streamline shipping processes to efficiently organize transport to different sites and reduce freight costs. The solution also requires less manual entry, thereby reducing the potential for user error. Enhancements to the shipping functionality also include improved tracking features, which help suppliers meet stringent traceability requirements.

About Infor ERP TRANS4M

Infor ERP TRANS4M integrates data, communication and control for multiple facets of manufacturing, from scheduling to order processing and material requirements planning to detailed lot tracking. With TRANS4M, automotive suppliers can improve communication with supply chain partners, reduce scrap and inventory, increase profitability, and gain a competitive advantage. Infor ERP TRANS4M is part of Infor Automotive Essentials, an end-to-end suite of business software designed to meet the dynamic needs of the automotive industry, ranging from all tiers of suppliers to OEMs. It includes ERP, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relationship Management, Supplier Relationship Management, Financial Management, Performance Management, and other key solution areas. For more information, please visit Infor ERP TRANS4M.

About Infor

Infor delivers business-specific software to enterprising organizations. With experience built in, Infor's solutions enable businesses of all sizes to be more enterprising and adapt to the rapid changes of a global marketplace. With more than 70,000 customers, Infor is changing what businesses expect from an enterprise software provider. For additional information, visit www.infor.com.