Doesburg components

Efficiency improvements for Doesburg Components with help of EDI

By shipping products directly from their partners to the end customer both Doesburg Components and their customers save money on transport costs. At the same time the lead times are shorter, the storage and handling costs are lower and labour costs can be saved. Without losing the overview in all parts of the supply chain.

Doesburg Components

Doesburg Components, located in Nieuw Bergen Limburg, is supplier of high-quality cast-iron components to customers in the truck-, engine and agricultural sector. Their goal is to deliver products that can be assembled directly at the customer at the assembly line. For this reason the company offers various added value activities in addition to their core process: CNC machining. This concerns, for example, pre-assembly, painting and cleaning of parts. In addition they are the development partner for their customers. Thanks to “early supplier involvement”, Doesburg Components is involved at an early stage with the development of new products, which offers many efficiency benefits for both parties. Numerous processes are closely related to eachother, to enable efficient production and “just-in-time” delivery.

Improvements

“The painting of certain components is done by an external specialist”, Sjoerd van Vlissingen (Supply Chain planner at Doesburg Components) explains. “The products were being transported from Doesburg Components to this partner, where they were painted. Then these components went back to Doesburg and then transported to the customer”. Next to the physical transport also several data files (e.g. orders, packing slips, invoices) are send back and forth. Sjoerd saw several possibilities to make several efficiency improvements.

Solution

The solution was very simple. “The lacquered components are now directly from our partner transported to the customer” according to Sjoerd. The physical part can realized rather simple, but the administrative part of this process has to be right as well, giving us insight in the situation on several areas at all times.

“With help of OMS International the EDI system has been set up and arranged in such a way that this is possible. “Doesburg receives via DELFOR orders from customers, which they convert to orders that are being sent to the partner via EDI. The external partner sends a DESADV to the customer. Doesburg receives a copy of the DESADV that is being used for processing the delivery in our system. And that is also the source for making and sending the INVOIC” Sjoerd continues. “In this way we know exactly which components are ‘work in progress’, which components were delivered. what the stocklevel is, etc. The order system is immediately updated, the incoming invoiced are directly matched, and we have full insight in the entire supply chain”.

Advantages

Sjoerd continues: “The advantages we achieve by having the physical flow of goods directly from the external party to the customer are diverse. We are not only saving on transport costs, the lead times are also shortened. And we save on the storage, handling and labourcosts”. While the insight and overview in processes, delivery times and financial flows remains at the same high level.

Integration

Of course such a change cannot simply be implemented. Good consultation and coordination with all parties involved is crucial. OMS has played an important role in thinking about and implementation of the EDI system. Cooperation and integration in the automotive are not new and will become increasingly important in the future. Due to intense cooperation several expertises are fully used and result in an optimum end product.

Future

Doesburg Components is ambitious and wants to grow in the near future. “The system of order processing of customers through EDI as we have now, we want to use in a different setup also for our biggest suppliers” according to Sjoerd van Vlissingen. “We are really happy the way the system runs now”. With EDI the efficiency of the processes will improve, the exchange and interpretation of data will be easier and quicker, and the risk of errors reduces strongly.