NTN Corp., a manufacturer and seller of bearings, driveshafts and precision equipment, has rolled out Infor WMS warehouse management system. NTN will use Infor WMS as its supply chain execution solution to combine warehouse management, labour management, transportation management and third-party logistics (3PL) billing management into a single integrated and rational business process for the entire supply chain. In addition to helping achieve on-time shipping and delivery to customers, Infor WMS is also enabling NTN to streamline operations through standardisation and visualisation of finished product shipping processes at all of its warehouses and plants across Japan.
NTN adopted its previous core business system in the 1980s, but the system had aged to a point where operation and maintenance had reached their limits. NTN launched a project to rebuild its core business system. This entailed adopting Infor WMS for a range of systems, including inbound and outbound operations at its warehouses and production history management at its plants. NTN chose Infor WMS for a number of reasons, including its extensive functionality; it enables efficient implementation of business reforms with the purpose-built package; it has been adopted widely in Japan and overseas with extensive integration with ERP; and it enables the creation of a new, innovative logistics platform with future potential.
NTN adopted three Infor WMS modules for inbound, outbound, and logistics cost management at 52 sites across Japan. Simultaneous operation of all 52 sites was a prerequisite for the project because a range of departments would need to access all warehouses at the same time.
Receipt and shipping operations were streamlined as the new system enabled cross-docking, with products shipped immediately after receipt, enabling same-day processing for work that previously took two or three days. The benefits of an integrated ERP included being able to maintain safe inventories for each warehouse and each item registered in the ERP and, through integration with transportation lanes registered in the ERP, it also enabled the streamlining of finished product logistics by automating tasks that were previously done manually.
Koji Takahashi, NTN executive officer and IT manager, commented: “The adoption of Infor WMS has enabled us to instantly identify business-related issues, and then improve and enhance the efficiency of those processes, through the standardisation and visualisation of finished product shipping processes at all of our warehouses and plants across Japan.”
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