Calsonic Kansei Europe - Integrating ERP and Lean

Front-end Module

We never cease to be impressed with the hunger that World Class companies have to learn and improve. Calsonic Kansei Europe is a leading, first-tier, just-in-time supplier to major passenger car manufacturers, with an enviable reputation for quality, on-time delivery and manufacturing excellence.

Our relationship with Calsonic began when two managers attended our public, 4-day ERP/MRPII course. Calsonic Kansei's Washington exhaust factory, which supplies Nissan in Sunderland, is a state-of-the-art example of applying Japanese just-in-time, lean manufacturing techniques in a UK plant. Following the course, we were asked to review the operations and planning processes at Washington and to advise Calsonic on steps to be taken to prepare for introducing ERP to the site.

As part of this task, we worked with the site's management team to define a simple, lean approach to using ERP that would avoid imposing excessive overheads on what was already a highly efficient and competitive operation. Since then, we have conducted a number of reviews of the project highlighting risks and key actions. The Washington site went live without any interruption of supplies to Nissan.

In addition, we provided an education programme for the next site in the rollout sequence. We subsequently worked with the group's project team to help them apply key lessons from the Washington implementation to deliver business benefits across the group. We then went on to run workshops for Calsonic Kansei Europe's Directors to help them in developing their on-going strategy for information systems and business process development.