The automotive industry and SAP are racing towards the digital future together

By: Trademagazin Date: 2024. 03. 18. 08:38

We can witness remarkably fast changes in the automotive industry today – think of driver assistance systems, electrification or reuse. Shopping habits are also changing, more and more people are buying vehicles online instead of car dealerships. And generative artificial intelligence is expected to force even more changes. The industry pays a lot of attention to digitization in order to maintain its competitiveness. SAP supports companies’ efforts on all such fronts, be it production, development, trade, or operation and maintenance. This is also the case with Škoda Auto, BMW or Mercedes-Benz, for example.

Within the framework of the ONE Log project, the Volkswagen Group is rationalizing its logistics processes and transforming them into a unified, standardized and harmonized system. Employees of the logistics and IT departments of the participating brands, i.e. Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi and Škoda Auto, cooperate closely under the management of Volkswagen Group Logistics. The implementation of the project outside Germany began at the beginning of 2023 at Škoda’s plant in Vrchlabí; the other sites in the Czech Republic will gradually follow suit. The project is also called the biggest system change at Škoda in the last 25 years. The main focus is on the automatic planning of the transmission assembly line and on increasing the efficiency of the material procurement and inventory level control processes.

The new, standardized SAP solution replaces a wide range of existing systems. In this way, the company can consistently take advantage of digitization and centralization for cost savings and more flexible and efficient production and logistics. The SAP S/4 HANA platform is a good replacement for the traditional systems currently used in the field of logistics. By merging the existing partial processes, the number of connection points of logistics IT is reduced, while the availability of data is also improved. ONE Log also provides the opportunity to use the latest business intelligence tools for data analysis of the entire supply chain.