Every organization has the potential to work smarter and more efficiently. What differentiates industry leaders is the constant drive to do better. Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corporation (MMPC) has spent decades advancing the automotive sector. To retain its position as a pioneer, the company has begun a far-reaching digital transformation. By embracing automation and enabling data-driven decision-making with help from IBM, MMPC is building a lean, agile and future-proof business ready for the next era of innovation.
Building on its position as the second-largest automotive company in the Philippines, MMPC has its sights set on growing its market share. To help it speed toward its goal, the company has set out an ambitious five-year plan to enhance its core business processes.
The pandemic highlighted that MMPC was too reliant on manual processes. In the short term, the company aimed to pick the low-hanging fruit—fixing issues with its processes and supporting technology to cut costs and eliminate silos. In the long term, it wanted to sharpen its competitive edge by applying technology to boost productivity and deliver new business insights.
Executing such a comprehensive transformation requires the effective coordination of technology, processes and people. MMPC looked for the right resources to help it to achieve its goals.
Takeshi Hara, CEO and President of MMPC, explains: “To bring our ambitious plans to life, we wanted a top-tier partner that could offer local support. They had to understand our business and objectives and be able to deliver on challenging timelines. We were also looking to take the first steps in our cloud journey. For the project to succeed, we needed the right driving force behind us.”
MMPC engaged IBM Consulting™ to help implement its digital transformation strategy, laying the foundations for more efficient, future-proof operations. In the first phase, MMPC engaged IBM to streamline its core business functions, powered by digital workflows on SAP S/4HANA.
“IBM stood out among all the vendors we considered because of their deep knowledge of SAP solutions and the automotive industry,” recalls Hara. “This combination was especially important because we wanted to implement SAP industry solutions for vehicle management. These specialist skills can be hard to find, and we were delighted that IBM could deliver the expertise we needed locally.”
With help from IBM, MMPC implemented SAP S/4HANA for vehicle management, sales and distribution, materials management, human capital management and financial accounting and controlling. The IBM team created more than 60 custom objects to tailor the environment to the company’s specific requirements. By tightly integrating the new SAP solutions with MMPC’s assembly line control systems and dealer portal, the team enabled end-to-end visibility of every vehicle from manufacturing through to the dealerships, and eventually the end customer.
To date, MMPC has gone live with several large-scale projects delivered by IBM Consulting. In its Export project, the company expanded its Vehicle Management System (VMS) to support the export of a locally manufactured vehicle to overseas markets.
For its Payroll project, MMPC teamed up with IBM to create a centralized system of record for employee information, benefits, time tracking and leave entitlements. With SAP Human Capital Management on SAP S/4HANA, the company’s HR and payroll processing system is tightly integrated with its financial accounting system.
MMPC has also recently gone live with its Parts and Accessories project with support from the IBM team. This collaboration involves transforming processes related to procurement and inventory management, order creation, backorder and commitment, delivery, shipment, billing and movement of goods.
Working with IBM, MMPC is moving toward more sustainable, cost-efficient and productive operations, setting it up for long-term success. Although only halfway through its five-year digital transformation, the company is already seeing tangible results.
The IBM team has met planned deadlines and budgets for all initiatives completed so far. Hara says: “If our business-critical systems go down, that could cost us millions of dollars per day. By protecting us against unplanned downtime, the project with IBM has decreased the risk of these losses dramatically.”
With greater end-to-end visibility of vehicle data across the value chain, MMPC is enabling more effective decision-making.
Working with IBM, MMPC aims to drive down the amount of inventory it carries and is moving toward an order-to-deliver process, which will minimize costs. The IBM team is now building new executive dashboards to serve up real-time performance metrics to managers. By replacing spreadsheet-based processes with real-time insight, the company is empowering its key decision-makers with the tools to propel it to even greater heights of efficiency.
MMPC is expanding its export operations and has long-term ambitions to grow its market share in the Philippines. In response to growing demand in the region, the company has extended its plant operations, leading to more manufacturing jobs nationwide. Next, MMPC plans to focus on teaming up with IBM to automate repeatable processes, which will give it more opportunities for cost savings. Eventually, the company hopes to have the right foundations in place to become the leader in its domestic market.
Hara concludes: “As we speed toward the future of the automotive industry, we’re delighted to have IBM’s help in accelerating our transformation journey. It’s setting the stage for us to enhance client experiences with our brand, acquire new customers and drive greater collaboration within the automotive ecosystem and beyond for future growth.”
MMPC (link resides outside of ibm.com) builds advanced mobility solutions, upholding a design philosophy that combines honesty and robustness with Japanese craftsmanship. In 2019, it surpassed the milestone of a million sales. MMPC’s locations include a one-of-a-kind manufacturing hub in Laguna and the biggest stamping facility in the Philippines.
Legal
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2023. IBM Corporation, IBM Services, New Orchard Road, Armonk, NY 10504
Produced in the United States of America, September 2023.
IBM, the IBM logo, and IBM Consulting are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, in the United States and/or other countries. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on ibm.com/trademark.
This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may be changed by IBM at any time. Not all offerings are available in every country in which IBM operates.
All client examples cited or described are presented as illustrations of the manner in which some clients have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual client configurations and conditions. Generally expected results cannot be provided as each client's results will depend entirely on the client's systems and services ordered. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NON-INFRINGEMENT. IBM products are warranted according to the terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided.
© 2023 SAP SE. All rights reserved. SAP, R/3, SAP NetWeaver, Duet, PartnerEdge, ByDesign, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, StreamWork, SAP HANA, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. These materials are provided by SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company for informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any kind, and SAP SE or its affiliated companies shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. This document, or any related presentation, and SAP SE’s or its affiliated companies’ strategy and possible future developments, products, and/or platform directions and functionality are all subject to change and may be changed by SAP SE or its affiliated companies at any time for any reason without notice.