How Goodyear merged 5 bus apps and 100 s of custom apps with SAP manufacturing solutions

Today at SAP Insider in Prague, I sat in a great presentation from Stuart Howard from Goodyear Dunlop Tires SA. In the session, Stuart explained how Goodyear, one of the world’s leading tire companies with over 50 plants worldwide, achieved one integrated manufacturing solution with the use of SAP Manufacturing Execution.  He covered how, in Europe, Goodyear leverage SAP Manufacturing Execution to optimize work in progress (WIP) in response to reduced lead time, and as a result improved Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) to critical bottlenecks for increased customer service levels, and integrated critical master data, systems, and processes using SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (SAP MII).

Business Challenges

Stuart started by explaining the business challenges faced in Europe which triggered the project. The company went through a series of mergers and acquisitions of companies such as Fula, Debica, Sava and Dunlop which resulted in 14 plants in Europe working independently with local systems, networks and processes, meaning that IT costs were not being optimized.

At the start of the project Goodyear had 600 plant applications (and 100’s of servers) across the 14 plants. As of today, through the implementation of ME and MII, they are currently at 167 applications, with a goal of getting to 19.

Selection Process

Initially, Goodyear developed one single vision for a new solution that :

• Had an intuitive user interface
• Was easy and enjoyable to use
• Enabled easy to find data
• Was well connected and integrated
• Ensured that complexity hidden from users

As Stuart pointed out, “If our legacy system were used to sell tires on line, nobody would buy tires”. With this in mind, Goodyear identified the business drivers of a new solution to be:

• Improve in production scheduling
• Include MES into complete supply chain
• Elimination of bottlenecks
• Improve performance
• Improve product traceability ( each tire to have a bar code that is completely traceable)
• Reduce waste
• Reduce legacy servers and applications

Next, the company had to agree on standard terminology, and leveraged the industry standard CIM model

• Level 0 – PLC, dedicated machine controller
• Level 1 – SCADA
• Level 2 – Area controller
• Level 3 –  MES
• Level 4 – ERP

They then agreed on a standard organization, process and technology that would be rolled out across all manufacturing plants. Stuart explained that “Goodyear first agreed on what MES meant across the company”, and defined 10 Core MES functions:

1. Process instruction sheet
2. Production resource and tooling
3. Time and attendance, payroll collection
4. Payment formula engine
5. Electronic Kanban and warehouse Management
6. Defects and waste
7. Track and trace
8. Shop floor data collection
9. Machine downtime
10. Standard KPI’s and dashboards

The Business Requirements were sent to 20 MES providers, and after several rounds of elimination the choice was SAP Manufacturing Execution and SAP MII

The Implementation

Stuart explained that “Installing MES is like open heart surgery for the manufacturing plant”, and that the scope includes both vertical and horizontal integration. In Goodyear’s case, it spanned an integrated solution from APO and ERP, to shop floor (Levels 2, 1 and 0). Systems processes and organizations needed to be established to sustain the good preparation work already done. Business ownership was critical with the project being “driven from the top, and owned by the bottom”. This required sponsorship from the Manufacturing VP level and a team of dedicated regional team members.

Business Benefits

The Goodyear manufacturing business in Europe has seen numerous benefits.

• Easier to plan the supply chain as they have one plan across the supply chain with fully integrated master datand  systems
• Easier to prepare for production with master data authored in ERP, plant data authored in SAP ME and the approval flow in SAP MII
• Easier to manage production
• Easier to execute production through a Production operator dashboard that Goodyear customized
• Easier to optimize work in progress and to have the correct level of inventory to drive customer service, and profitability.
• Easier to visualize production through production dashboards, Plant metrics, individual production machine status, machine metrics, performance, availability, and quality and user info
• Easier to report production with standard reports across all plants and real time inventory from each machine
• Easier to improve overall equipment effectiveness based on real time plant metrics and Overall Equipment Effectiveness by individual production machine, cell, line or group

Thanks to Stuart for a great overview of the Goodyear manufacturing project in Europe.