“When looking for an Axapta implementation partner, we found many who knew how Axapta applications work, but few who knew how to make it work for our business. Solution Partners was our choice and they have made an invaluable contribution in making our investment in a total Microsoft business solution a great success.”
-Bryan Long, Project Manger, Haldex Brake Systems
Company Profile
Haldex North America is a manufacturer of brake systems, focusing primarily on heavy trucks, trailers and buses with annual sales of over $500M. Haldex NA is comprised of 6 manufacturing plants, 13 service centers and 2 distribution centers and employs roughly 1500 people in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
The Challenge
Haldex was running its business on 30 year old business systems, which could only be run on 12 year old hardware, much of which was no longer sold, making part replacement nearly impossible. “We were also running on several different business systems in which were not able to interface, requiring us to manage the same information in multiple business systems, and leading to redundancy of work and out of sync systems” says Project Manager, Bryan Long. It was next to impossible to consolidate financial information for management to utilize for reporting and decision-making purposes.
The Solution
Haldex’s goal was to have a single face to the customer, regardless of which location the product/service was coming from, and to have an integrated system that would allow for quick, accurate access to business information. They also wanted a platform that would allow for growth opportunities in the future. Microsoft Dynamics AX has provided the system necessary to achieve these goals. “We now have a business system that links all of our locations to a common solution, giving us a single repository for all business information with quick, easy access to real-time information”, says Long.
The Benefits
- Axapta utilizes XML for Electronic Commerce, which is the foundation by which EDI will operate on in the future
- The company now has all of the corporate data in a central repository, SQL, which provides faster, easier access to information
- Financial systems are all real time, allowing management of the business based on current “in time” data rather than historical
- Haldex is able to provide better Customer Service by having instant access to information about customers, orders, shipments, plant inventories and production schedules
- Haldex now has software to support lean manufacturing, which has integrated EDI releases and the production schedules in the plants
- Advanced Warehousing allows for pull and flow techniques for automatically replenishing from plants or large relining facilities
- Automation of Inter-company transactions reducing the amount of manual work in the process
- Automated cash application resulting in considerable data processing efficiencies
