1 Apr 2005

Manufacturing Business Technology - Webasto Roof Systems, Rochester Hills, Mich., has taken content management beyond its own enterprise. This automotive industry supplier uses a content management system (CMS) from RedDot Solutions to distribute report cards to the 250 companies from which it purchases production materials. For years, Webasto had mailed its suppliers hard copies of information, grading their performance. But as Chris Tiffany, a Webasto key account manager, explains, "As a GM [General Motors] supplier, we used the GM suppliers' portal, so we knew there had to be a better way of communicating with our suppliers." Tiffany says Webasto's supplier report-card solution is a work-in-progress, but already is a huge step forward from mailing printed documents. The process begins each evening when a business intelligence application from Cognos pulls sets of data from Webasto's ERP system and uses it to calculate performance ratings on areas such as on-time delivery and product quality for individual suppliers. PDF files containing these scorecards are then generated and transmitted overnight to Germany, where RedDot-which is hosting the CMS for Webasto-publishes the system on the supplier portal. Suppliers then log on to the portal to get the most recent grades on their performance.

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