Woco Group

TrueCommerce’s Fully Managed Services Comply With MMOG/LE Guidelines

Company Profile

Woco Group based in Bad Soden-Salmünster, Germany, is an automotive corporation which has production and sales locations in 20 different countries, including the United States, Russia, Germany, France, Hungary, India, Czech Republic, China, and Romania. The company is a Tier 1 supplier to Ford, with two manufacturing plants in India, and 45 suppliers across India.

Objective

EDI document transactions between Ford and Woco occurred on a portal provided by Ford. Because of global standards for supply chain management processes that provide industry best practices (called MMOG/LE), Ford recommended that Woco create an EDI compliance program for their Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers. Ford officials arranged to visit Woco for inspections to ensure that these stringent guidelines were being met, adding to the pressure to find an EDI program capable of quick implementation and onboarding.

The main challenge Woco faced was the excessive amount of manual data entry required to process orders and enter the relevant information into their enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The company used a customized ERP solution that was not integrated with their 45+ suppliers, and most of their suppliers were not using any ERP system.

The exchange of documents and acknowledgments of orders were all processed via email or phone. The process of receiving and sending invoices to every supplier for different orders in Excel or PDF format was not only time-consuming but also greatly increased the risk of inaccurate data caused by human entry error. To make the process easier Woco also wanted their suppliers to print and apply VDA (a data format used by Ford in Europe for EDI messages) labels to their products.

Solution

To comply with the MMOG/LE guidelines and remain a Tier 1 supplier of Ford, Woco opted for TrueCommerce’s Fully Managed Service solution, due to their global presence and understanding of unique automotive EDI standards. The supply chain optimization process was split into two phases. In the first phase, Woco chose 25 suppliers, and TrueCommerce provided Woco and these suppliers with a web-based management tool for exchanging EDI documents and printing VDA labels.

With this tool, TrueCommerce accelerated communications dramatically. The supplier could send the acknowledgment of the purchase order (PO) on the same portal. The solution streamlined the order process between Woco and its suppliers, accepting order invoice exchanges in EDI format and then downloading them in Excel or PDF format before printing and applying VDA labels to the products.

Results

TrueCommerce helped Woco increase its data accuracy and eliminate many of the problems that had previously slowed the work efficiency of its business processes.

“TrueCommerce’s Fully Managed Services are very helpful in the smooth exchange of supplier orders and invoices,” said Pankaj Gupta, IT infrastructure and operations manager at Woco Tech Elastomere Noida Ltd. “The portal eased the process as it streamlined our tracking, and made the whole process paperless. The portal was up and ready for use almost instantly and has proven incredibly cost-efficient. We sincerely thank TrueCommerce for implementing its Fully Managed Services for Woco Asia!”

“TrueCommerce’s Fully Managed Services are very helpful in the smooth exchange of supplier orders and invoices.”

Pankaj Gupta

IT Infrastructure and Operations Manager
Woco Tech Elastomere Noida Ltd.