Volkswagen Group Procurement's global supplier network currently includes about 40,000 partners and the group business platform ONE, which was developed to make cooperation with all these partners even leaner and more efficient in the future, is now live, the automaker announced.
ONE links 300,000 users from group business units and suppliers, making it one of the largest platforms within the group.
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Rapid, simple processes and a uniform system for the entire purchasing process are the claimed advantages of the new digital platform which, VW says, will benefit both sides of the supply chain.
Karsten Schnake, head of global series coordination with group procurement, said: "ONE will lay the foundation for realigning our network in the optimum way for the future. This is a milestone on the way to establishing the most sustainable and innovative network in the global automotive industry."
Thomas Eckardt, head of process management supply chain, emphasised the partnership approach used for the development of the new group business platform: "For the redesign of our digital procurement platform, feedback from our users, the suppliers and related operational divisions such as finance, production, logistics, quality assurance and technical development, was especially important. This way, we were able to orient the system specifically to users' needs."
Many features of the platform were developed in cooperation with suppliers during several interaction days which are part of the FAST initiative.
Feedback concerning the previous supplier platform was incorporated directly in the continuing development of the platform. Functions such as the new rapid access to applications, improved alerting and the mobile phone capabilities of ONE make the platform more user-friendly and also improve its efficiency. Suppliers were also involved in the test phase of ONE. 400 users have been thoroughly testing the new platform since December 2016.
The platform can be found at www.vwgroupsupply.com.
