Plant Link S.L. Automotive Test Equipment and Support Services

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Automotive Services

• About Plant Link

Plant Link S.L. is a privately owned, Spanish registered company, founded in 1995. It specialises in the supply of components, services and test equipment to the automotive industry. Headquarters are in Cadiz, Spain.

Plant Link S.L. has three operating segments

Supply Management -
Management of the supply of material to European automotive manufacturers including the sale of components, memory devices & microprocessors.

Automotive Services -
Provision of engineering & supply services to the automotive industry

Custom Test Equipment -
The design, development & manufacture of test equipment for the automotive industry

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Automotive Services

Plant Link Supply Database
Since its start in 1995 Plant Link has proven extremely successful in managing supply coordination for companies engaged in the provision of components to automotive manufactures. Central to this is the Plant Link Supply Database, the first revision of which was built in 1995. It receives the requirement data or releases issued weekly by the customer plants via dedicated electronic links. As each customer has a different format for transmission and data presentation, Plant Link has created software to extract the information and format it in a consistent manner. The data is then downloaded directly in to the Plant Link Supply Data Base with out human intervention, eliminating the possibility of human error during the transfer process.

The data base also has information from the customer POU warehouse. Below is an extract from a very much larger set of data. The status of all material in transit, in stock in the warehouse, on hold, scrapped, "year carry over," etc is accounted for.

From this information the Data Base automatically creates a delivery matrix. This is the information a supplier must use to determine factory builds, shipping plans and schedules. However, before it is ready to be released it must go through some checks to verify the information is correct and consistent with alternative sources of information.

A particularly powerful part of the Plant Link Data Base is its ability to compare the customer releases with the run rates of the modules in production. It has an internal matrix that knows the population on every module, the percentage of business owned by a particular supplier and the plant run rate for that module. From this data it can directly compare what the customer plant is saying in its latest release with what the plant truly needs for their planned builds. Below are simplifed extracts to give an idea of this.

There is a final check of the Plant Link matrix before it is sent out. This is a program that takes the data item by item on the matrix and compares it with what we term a "Golden" reference matrix. The program indicates in every cell the percentage above/below the golden release. Any potential supply problems are highlighted in different colours to give immediate indication to the Plant Link supply coordinator. It is very easy to spot a red "problem cell" even if there are many hundreds of items. The golden reference matrix is programmed from the customer plant build plans and/or their ship requirements to their own end customers. It takes into account, holidays, new module introductions and service requirements. It is kept up-to-date by frequent contact with the plants.

The presentation & format of the matrix that Plant Link issues to the supplier is designed to make it simple to read & understand. The matrix highlights potential delinquencies and shows required quantities to overcome the shortage. It shows weekly shipments required for 4-5 months into the future. It also calculates end of year cumm roll back, makes allowance for material on hold, material returned to the supplier and material scrapped. It also accounts for material in transit. The matrix shows actual days of stock based on current run rates and flags potential supply problems where stock falls below pre determined trigger points. It also calculates and shows best case "Fabrication Authority" and "Material Authority," which are crucial to guarantee payment to the supplier.

The Plant Link Data Base has proven to be so accurate that it has on many occasions helped customers with their own planning and has helped them detect errors in their own releases and data base systems. Whenever an anomaly is detected in customer information we immediately work with the customer supply coordination staff involved to correct it.

Suppliers using this Plant Link service can and do use the matrix to directly schedule their own factory build plans. This has proved to be a secret to preventing line stops and expedites, whilst reducing head counts. As an alternative, Plant Link can put the supply data directly into the supplier's order entry system. We have operated this method for several years and it has proved to be highly successful. It is our preferred solution.

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