Custom Made Quality

Since 1937, when the first spark plugs were delivered in Japan, the company has constantly continued to develop and drive its worldwide expansion to new heights. Today, the product portfolio no longer solely comprises spark plugs. Glow plugs, ignition coils and leads, lambda probes, exhaust gas temperature sensors, exhaust gas recirculation valves, mass airflow sensors, intake manifold and boost pressure sensors, and speed and position sensors are also supplied to well-known OEM customers and the aftermarket.The products are tested under the toughest conditions and are used, for example, in motor sports. But they are also used in horticulture, agriculture and the industry. The core skill of the company was, and still is, technical ceramics.

In regard to the ongoing change in the automotive industry, the company is realigning itself and pursuing a portfolio shift towards environmentally sustainable business areas such as mobility, medicine, environment & energy and communication. To reflect this change, the company changed its name from NGK SPARK PLUG to Niterra.

In its day-to-day business, Niterra has committed itself to first-class quality, sustainability in technology and the environment, and social responsibility. However, the company philosophy is not just characterized by the company’s faith in itself. Due to growth in order volumes and bigger customers, the processes of the regional headquarters in Ratingen also needed to be adapted to the changing conditions. More stringent requirements on analysis quality and complaint processing meant that the quality processes could no longer be sufficiently mapped out using Microsoft Excel, which was the previous solution.

For Niterra EMEA GmbH, the success and the resulting growing order situation also meant that there were more returned goods – and especially with regard to complaints management, more and more disadvantages became apparent when dealing with Excel. Cumbersome data entry, high error rates when entering data manually and the lack of possibility to work on a process with several employees at the same time forced the future-oriented company to rethink.

The discovery that Excel could not meet the heightened requirements on the complaint process meant that the company was faced with a decision: in the future, should they keep working with the tried and tested ERP system or should they use a specialist application for quality assurance instead? The implementation of reliable ERP software from SAPshowed, primarily, that it could simply be expanded with the QM module. However, the lack of depth in the analysis options in the SAP quality management module was the main motivator for implementing another specialized QM software.

After comparing specialist applications, the decision was ultimately made to go with the Babtec solution, as the entire package won the company over. The option of being able to quickly adapt KPI dashboards to individual and customer-specific needs was a clear benefit for the regional headquarters, which is responsible for the entire EMEA region. Thus, statistics for the individual plants and/or locations could be created without any fuss. Even the standard delivery scope offers extensive configuration options for individual structuring. The further customization and adaptation options swung the decision in favor of Babtec software: the customizing team at the Wuppertal-based software manufacturer was able to quickly fulfill the company’s wishes tocomplete satisfaction without having to change the standard functions of the software drastically.

Integrating the QM solution into the existing software landscape, including the ERP system from SAP, did not present a problem. Apart from the interface needed for this, it was clear from the outset that further adjustments would be carried out within the scope of the implementation of BabtecQ. The very rigid landscape previously proffered by Excel couldn’t simply be replaced with a new solution. Instead of going cold turkey, the objective was to adopt as much as possible from the old workflow and to make the work processes easier by implementing professional QM software in a targeted manner. Although customers can be put off by additional adjustments as they assume they will entail much processing and training effort and will be tough to get used to, the project launch, training and implementation was over quickly and was performed in collaboration, thanks to the fact that the companies are sited close to each other and the strong partnership with the Babtec team. In terms of software, intuitive operation ensured that even new employees could handle the modules expertly in no time.

Using BabtecQ, the users record and process the complaint reports that come in in order to evaluate them statistically later, e.g. as a group for actual state and trend analyses, or based on items or customers. Are there, for example, discrepancies that affect certain batch numbers? Is a certain model range affected more frequently? Are the numbers dropping? These questions can be answered effortlessly with the aid of individualized dashboards in the Quality Cockpit, even in the standard version of the software.

In addition, greater added value could be procured for the company by customizing in the complaint management module. The background for the adjustment was that the OEM customers of Niterra EMEA GmbH use different online portals that are implemented to fill out specific documents. Due to the labor-intensive manual searches that needed to be carried out in each individual portal and redundant recording of data in several parallel systems, processing times were very long. The solution: After taking down the requirements, the Babtec customizing team programmed a standardized import table that all the required data are uploaded to, and then at the push of a button, this data is directly transferred to the BabtecQ database. This meant that not only was a significant amount of time saved, but also that far less entry errors were made and that costs were reduced.

When processing complaints from customers, Niterra EMEA GmbH also often has to comply with fixed processing deadlines for feedback. After discussing this within the project team, which consists of employees from Niterra and Babtec, the company now benefits from automatic calculation and monitoring of target deadlines. Success was attained; now, 99% of all feedback reaches customers punctually.

Company-internal requirements for complaint processing could also be mapped out after an adjustment of the QM system. A special feature of Niterra EMEA GmbH is that the parts which are subject to complaints need to be forwarded to the parent company in Japan for detailed investigations. To do this, a Japanese form is needed. This form requests the investigation for affected parts. This form had to be filled out laboriously and manually in the past, but now processing takes just seconds, using a standard form implemented by Babtec.

The cooperation with Babtec’s customizing team is, essentially, based on an agreed process. Requirements from the customer are transposed into requirements on the customizing team within the scope of workshops, and are then implemented by Babtec. Before being introduced into the business processes, these adjustments were tested and released by the user in a test system, and only then were they transferred into the productive system.

The common goal of the project team was to support processes effectively using software. Partnership-based cooperation, universal transparency on the current state of affairs and a positive failure culture create trust between those involved in the project and engender trust in users later on. Valid statistics in BabtecQ, based on a uniform, up-todate and correct database, help Niterra within the company and outside it, for example when exchanging dialog with customers, who are becoming increasingly demanding.

The main objective for Niterra EMEA GmbH was to continue to map out good, established processes and effect additional improvements through sweeping automation with the introduction of BabtecQ. BabtecQ completes the old, established version as a professional solution for quality assurance, so that the quality of the products and processes is always at the forefront, even when (or maybe most importantly when) order volumes are high and for big customers. The crucial feature when introducing the software and the relevant adaptations was always assuring close cooperation with the Babtec team; this was the only way to reconcile own demands and the technical options available for realizing them. This good cooperation is also vital in making sure that Niterra can roll the QM solution out to other departments, plants and sites of the company. Everything that was accomplished was intended to raise the quality of the products that we place on the market constantly, completely in line with the Japanese and German philosophies on quality.