Often when we think of cars in the future, we imagine sitting in a cockpit as our vehicle does the driving for us. Sometimes we don’t see roads at all and take the popular term the sky is the limit to a whole new level.
The flying cars we see in The Jetsons aren’t reality as yet, but the future of driving electric vehicles is fast approaching.
Volkswagen Sachsen GmbH is leading the way in electric car manufacturing. The company is headquartered in Zwickau, Germany, and is a fully-owned subsidiary of the VW Group. It operates production plants in Chemnitz and Dresden and employs over 10,200 people across the three sites.
Volkswagen Sachsen GmbH is devoted to meeting the company’s commitment to sell more than one million vehicles annually by the year 2025. To do so, they sought further insight into manufacturing profitability, optimizing efficiency, reducing manual workflows, and minimizing environmental impact.
Green Light for Green Energy
Because consumers are demanding higher environmental consciousness, there has been a rise in sustainable mobility. The VW Group strived to deliver e-mobility for everyone while minimizing the eco-impact. However, the VW Group needs support to meet its TOGETHER-Strategy program.
To identify and deploy the best technology options for the TOGETHER—Strategy 2025 program, Volkswagen Sachsen GmbH launched an 18-month project with partner IBM. One of the VW Group goals is to launch 75 entirely battery-operated models by 2029. The two companies worked closely with SAP in order to support the company’s move towards sustainable production. They developed a custom integration code, enabling Volkswagen Sachsen GmbH to connect their core SAP S/4HANA solution with SAP S/4HANA Sourcing and Procurement.
A New Technology Platform Set New Standards
Lead Project Manager of Volkswagen Sachsen GmbH, Ronald Göllnitz said, “Electric mobility has to be affordable. With SAP S/4HANA, we have created a new technology platform that helps us set new standards at Volkswagen.”
Volkswagen Sachsen GmbH has finally laid the groundwork for a global template for the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand with the help of IBM Services to implement standardized financial processes.
VW Sachsen GmbH designed a standardized finance system that integrates existing processes, leading to increased transparency as well as productivity while enhancing analytic capabilities. The following became possible, based on SAP Best Practice templates and additional work with IBM Services:
- Reducing the complexity of its data structures resulting in 30% fewer cost centers
- Optimizing organizational processes with leaner approval processes, needing only 8 instead of 13 hierarchical levels
- Reusing 80% of workflows for global rollout of the new ERP applications
Because of innovations in this environment, VW Sachsen GmbH realized its electric mobility mission. This takes us one step closer to a future with cars flying up against the sky.