Johnson Controls evolves: a focused adaptation in the automotive industry

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Three years ago, while everybody and their mother stood trying to get on board with new technology providers and e-business solutions wizards, automotive interior supplier Johnson Controls Inc. sat back, bided its time and did something highly unorthodox: it thought.

Instead of jumping headlong into technology, and looking for ways to define software solutions as business practices, JCI a Tier 1 supplier to Ford, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and others decided first to define and measure its business practices and, when it was time, create software solutions to complement them.

From defining to insight to planning to execution, JCI kept its feet planted firmly on the ground and its eyes focused on the plan. The result is NexCommerce, a three-portal Internet/intranet business initiative that JCI director of e-business speed John Waraniak believes will promote productivity, collaborative thinking, efficiency and, hopefully, profits.

The company portals are currently being tested in alpha and beta versions. JCI will base the official launch date on initial feedback once it knows how suppliers and customers are using NexCommerce.

Crawling from the ocean
To get an idea of just what NexCommerce is, you have to review the past 36 months. When Johnson Controls saw other businesses taking techno-leaps during the technologys infancy stage, company leadership decided not to dive headfirst into that crowded kiddie pool and break their own necks.

We spent our entire last year defining our best practices, then tried to understand the technology to enable those practices. We didnt focus on the technology over those first two or three years, says Waraniak, who has led the e-commerce division of Johnson Controls for about six months. 

Waraniak says it is a subtle point, but it has allowed JCI to incorporate its NexCommerce portals very effectively in about one year, and without as much risk.

We are looking at two dimensions, one technology and one business. It is a moving intersection, he continues, explaining how JCI developed NexCommerce. What we had to define is what we want our real-life business practices to be. Then we can go in and implement e-business solutions with a high rate of success.

Success is exactly what hes pushing for. Waraniak and JCI are taking a double approach to this issue. They want the initiatives to work, but do so inside the companys Back2Basics philosophy minimize time and cost, while maximizing performance and customer satisfaction.

Spinning a Web
By examining its own best business practices and searching for a way to allow technology to act as an enabler for those practices, JCI devised its own e-business solution: supplier, customer and employee portals that act together under one umbrella to maximize communication, productivity and profits. 

This method of using the digital world to become more efficient isnt a new one. Waraniak says that while the idea is nothing truly innovative, innovation will come from the way JCI uses the tools.

Each portal serves its own purpose under JCIs umbrella.

" The customer portal is a shared database that will give authorized customers real-time access to key information concerning product launches, enhancing communication and collaboration among members of product development teams.

" Johnson Controls is working with several partners to develop the supplier portal, a single point of contact for procurement, product launch and supply-chain management. Extended-enterprise partners will use this tool to receive and respond to requests for quotations, interact with quality-management systems, submit cost-reduction ideas and manage inventory against manufacturing demand.

" The employee portal will provide a unified, personalized information resource for company employees around the world. 

[The portals] go hand in hand. Were not slicing the bread and looking at each slice one at a time. Were looking at the whole loaf, so to speak, he says. Were using a common set of tools and a common look and feel to do that.

It is an idea that allows for a wealth of collaborative thinking between departments at JCI, between the public and JCI, and privately between decision-makers at the company.

As our employees use Internet tools inside the company, it will be natural for us to use the same collaborative tools when we work outside the company with customers and suppliers, says Michael Summan, JCIs group vice president for e-business and marketing. The Johnson Controls portals are key entry points which give customers, suppliers and employees access to common databases and new e-business tools that will accelerate value creation throughout the entire vehicle development and supply process.

Waraniak gives an example: Say you are a program manager and youve got a supplier that needs a key decision made within an hour. We believe that if people will use the Internet as much as theyd like to, youd get dinged right there. Youve got a red-flagged item that says this supplier needs this answered within an hour. Its a huge timesaver if used properly.

Summan says that with these tools, Johnson Controls is emerging as an organization thats ready to lead the auto industry to the next level.

Survival of the fittest
Once Johnson Controls officially goes live with NexCommerce, Waraniak hopes to see the portals impact on profits by the second or third quarter of this year.

I think we are already seeing an impact because of the common mind-set of our customers. If were using these e-business tools to be more productive, thats what we believe Wall Street rewards, Waraniak says. [E-business] is where automotive has taken the longest to get moving, but it will certainly have an enormous payoff.

MRO Today.  Copyright, 2001

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