THE WORLD MATERIAL FLOW TEAM TAKES OFF ON A GLOBAL JOURNEY
World Material Flow (WMF) India shows how working as One Team can save money, time, and effort and bring more efficiency with a customer-centric approach
Our company’s longstanding presence in India has recently received a breath of fresh air with the creation of WMF, with significant benefits for our other regions across the globe.
WMF is a logistics process that supports manufacturing plants with the procurement of materials from overseas suppliers. Introduced in 2011, the WMF EU Pole has been supporting CNH Industrial Latin America, North America and APAC plants for over 10 years, whilst the WMF North America Pole was added in 2013, to support the Latin American and EMEA plants. Combined, the WMF EU and WMF North America operations manage over 1,000 suppliers, more than 20,000 part numbers, and ship approximately 10,000 sea containers per year.
The project began in 2020, to support the company’s strategic Best Cost Country initiative and despite the challenges posed by the COVID pandemic, the team exerted tremendous effort to get the WMF India Pole live at the beginning of 2022. Our WMF India team has initiated buying materials from Indian vendors and re-selling them to CNH Industrial plants in Latin America, EMEA, and North America (due to start in 2023), ensuring that the availability of parts and components is visible.
This project is a perfect example of One Team, Grow Together and Customer First by keeping our customers at the center of everything we do. Purchasing, Transport Logistics, ICT, Finance, and Trade Compliance showed excellent collaboration, moving from the analysis phase to the design of the process, including the IT solution to support the operations, as well as coping with the complex framework of local tax regulations.
This could not have been achieved without overcoming significant challenges. Anna Polimeni, from the WMF Governance Team in Italy, said, “designing a complex process from zero, to meet business needs and local regulations, was my biggest motivation. We faced several technical challenges to integrate all the IT systems and succeeded thanks to the efforts of all teams involved. I am proud to be part of this project and energized by all the people I met from different functions.”
Anna Polimeni
Arun Rai
While the above challenges were taken care of, a new logistics provider was also contracted to handle the consolidation and shipping of materials from two main centers, one in Dadri Noida and the second one in Biwandi. The first set of containers were shipped from India to Curitiba (Brazil) in April and more are en-route to Brazil and Lecce in Italy. Our plants now rely on the WMF India team to support them with close to 100 Indian suppliers and almost 700 different parts.
In the words of Arun Rai, WMF India Team Leader, “It was quite challenging to understand the requirements and implementation of such a complex IT solution spanning several company systems over Microsoft Teams calls but we did and executed this project. I am extremely grateful and proud to be a part of this project.”
Meeting tight timelines whilst maintaining cost efficiencies was not easy but we achieved success by working together as One Team. I am proud to be a part of this team and happy to share the launch of WMF India with the start of business to Latin America.
Devesh Agrawal from the India Purchasing Team, who worked closely with the local vendors.
CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF OUR CHINA R&D CENTER
Developing many productive and technological innovations, our R&D team at the Harbin plant celebrates 10 years of operations
Recently, our China team celebrated the tenth anniversary of the R&D Centre at the Harbin Plant. Together with Chun Woytera, President APAC, Luca Mainardi, Country Manager for China, Jonathan Pauwels, Head of Product Development for APAC, and other key members of the APAC and China management teams, the team reminisced about success stories from the last decade. The two former heads of the R&D Centre, who have since moved to other markets, also sent their greetings and good wishes via a special video message.
The R&D Centre started its journey in Shanghai, sharing the building with then sister companies Fiat China and FPT China. When the Harbin Plant opened, our R&D team moved into a new home in the manufacturing site and stayed close to the production line. Over the last decade, numerous tractors, combines, headers and implements have been engineered to the needs of Chinese customers, helping farmers improve their productivity with the best technology. A particular source of pride is the Case IH Axial-flow 4000 combine harvester, which has become highly regarded in the market for its efficiency, reliability, and grain quality.
There are 33 engineers now working in the center. At the ceremony, colleagues were also recognized with long service awards. Headed by Jonathan Pauwels, each member in the team shared their stories of their time with the company, whether in the office, out in the field, working as One Team to fix technical issues, getting to the bottom of a problem or celebrating wins, there have been plenty of tears and joy along the way.
Xianghui Huang, Mechanical Design, said, “I have got three words to summarize my feelings now — hardship, achievement and pride. Hardship because looking at old pictures reminds me of the difficult days and all the obstacles faced. But achievement as we have successfully overcome these challenges by collaborating with people in and out of China. We have come a long way and all the team’s achievements make me really proud.”
Chun Woytera commented, “I’m very glad and honored to join the team virtually for the celebration today. I started as an engineer myself, your stories really resonated with me, and I feel so touched by your experience. I’m so proud of you and simply cannot wait to meet each of you in person. Congratulations to the team for your great achievements in the first ten years and I look forward to celebrating the next ten and more to come.”
Congratulations to the China R&D team. Keep up the good work!
“We have come a long way and all the team’s achievements make me really proud.”
Xianghui Huang, Mechanical Design.
