Auto Chassis International: Powered by Sun

Renault's Auto Chassis International (ACI) supplies a variety of vehicle manufacturers, so it needs the latest vehicle design specifications for every make and model. The parent company relied on a custom-developed, mainframe-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) application to manage product data and production logistics. ACI decided chose SAP R/3 in a distributed environment of Sun Enterpriseservers running Solaris 8 Operating Environment and SunCluster 3.0 software.

Whether your car is speeding down the highway or navigating city streets, you probably aren't thinking about the undercarriage that holds together its vital parts. As the framework of the automobile, the chassis is where every vehicle begins to take shape. Auto Chassis International (ACI) of Le Mans, France, certainly takes this notion to heart. Each time it designs, manufactures and sells a suspension and chassis system, ACI incorporates the quality into its work that has helped make the company a worldwide success.

Vehicle manufacturer Renault formed ACI in January 1999 with a $90 million investment. With 3,500 employees and facilities throughout Europe, South America, North America, and Asia, the fully owned subsidiary has supplied the systems and components for more than 100 million vehicles. From stamping and heat treatment to welding, painting and assembly, all areas of vehicle mechanics are represented in ACI's 190 production lines and workshops.

Because ACI supplies a variety of vehicle manufacturers, its factories must have ready access to the latest vehicle design specifications for each make and model. Since its inception, the company relied on a custom-developed, mainframe-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) application to manage product data as well as production logistics. However, since its parent company had standardized on SAP and Sun hardware for its ERP needs, ACI decided to follow suit, choosing SAP R/3 in a distributed environment of Sun Enterprise servers running Solaris 8 Operating Environment and SunCluster 3.0 software.

Sun Services worked with ACI to design part of the architecture and install and configure the servers. "We were very happy working with Sun; its consultants demonstrated technical expertise as well as a deep understanding of how our environment works," says Patrick Thurier, production manager at ACI. "As a result, we have a successful SAP and Sun solution supporting 1,700 users at our headquarters that we plan to extend to 4 other factories, totaling 2,500 users, by 2004.

Architecting the Ideal Mix of Sun Servers

Before deciding to work with Sun, ACI selected management consulting and IT services firm Cap Gemini Ernst & Young to be its systems integrator. ACI also evaluated HP, but Sun made a big enough impression on Renault while working on its SAP project that ACI ultimately selected Sun hardware and, for technical assistance, Sun Services. In fact, ACI insisted that the same Sun consultants who worked on the Renault engagement be involved in theirs

Sun began the six-month engagement by performing a SunReady Availability Assessment on ACI's IT environment. During this assessment, Sun interviewed key ACI IT staff members to identify gaps in the company's IT environment. Specifically, Sun focused on the areas of people, processes and technology to hone in on issues that hampered system availability. One of Sun's primary findings was that ACI needed to boost its skills in SAP R/3, UNIX, and Sun Cluster technologies. ACI team members eventually attended onsite, instructor-led Sun training courses in Solaris and Sun Cluster administration as well as in VERITAS Volume Manager utilization.

Cap Gemini worked with ACI to design ACI's functional architecture, while Sun designed the technical architecture. Sun then leveraged its best practices to configure and install the Sun servers--including Sun Enterprise 220R, 420R, and 4500 servers and Sun Fire280R servers. When deploying the four Sun Fire 280R servers, Sun drew on the principles of the SunTone Architecture Methodology, which outlines a systematic, lifecycle implementation approach with customized planning, taking into consideration service-level commitments. In addition, Sun migrated ACI's data from its custom-made ERP system to SAP R/3, deploying modules for product data management, procurement, logistics and production.

"Without SAP R/3, we wouldn't know what types of chassis to produce for each of our customers, and our factories would grind to a halt," says Thurier. "Sun understood that our ERP environment is mission-critical and designed the optimal architecture with the right mix of servers to support our stringent availability requirements."

Powerful Processing in a Compact Package

Of the 1,700 current SAP R/3 users at ACI, 1,200 are active users, and hundreds of users can work on the system concurrently. Employees log on through the standard SAP client from their desktops. From the system, they can learn the volume of chassis to be produced at any given time, the specifications each chassis must match, pricing details, and materials needed--essentially covering all the steps required to take the product from start to finish and manage inventory levels and production schedules.

ACI's suppliers connect to the company's SAP R/3 system through electronic data interchange (EDI), which enables them to share ordering, shipping and invoicing information.

"By deploying SAP R/3 on Sun servers, we have created a fully centralized IT environment that will be much easier to manage and upgrade than what we previously had," notes Thurier.

The ERP solution runs on two Sun Enterprise 4500 servers with Sun Cluster 3.0 software. The clustering software supports high availability by extending Solaris in a tightly coupled cluster and providing single system management.

"Sun Cluster 3.0 software gives us the high availability and scalability of a clustered server environment without the associated management difficulties," notes Thurier.

The first SAP R/3 module to be launched, for product data management, was deployed on six Sun Enterprise 420R servers. As Sun worked with ACI to roll out the other modules, it also installed four Sun Fire 280R servers as application servers and two Sun Enterprise 4500 servers as database servers running Oracle 8i for the EDI system. All of the servers run Solaris 8 Operating Environment. A Sun StorEdge T3 array provides a scalable, flexible storage system, while VERITAS Volume Manager functions as a storage virtualization tool, managing database backups to the T3 disks.

"Our Sun Enterprise 4500 servers are compact and provide the availability advantages of dynamic reconfiguration, while our other mid-range Sun servers offer high processing power with a small footprint at low cost," says Thurier. "Solaris 8 complements our servers by minimizing downtime, handling heavy traffic loads and making sure that our employees can quickly and reliably access critical vehicle-related data."

Top-Notch Technical Support

ACI protects its server environment with SunSpectrum support agreements. For mission-critical support of its database servers, ACI has a SunSpectrum Platinum service agreement, which provides 24/7 online, telephone and on-site support, access to software releases and patches and staff skills assessment. For its application servers and pre-production environment, ACI has a SunSpectrum Gold agreement, which provides customer-defined priorities on support requests, 24/7 online and telephone support, and access to software releases and patches.

The gold- and platinum-level agreements feature Sun Vendor Integration Program (SunVIP) interoperability support, which provides fast problem diagnosis and resolution through Sun's cooperation with participating vendors. "We used the SunVIP service to correct an issue we encountered with our storage system, and were pleased with how promptly everything was resolved," says Thurier.

A Framework for the Future

ACI's next step in its evolving ERP environment is to roll out SAP R/3 to its factory in Romania, leveraging the same Sun architecture. The company is also planning to develop an archiving system for invoices and to call on Sun Services to install a Sun Campus Cluster solution. Concludes Thurier, "Sun's highly skilled consultants have always been there to keep our SAP project progressing smoothly and to provide the knowledge transfer that enables us to handle all the rest in-house."