Overview

Cooper Tire & Rubber Company realized the market was changing and they needed a faster way to change with it. Improving the lead time for new product development was their main focus. They needed to find a way to get their new tires to market faster.

Key Challenges

The master data team was being blamed for being a roadblock to getting new products to market faster. David Drake, Manager Global Data Governance at Cooper Tire, had the key responsibility for the quality and integrity of all SAP Master Data. Key challenges they faced:

• Idea to production for a new product took 24 months
• Manual data entry was exceeding 100 hours
• No visibility into the new product development process

Results

CPS proposed a discovery engagement to dissect the challenges Cooper Tire was facing. The discovery session uncovered project complexities including the number of employees that are part of the workflow, risks, integration points, and data collection challenges.

Cooper Tire decided to start the 8 identified projects from the discovery session. In one year, all 8 projects were implemented. The partnership with CPS added value by optimizing processes quickly to drive results for revenue and shareholder value.

Key Outcomes

• Time to market reduced from 24 months to 14 months
• Data entry time reduced from 120 hours to 5 hours
• 100% visibility into the new product development process
• 8 automation projects implemented in one year
• Master data team transformed from roadblock to enabler