Since 1982, NSK Automotive—located in the Karacabey district of Bursa—has been manufacturing steering and suspension components under the ROTA brand for commercial vehicles, agricultural tractors, construction machinery, and specialty vehicles. With the IFS ERP project that began in October 2013, NSK achieved a world‑class production process and a fully integrated, controllable system.

Managed as a hybrid implementation by the IFS Turkey Consulting Team and Egeria Software (one of IFS Turkey’s solution partners), the project stands as a best‑practice example in both its numerous reference solutions and in the collaborative approaches of NSK’s leadership and the IFS consultants. Before IFS ERP, NSK had worked with a local software firm—but that system was dependent on individual employees, did not support the company’s growth, and caused integration problems across its four subsidiaries. Realizing they needed a robust, enterprise‑grade ERP, NSK Group Executive Board Member & Deputy General Manager of Commercial Operations Sinan Zırhlı explains, “The path to becoming a truly corporate organization lies in adopting enterprise software to bring your processes under control and eliminate single‑person dependencies. This couldn’t be achieved with a program that only grows as much as our own knowledge—it required a mature, proven platform, one that’s ready to teach us new things, expand our capabilities, and propel us forward. IFS was one of those solutions.”

Zırhlı notes that their primary reason for choosing IFS was its strong automotive‑industry references in Turkey and around the world. Negative stories about competitors’ lengthy adaptation times had directed them toward IFS. “When we examined features like configurable management, customer‑option order entry, and cost control, we couldn’t find any other solution that delivered—or those that claimed to could not actually do it. The decisive factor for us was seeing that IFS ERP can handle configurator‑driven management as a standard feature,” he says.

Mustafa Çağlıyan, NSK Group’s IT Manager and ERP Project Lead, adds: “We’d known IFS for many years and followed their events and project successes closely. We wanted to bring an industry‑standard solution in‑house.” Once senior management approved the ERP project, a five‑person steering committee evaluated the shortlisted vendors through demos, workshops, and reference visits—and ultimately concluded that IFS was the right choice.

ONE COMMON PLATFORM, FULL DATA SECURITY ACROSS SITES

Sinan Zırhlı highlights “intersite” architecture as one of IFS ERP’s greatest benefits. For a multi‑company group like NSK, manually managing intercompany transactions was cumbersome; IFS automated this entire process. “Our sales company enters orders once and sends them to the factory. Previously, every transaction had to be re‑entered multiple times. Now, orders are entered a single time at sales order creation, and all subsequent records are generated automatically by IFS. This ensures data integrity and delivers enormous time and staffing efficiencies.”

He explains, “All master data—stock codes, configuration details, pricing—is created on a single platform. That translates directly into ‘data security,’ which is crucial for everyone.” NSK also achieved standardized coding across its companies. “Previously, our marketing and production entities used independent programs and sometimes their own code structures. We didn’t need a central data repository. Now, with a single data center, we must all adhere to unified coding rules. New customer codes and item codes—every new code follows a single standard. That’s another major benefit of the intersite setup.” NSK implemented intersite across three entities: the main ROTA plant in Karacabey, the forging plant, and the Istanbul marketing company.

CONFIGURATION TABLES MINIMIZE CUSTOM CODE

Mustafa Çağlıyan emphasizes that one of the ERP project’s most important decisions was to use IFS’s configuration tables instead of writing custom code for every product variant. Introduced in IFS version 8, configuration tables let you define properties—such as material color or quantity—without code. As a result, a product tree that normally spanned 150–200 lines was reduced to just 10–15 lines. He illustrates: “Take the painting process. A product might come in ten different colors. Previously, we had to map all ten. Now, the product tree shows a single ‘Paint’ node, and the actual color is selected at order entry based on incoming specifications.”

FULLY INTEGRATED HANDHELD TERMINALS & MOBILE PLATFORM

Project Manager Yalçın Çökgel highlights the roll‑out of handheld terminals for warehouse movements. “These devices run on the IFS Mobile platform, fully integrated with IFS ERP, enabling all in‑warehouse movements and certain production withdrawals to be carried out live on those terminals.”

MULTI‑LEVEL SUBCONTRACT TRACKING

Çağlıyan explains that NSK now tracks subcontracted work at every level within IFS ERP. “Previously, our bills of material were single‑level. We’ve broken out subcontracting into multiple levels, so we can track stock at each stage—and monitor subcontracted in‑ and out‑movements.”

PHASED GO‑LIVE & STRATEGIC DELAY

Recognizing the workload of creating thousands of new item codes, NSK delayed its go‑live from January to April to complete the code restructuring. “Revising the product tree was critical—300 products multiplied by multiple materials meant thousands of new codes,” says Zırhlı. That strategic delay allowed NSK to go live on January 1, 2014 with core financials and payroll, followed by full intersite and MRP go‑live on April 1, 2014 across all locations. Within seven months, all processes—sales, procurement, production planning, MRP, manufacturing, finance, cost accounting, and payroll—were live. Remarkably, the payroll module alone went live in four days.

Senior management’s unwavering support—and strategic decisions by Sinan Zırhlı—kept the project on track, says Çökgel. Key users across sales, planning, production, accounting, engineering, R&D, and marketing worked tirelessly—enabling a swift, smooth transition.

IFS BI & LEAN PRODUCTION COCKPITS

NSK also uses the IFS BI platform for real‑time dashboards and Lean Production cockpit screens. “Upper management can instantly view performance metrics, revenue figures, and profitability per shipment. They can identify over‑ or under‑performance in real time by reviewing these BI reports,” explains Çağlıyan.