it has become increasingly apparent that automotive manufacturers and suppliers need to be strategic about their sourcing processes the automotive industry is experiencing a rapid and dynamic transformation fueled by changes in product innovation process automation and evolving market conditions in this constantly evolving space automotive oems and their tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers need to find ways to remain competitive this is why the implementation of manufacturing cost estimation and analyticsbased cost algorithms is becoming progressively more importantbut to accurately estimate costs early in the planning and bidding phases the auto manufacturers need to consolidate all the disparate costing data into a singular standardized format and start getting microlevel costing and insights on the cost drivers regardless of the location of their manufacturing sites advt costing data standardization a must to stay competitive with costing data standardization organizations can establish a better understanding of their costs and easily identify the cost drivers and optimize processes to reduce costs for example if a particular component is driving up costs companies can simply run an analysis of the data and identify ways to reduce the cost of that component or replace it with a lowercost alternativeaccording to parna ghoshvice president and group cio uno minda group the digitization of cost cards greatly benefits our organization bringing standardization centralization and invaluable visibility consolidating cost and supplier information of all commodities components and boughtout parts into a single database empowers us to leverage historical and predictive analysis in the automotive industry capturing tier 2 and tier 3 data is crucial and our visibility in these areas is unprecedented it revolutionizes supplier identification providing indepth analysis of cost manpower and utility data including profitability automating costing and digitizing cost cards saves 7000 manhours annually driving exceptional efficiency and financial gains surpassing expectationsthe potential impacteliminate sourcing inefficiencies it has become increasingly apparent that automotive manufacturers and suppliers need to be strategic about their sourcing processes costing process and data standardization allow for better visibility into costs and supplier performance enabling businesses to improve operational efficiencies by implementing standardization automotive businesses can achieve more efficient and accurate sourcing processes faster supplier identification and selection and ultimately lower costslet me share an example of the request for quotation rfq process traditionally suppliers typically send their quotes via email which are then manually converted into a standardized format for comparison however by implementing a system that enables all suppliers to submit their quotations in one standardized format realtime negotiations can take place with all historical data readily available this allows for more insightful negotiations leading to better outcomes for both parties involved advt save significant time and manpower in cost card creationanother significant challenge faced in the auto industry is the presence of cost cards saved in different files and formats leading to errors and inconsistencies in cost structures for components assemblies and subassemblies across the organization over time automating the cost card creation process can provide muchneeded transparency and accelerate the costing process freeing up