Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. standardizes on Oracle Cloud
After unifying its four Asian bases on Oracle Cloud ERP and SCM, the plastics manufacturer acts on more reliable information, faster than ever.
“Oracle's proposal was the best in terms of data integration, cloud usage, richness of standard functions, and cost. All aspects were suitably balanced.”
Business challenges
Tokyo-based Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. is a pioneer in Japan’s plastic industry, tracing its name to a synthetic resin called Bakelite, developed by Belgian-American Leo H. Baekeland in 1907. The company, which makes high-performance plastics and semiconductor materials, has plants and research facilities across Japan, as well as a variety of group companies overseas. Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. posted consolidated revenue of nearly $2 billion in its fiscal year ended March 31, 2020.
In managing its global business, the company needed to unify the disparate ERP systems at four of its major Asian bases—in Macao, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore—onto a single application. Among its goals: standardize finance, purchasing, inventory, and other back-office processes, while consolidating data to inform timelier management decisions.
We feel a deep sense of gratitude toward the Oracle Consulting team, who always have fervent discussions and come to us with multiple options when we needed to solve GAPs with actual work and what can be handled with ERP.
Why Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. Chose Oracle
Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. initially considered developing its own system from scratch. But given the complexity involved, especially in complying with each country’s laws and regulations, the company evaluated the applications of several cloud vendors, including Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft.
The organization selected Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and Oracle Fusion Cloud SCM applications for a variety of reasons: their data-focused architecture, ease of use, and the richness of their feature sets, as well as the support received from Oracle Consulting and partner Nakamoto & Associates.
In all, Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. implemented about 10 Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and Oracle Fusion Cloud SCM modules, including financials, purchasing, inventory management, order management, manufacturing, planning, and quality management.
Results
Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. realized the four main objectives of its Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and Oracle Fusion Cloud SCM implementation.
The company consolidated its key back-office data and strengthened its control of that data; standardized on business processes; established a single ERP foundation for the further expansion of its global business; and established a core cloud-based IT service requiring minimal in-house management.
Having unified the four Asian bases on Oracle Cloud applications, Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. has been able to act on more reliable information, from raw material acquisition to product manufacture, faster than ever before. Company executives can now make production, sales, and other decisions based on the latest data generated by the applications and their built-in analytics.
Meantime, regular, automatic updates to Oracle Cloud ERP and Oracle Cloud SCM ensure that the company has access to the latest application features.
Partners
Oracle Consulting and partner Nakamoto & Associates assisted with the Oracle Cloud application migration.