Mitsui Mining & Smelting to Rebuild Cost Control for Auto Parts

Mitsui Mining & Smelting rebuilds up cost management for its automotive parts production worldwide. The firm manufactures automotive parts of approximately 20,000 items, such as door locks, at world 17 plants mainly in Japan, USA, Thailand and China. In recent years distribution costs of semi-finished auto parts have increased among the plants and impacted the business profitability. Mitsui Mining & Smelting tries to establish a unified cost control system for all plants by rechecking total costs per each auto part.Mitsui Mining & Smelting has 20% share in world market of vehicle door locks after the firm acquired Ohi Seisakusho, Japanese major maker of auto components, in 2003. Mitsui’s door lock producing capacity is total 40 million parts per year worldwide. Door locks are manufactured at Japanese 7 bases, US 4 bases, Chinese 4 bases, UK base and Thai base. Productive administration is being complex currently.Auto parts such as door locks need more than 20,000 sub parts for manufacturing. Mitsui’s profitability is impacted by distribution costs of these sub parts in fiscal 2006 ending March 2007. The firm tries to recheck total costs of more than 20,000 sub parts at all 17 plants and establish an integrated cost administrative system worldwide.