Panasonic Corporation is one of the largest electronic product manufacturers in the world, comprised of over 634 companies. It manufactures and markets a wide range of products under the Panasonic brand to enhance and enrich lifestyles all around the globe. In 2011 it reported 367,000 employees and a turnover of 8,692,672 YEN.
With Panasonic's wide range of products and multi-country coverage, correct product classification is difficult to handle and impossible without a good software tool. MIC Central Classification System (CCS) helps Panasonic to precisely classify products to conform to multi-national customs tariff schedules while cutting down on costs and workload through automated product classification. It gives Panasonic control over its product classification process on an international level.
So far, Panasonic uses MIC's CCS in 16 countries throughout Europe as SaaS model with the possibility for an easy global roll-out covering following functionalities:
- Worldwide customs master data for items
- Classification and validation of products based on national customs tariffs
- Automatic product classification based on user-validated selection and matching rules
- Efficient transnational batch re-assignment of tariffs for multiple items (e.g. mass classification due to global changes in tariffs)
- Simple product classification based on decision trees
- Product classification for a new country based on that of another country (cross country classification)
- Automatic incorporation (document management) of product descriptions and images as well as data on the item's construction, origin, cost
- User friendly look-up of tariffs as well as customs, tax and trade measures
- Full audit-trail incl. complete classification history for each item
- Globally assignment, management and monitoring of classification tasks, centrally from one location (workflow management)
- Integration with all MIC modules for complete process functionality
- Regional / business unit specific Web access to classification data
- Fine grained application security concept (field level security)
- Set of standard reportsMulti-lingual (German, English, French)
A detailed case study about Panasonic's international customs platform will be published, soon.