Roush Yates Engines

The Company: About Roush Yates

Roush Yates Engines is a leading-edge engine development company based in Mooresville, NC, consisting of two state-of-the-art facilities: Roush Yates Engines and Roush Yates Manufacturing Solutions, a world-class certified CNC manufacturing facility. 

Roush Yates is the exclusive engine builder of the NASCAR FR9 Ford V8 engine and Ford Mustang 5.2L V8 engine, used in the IMSA Micheline Pilot Challenge series. The company’s core business includes designing, building, and testing purpose-built race engines and machining for defense, space, and other industries.

The Situation: Supply Chain Challenges

The Need for Speed
When Roush Yates Engines says business is brisk, they mean it. This innovative manufacturer designs, builds, and engineers high-performance racing engines used by teams competing in the NASCAR and IMSA race series. The company is the exclusive engine builder for Ford Performance – the high-performance division of Ford Motor Company – and has powered race teams to wins at crown jewel events like the Daytona 500 and Le Mans.

It seems nothing can slow Roush Yates down. When the coronavirus pandemic put the brakes on racing, the management team at Roush Yates pivoted and began using its manufacturing facilities to fabricate critical components for ventilators and parts for the defense industry. But it takes more than horsepower to power this operation. It also takes modern, powerful, agile technology tools like Sage X3.

Roush Yates’ business model is unique. The company doesn’t sell its engines, instead, it leases them to teams for a specific race.

Then, after the race is complete, the engine is returned to the engine facility where it is inspected, disassembled, honed, rebuilt, and tested in preparation for the next race. ​“During the racing season, we are in constant motion,” says Todd. ​“It’s an enormous manufacturing supply chain challenge, but we stay out in front.”

Lots of moving parts

More than 850 individual components power every Roush Yates Engine. Some components are used only once or twice, while others may transition into different engines. Most parts are serialized and tracked throughout their lifecycle. And for this manufacturer, disassembly is as common as assembly. As soon as an engine comes back from the track, teams begin disassembly.

There are a lot of moving parts — in fact, during a typical race season Roush Yates will handle more than one million components. ​“We need visibility, and we get it with Sage X3. We have complete visibility into each component — the cost to make and maintain them and history of where and when they were raced,” explains Todd. ​“We’re constantly re-engineering our engines and will often update parts throughout the year. We use engineering change orders in the software to track those changes as we monitor and record results.”

The Solution: Sage X3 ERP

Technology Propels the Frontrunners

Several years ago, the company began manufacturing components for different industries. ​“We expanded our manufacturing facility to 88,000 square feet and invested in dozens of computer numerical control, or CNC, machines,” Todd notes. ​“These machines meet our exacting standards, and because they follow coded programming instructions, they are repeatable, precise, and can be coded for various different parts.”

He stresses that while the changes were expensive, the company recognizes that technology investments like this, and like Sage X3, are what allows it to continue to compete at the highest levels of racing and manufacturing. Today, only ten percent of the manufacturing Roush Yates performs is related to engines. ​“We’ve successfully diversified into motorsports, aerospace, defense, space, and medical industries,” Todd says. ​“Our technology investments and talented workforce made it possible. Technology enables us to contain costs and allows our employees to be more productive, creative, and efficient.”

One area of significant cost savings stems from the company’s ability to stock less inventory. ​“We’ve reduced our inventory holding costs because we have such accurate data surrounding when and how much to order,” notes Todd. Turnover has accelerated too. ​“We used to keep our engines on a six-week rotation but have reduced that to four weeks, which reduces the amount of inventory on hand.”

The Benefits: Sage X3 ERP Implementation Benefits

Diversification protects profits

When the pandemic struck, racing shut down for months. ​“Like businesses everywhere, we were hit hard initially, but we wanted to keep our employees working so we shifted gears, diversifying to other areas of manufacturing,” Todd recalls. ​“Our equipment is state-of-the-art, and we were able to begin producing face shields, parts for ventilators, and even defense equipment. Our software platform was highly instrumental in facilitating the shift. We have accurate forecasting models and deep supply-chain visibility that gave us the information we needed to proceed.”

Roush Yates immediately reached out to its suppliers to identify which ones had concerns or issues relating to supply demand. ​“We preordered several months’ worth of supplies to ensure we could maintain our commitments,” Todd says. ​“Using the information from Sage X3, we provided suppliers with accurate forecast demand that helped them stay on track. Overall, I feel our supply chain management has been a huge success.”

Thanks to its diversification successes, Roush Yates grew revenues during the pandemic. ​“We were very fortunate that we were able to continue manufacturing components for our first responders and healthcare professionals, which allowed us to keep our employees on the payroll and continue moving forward during the coronavirus crisis,” Todd adds.

See around the bend

Todd cites increased visibility as one of the significant benefits Roush Yates draws from Sage X3. It proves particularly valuable during the design and development phases of manufacturing. ​“We can identify where the parts are — if we have them in another engine or need to order them, for example,” Todd explains. ​“And recently, we had a situation where we received incorrect materials.”