Case Study: American Axle & Manufacturing achieves a secure global network and 15% cost savings with Fortinet

World's largest automotive drivetrain manufacturer secures distributed and core network with Fortinet

American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM), a global leader in driveline and drivetrain systems with 32 facilities worldwide, needed to strengthen and simplify its expanded network security. Its previous multi-vendor appliances lacked robust content filtering, antivirus, DLP and other multi‑vector protections, required more IT staff and incurred higher costs, so AAM sought a single, centrally managed solution that could scale across datacenters and distributed offices.

AAM deployed Fortinet’s integrated UTM platform—FortiGate appliances (1240B, 311C, 111C, 81C, 60C) at datacenters and sites, plus FortiManager-400A and FortiAnalyzer-800 for centralized management and reporting—using DLP, content filtering, WAN optimization, VPN, and routing with failover. The rollout improved bandwidth and IP protection, simplified management, enabled site- and country-level reporting, and reduced costs by about 15% while lowering IT resource needs, with the platform positioned to scale as the business grows.

American Axle & Manufacturing