Industrial Machinery Maker s Configuration Solution Halves Quote Time, Helps Win Customers

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1 Microsoft Customer Solution Partner Solution Case Study Industrial Machinery Maker s Configuration Solution Halves Quote Time, Helps Win Customers Overview Country or Region: The Netherlands Industry: Manufacturing Customer Profile Dutch company Geelen Counterflow manufactures machines that cool and dry granular products, from food and animal feed to fertilizers and grains. Business Situation Geelen Counterflow ran an enterprise resource planning solution and disparate systems that hindered efficiency; and information needed to configure new products was held only in the engineers minds. Solution The company rolled out Microsoft Business Solutions Navision with a configurator application from To-Increase called e-con. This transforms custom requirements into accurate quotations, product configurations, and bills of materials. Benefits Accelerates process: quote to production Easily can be adopted across the business Eliminates manual processes, errors Tracks costs, finances seamlessly Halves response time, improves customer relationships Building a model for a new group of machines is very timeconsuming but it s a one-time investment. Once the model has been set up, we can use it time and time again for potentially hundreds of new orders a year at very low variable costs. Sander Geelen, Managing Director, Geelen Counterflow Dutch manufacturer of coolers and dryers Geelen Counterflow used a cumbersome 10-year-old enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Disparate systems for sales, manufacturing, and purchasing also hindered efficiency, and the information that was needed to configure new products was held in the minds of the engineers. The company rolled out Microsoft Business Solutions Navision software with a configuration application from To- Increase called e-con. This transforms custom requirements into accurate quotations, product configurations, and bills of materials. Microsoft Navision provides a clear view of information across the business, while employees use e-con to configure new machines and store the complex data for ongoing use. Customer quotations can now be turned around in half the time, changes in machine design can be easily administered centrally, and the company significantly reduces the risk of mistakes.

2 Situation Dutch industrial machinery manufacturer Geelen Counterflow builds machinery that cools and dries granular products. It provides hardware, service, and expertise to a variety of industries, from food and animal feed to plastics, fertilizers, and grains. The build requirements for coolers and dryers are very similar, but the variety of machines the company produces is wide. Sander Geelen, Managing Director of Geelen Counterflow, says, We can make thousands of different sizes and configurations of machines. However, they are all based on the same modules and components, which is a standardisation that we aim to achieve. Until recently, Geelen Counterflow managed its business processes by using a cumbersome 10-year-old enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Separate systems for sales, manufacturing, and purchasing also meant administration was inefficient, and the view of company performance was disjointed and often inaccurate. In addition, all the rules and logic needed to configure new machines was only present in the minds of the engineers working on the projects. All this information was not stored anywhere else (as would have been proper), so anyone involved in the configuration process had to have a lot of experience and know-how. We needed a system that was flexible enough to let us configure all these different machines based on set rules and logic, says We are not in the engineer-to-order business, as many of our competitors are. They build to customer specification completely from scratch. We aimed to deliver a configure-to-order system configure a machine to customer requirements, but based on standardised components to speed up the process and maintain product quality. Solution In 2001, Geelen Counterflow attended a conference with the intent to examine a business management suite using Microsoft Business Solutions Navision software. At the conference, Geelen contacted Microsoft Partner and Microsoft Business Solutions Partner Watermark Holding BV, and learned about its vertical solution. Now, the software and development activities of the research and development (R&D) unit of Watermark the Netherlands are part of independent software vendor (ISV) and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner To-Increase BV. To-Increase built a Web-based product and sales configuration solution, which the company called e-con, on Microsoft Navision and also by using Microsoft Business Solutions Axapta software. e-con transforms custom requirements, business expertise, and information into accurate quotations, product configurations, drawings, orders, and bills of materials. Geelen Counterflow went live with Microsoft Navision and the e-con solution in January The organisation can now program rules and logic for the configuration of its machines into the e-con system. Once the models have been programmed, the business can draw upon data quickly and efficiently without relying every time on the expertise of the engineers. Sales managers use the system to provide quotations to customers. Rather than selecting a set product, which comes out of the standard list of products that are available in any ERP system, salespeople now open up the e-con configuration solution, says This asks users a number of questions, such as the size and specifics of the machine required, and electrical connections. Based on the answers to these questions, e-con

3 configures the new machine and makes a complete list of components and routing details in Microsoft Navision. More importantly for the sales manager, the price is calculated, the description of the machine is prepared in the customer s language, and, at the end of the process, they have a complete quotation for a configure-to-order machine, says When quotations become orders, the salesperson can easily adapt the quotation configuration if necessary. Geelen says, There is very little effort required by our engineering department to make this product ready for production. The bill of materials is already prepared, as is the routing list, which allows our manufacturing department to get to work very quickly. Benefits Accelerates Processes from Quotation to Production After the model for a particular group of machines has been created, orders for such machines take a fraction of the time (required before) to configure, even though there are thousands of variations possible. I can confirm that our whole process has speeded up enormously. Delivering an order confirmation is now around half the work it used to be, says The emphasis has shifted from configuration and development of specific bills of materials to other areas of development, and time for value-added activity has increased. Employees can focus more on what they re supposed to do engineer quality machinery, as the solution takes most of the planning and preparation out of their hands, says Building a model for a new group of machines is very time-consuming but it s a one-time investment. Once the model has been set up, we can use it time and time again for potentially hundreds of new orders a year at very low variable cost. Easily Can Be Adopted Across the Business Geelen Counterflow uses Microsoft Navision to support its entire business process, from sales and purchasing to manufacturing and finance. Better integration means that we have eliminated the need for disparate systems, and, as a result, our employees work from the same, consistent set of information available in the one place, says The organisation s 24 Microsoft Navision users required very little training. Geelen says, The e-con solution simply configures orders, based on the answers to preset questions; and the front end is very user friendly. All employees have learned to use it very quickly not just the engineers. Eliminates Manual Processes and Errors According to Geelen, e-con is now the heart of the business. Employee efficiency has increased significantly, thanks to the new set of tools and resources available at users fingertips. Using Microsoft Navision eliminates manual processes such as order configuration for sales managers. In the past, there was a high risk of mistakes, and a great deal more time was required, says For all our machine groups that now have e- Con models, the potential for making mistakes is much lower, says Geelen continues, Before, given the thousands of machine configurations, it was simply not possible to work with complete preset bills of materials for all these machines. So, we worked with templates that were adjusted manually to the customer s specific requirements. However, as soon as we wanted to phase in a new article on the bill of materials of a particular group of

4 machines, we would have to inform all the employees involved and expect them to remember the change each time. It involved a lot of communication, with a high risk that someone would forget. With e-con, models can be changed easily, so when a machine design change has consequences for the bill of materials or sales price, the system needs to be amended only once. Such adjustments are executed centrally in just 10 minutes. From then on, the system remembers the change, and I can be 100 percent confident that the correct configuration will be used from now on. Tracks Costs and Finances Seamlessly With a clear picture of data across the business, management can easily track spending throughout each project and make business decisions based on more accurate information. The organisation can also integrate other business systems to consolidate critical information. For example, employees register their time spent on each job through a data collection system. This information is vital for tracking the manufacturing costs. Geelen Counterflow has integrated this system into Microsoft Navision, so that timekeeping registers automatically. Geelen says, All the time that is spent on a particular machine is immediately available online, helping us calculate whether that machine was produced efficiently, or if our sales price was too low. Very little human intervention is needed to make this system work, and the data is available at any time. an hour if necessary, which is exceptional compared to many of our competitors, says Even high-value and complicated quotations can take as little as 20 minutes to compile. We have halved our response time, and this is reflected in customer feedback that compliments us on our service and response. Limited Investment for a High Level of Support Comparisons between the time, costs, and resources needed for building new e-con models, and the ongoing savings gained through reusing models, have shown Geelen Counterflow that its investment has been worthwhile. We build hundreds of coolers every year and use the same e-con model each time. This solution is extremely valuable to organisations like ours that produce numerous versions of a product, says The solution has supported rapid business growth over the last two to three years, and I would have not been very optimistic that we could have managed that otherwise. Thanks to increased productivity, we have been able to increase our sales and turnover, without needing to increase the number of new personnel. Halves Response Time and Improves Relationships with Customers To win new business, the organisation needs to respond quickly and efficiently to customer requests for quotations. We can deliver a complete and accurate quotation within half

5 For More Information For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) Customers who are deaf or hard-ofhearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) in the United States or (905) in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: For more information about Watermark the Netherlands products and services, visit the Web site at: Microsoft Business Solutions offers financial management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and analytics applications for small and mid-sized companies and divisions of large enterprises. Delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialized services, these integrated business applications work with Microsoft products such as Office and Windows to streamline processes across an entire business. For more information about Microsoft Business Solutions, go to: For more information about To-Increase BV products and services, visit the Web site at: For more information about Geelen Counterflow products and services, visit the Web site at: Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Axapta, and Navision are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation or Microsoft Business Solutions ApS in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft Business Solutions ApS and FRx Software Corporation are subsidiaries of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Document published May 2005 Software and Services Solutions Microsoft Business Solutions Navision