Customer 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 co
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 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 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®(now part of Microsoft Dynamcis™) 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.
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 Geelen. “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 2003. 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 Geelen.
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 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 Geelen.
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 Geelen.
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 Geelen.
“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 Geelen.
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 Geelen.
“For all our machine groups that now have e-Con models, the potential for making mistakes is much lower,” says Geelen.
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 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.”
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 an hour if necessary, which is exceptional compared to many of our competitors,” says Geelen. “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 Geelen.
“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.”
Microsoft Dynamics
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For more information about Microsoft Dynamics, go to: