Dr. Oetker
develops
Its products with PDM,
because the software is
efficient, easy-to-use and
covers all the needs.
40+ countries in
Europe, US, Asia,
Australia
SpecPDM, SAP®
GTIN-Connector,
Suppliers Guide
>5,000
The SpecPDM application platform supports Dr. Oetker in putting its corporate philosophy Quality is the best recipe into everyday practice. With its modern product development and administration solution PDM, SpecPage offers what Dr. Oetker needs for its consistent commitment to quality for its products across the globe. This quality goal has always been a deciding factor for the brand and the products of this company based in Bielefeld.
Even in the fourth generation, the company Dr. Oetker is characterized by the family of its owners. The corporate strategy stands for sustainable growth and is future-oriented; the products and branches of the company are spreading their wings at breathtaking speed. This progress in the field of product development is associated with continuously increasing demands of the consumers.
Oetker began more than a hundred years ago in the antechamber of a pharmacy in Bielefeld. The revolutionary product of young Dr. August Oetker was the baking powder Backing – he promised that this powder would immediately make each cake a success. Even at that time, the young pharmacist knew that only his name could stand as a guarantee on the product and would be the hallmark for best quality – one of Germany’s first branded products was born. As a leader of his times, Oetker very soon tried to step into overseas markets. Oetker was known for pioneering work; hence, it was no surprise that in 1970 Oetker brought Germany’s first deepfrozen pizza into the market. Values such as continuity, reliability and solidity are the fundamental guiding principles for the company Oetker. The corporate philosophy Quality is the best recipe just bears testimony to this.
One of the basic prerequisites for the success of the Dr. Oetker brand is that conformance to quality and safety standards in the products can be taken for granted. The aim is to identify risks in development, production, transport and preparation of the products and minimize hazards. The software application was not geared to meet the growing requirements in the nineties in the field of product development. The cooperation with SpecPage was initiated shortly before the turn of the millenium. PDM was a standard program of the Swiss software vendor but with the help of Dr. Oetker, the system was expanded to perfectly meet the requirements of the company. We could bring in our requirements and requests in the best possible manner, highlights Thomas Schäfer, Project Manager, Research and Development Division at Oetker. We wanted to have an easy-to-use tool in the company that would simplify many things; for cost reasons, we did not want it to be a specific development but a standard program.
SpecPDM allows us to respond to queries about allergens and food laws from consumers and associations or other authorities in a speedy and convincing manner. Exhaustive reporting structures offered by SpecPDM have brought about many positive results for our company.
Dr. Oetker was looking for a product that was modern and could still fulfill the special requirements well. This worked out best with our cooperation with SpecPage, says Schäfer. It was no longer necessary to rewrite each new recipe and record each change; with PDM you can easily do a fresh assignment and the work step is over. This is much simpler and much more efficient and we thus can save a lot of work. Thomas Schäfer affirms with pride and a serving of praise: «We have so far not faced a system crash; the system is functioning in a very stable manner. For us, it is a very comfortable feeling that we can rely so much on the security of our system.
Internationalization is an important chapter in the corporate history of Dr. Oetker. Production and sales companies are functioning not only in all European countries but also in Canada and Brazil. A total of 3,500 products are manufactured and sold across the globe. Centralized data maintenance is absolutely essential to ensure a common base of all Dr. Oetker locations. Multilocation and client options of PDM offer a mature tool to meet this need. Quality assurance and production of the highest levels is crucial to all Dr. Oetker locations. With PDM, we have the data in one database and thus it is easy for each and every employee to call up this data at any time,» explains Thomas Schäfer. Especially in the field of allergens whose importance in the field of food laws is increasing, it is important to have access to certain data in a tabular format. This is an application that you need to be able to respond to corresponding queries. Using PDM, we can quickly and competently respond to queries from consumers, associations and other authorities in a speedy and convincing manner.
The goal of quality assurance of this Bielefeld-based company is to continuously improve the Dr. Oetker quality and exclude all possible risk factors. With PDM it should be possible in the future to even store the safety margins of raw materials. «Here we have some special ideas that can be well taken care of in PDM. For this, it is important to have programmers so close at hand as it is the case with the co-operation between Dr. Oetker and SpecPage
SpecPDM software has been implemented at Dr. Oetker at various locations, in various countries and language versions. It is characterized by transactions and processes that totally map all phases of the product development process such as Recipe Management, Costing, Specifications Management, Declarations and the corresponding storage of data and information up to product implementation and thereafter in a simple manner.
SE,UK
SpecPDM, GDSN Guide, Supplier’s Guide
>2,000
The SpecPDM application platform from SpecPage offers Santa Maria a single database for raw materials, formulas, packaging, labeling and specifications, and a tool to standardize internal approval processes. At any point in time, the latest information about all products is available allowing Santa Maria to react to market demands in a faster and more flexible manner by leveraging existing resources.
Santa Maria is part of the World Foods & Flavoring Division of Paulig Group and has a strong focus on ethnic foods and flavoring. The Santa Maria brand has been a long-standing market leader in the Nordic region (Sweden, Norway and Denmark) and is active in more than 34 markets across Europe. In 2014, the World Foods & Flavoring Division had a turnover of €308 million and approx. 850 employees.
The strategy for the future is crystal clear:
Santa Maria wants to become the leading flavoring and food concept provider in Northern Europe. A fantastic development that stems from a company constantly providing the best in spices and exciting seasonings from around the world. Santa Maria never stops traveling, collecting ideas and inspiration, and cultivating its knowledge of spices.
It all started in Gothenburg in 1911 when Frans Leon Berg opened up a small tea and spice shop. He ran the shop until his death, when the families Nordlund and Falk took over and renamed it to ‘Nordfalks’. In 1946, Armin Mattsson and his colleague, Hugo Lundgren, purchased a share in the company and laid the foundation for what Santa Maria is today. Nordfalks grew, and over time, became the largest spice company in Sweden.
In 1968, Matsson’s son, Lars Olof Mattsson, took over and led the company to achieve a turnover of €854,000 through its sale of spices. When he resigned as CEO 36 years later, Santa Maria generated more than €214 million per year. There were many high points during that period, the introduction of Santa Maria Tex Mex during the ’90s being the most important of all. When Santa Maria introduced this concept, the market for Mexican food in Sweden was rather small. At the time, Swedes ate roughly €7.5 million worth of Tex Mex food per year – a value which today is at €132 million in Sweden alone and €296 million in the Nordic region.
To manage information related to recipe and product development as well as quality control, Santa Maria was using a mix of software tools, an internally-built system as well as Microsoft Office applications. Product data was also handled in different languages to support the local requirements for all target markets, which made it difficult to update and share information internally and externally. For a major producer like Santa Maria, maintaining product data in different departments can result in time-consuming manual processes and limited traceability.
Therefore, Santa Maria recognized the need to make better use of know-how and resources to manage product development, and was looking to identify a single solution that can be implemented across all World Foods & Flavouring Division sites. The decision was made in favor of SpecPage, a global provider of product development and information solutions for the F&B industry and leader in this field.
The SpecPDM application platform from SpecPage offers Santa Maria a single database for raw materials, formulas, packaging, labeling and specifications, and a tool to standardize internal approval processes. At any point of time, the latest information about all products is available allowing Santa Maria to react to market demands in a faster and more flexible manner by leveraging existing resources. Thanks to SpecPDM, we now have a central system for all product data, says Anette Zetterquist, Taste Development Specialist at Santa Maria. The workflows throughout our division have also been simplified and improved.
As a result, we are developing our products more efficiently and have eliminated laborious paperwork. The SpecPDM software not only assists Santa Maria in managing data for recipes and specifications, calculation and reporting modules have also been implemented. SpecPDM enables us to simulate recipe variations with different ingredients and nutritional values, providing realistic price calculations at the same time , Zetterquist adds.
Thanks to SpecPDM, we now have a central system for all product data. The workflows throughout our division have also been simplified and improved. As a result, we are developing our products more efficiently and have eliminated laborious paperwork.
Microsoft Dynamics AX is an extremely powerful Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application to master core business processes such as purchasing, production and sales. However, to manage company- wide processes and ensure data traceability, other applications need to be set up to handle all the specific business functions that ERP is not able to.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) or Product Data Management (PDM) and ERP systems are complementary tools that can communicate with each other. SpecPDM provides an overview of all projects and portfolios, and allows for optimal synchronization with ERP solutions, such as Microsoft Dynamics AX, to maintain data efficiently and safely across a business. While SpecPage’s SpecPDM solution is designed to manage a product from concept, develepment to production, ERP systems support financial planning, warehousing, distribution and reporting. Companies that choose not to bridge their ERP and PLM solutions may not be able to get the full value out of their technology investments.
Santa Maria’s Microsoft Dynamics AX has been integrated with SpecPDM via a standardized middleware interface to exchange master data, prices and recipes bidirectionally. SpecPDM’s information protocol makes any data accessible through the interface making the integration very flexible and easy to maintain. SpecPDM is also linked with Santa Maria’s web platforms to ensure product information is kept up to date. Modifications and extensions, as well as further connections to other applications, can be arranged regardless of release updates of the SpecPDM or Microsoft Dynamics solutions.
It is important that we can utilize our expertise and resources across the World Foods & Flavouring Division. This is why identifying a product specification and development software that is compatible with our existing ERP system was a key factor», explains Zetterquist. The latest product information is now consolidated and readily available in appropriate departments to increase productivity.
System integration and data consolidation share common goals: they aim to eliminate multiple data entry and unnecessary errors, simplify internal processes and improve cross-functional transparency and traceability. Bringing together robust PLM and ERP solutions improves corporate productivity and gives manufacturers such as Santa Maria a competitive advantage in the long term.
Before Santa Maria’s seasoning and food products are ready to be introduced into the market, legally compliant product labels, specifications and ingredients lists need to created. SpecPDM, as a centralised master data repository, can be integrated with the GS1 Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN), a network of over 30 certified data pools, to which more than 35,000 companies are connected. This enables Santa Maria to publish and exchange consistent product information – including specifications giving details about nutritional values and allergens – with suppliers, distributors and retailers. With SpecPage’s GDSN Guide, we have a valuable tool at hand that facilitates direct communication with our customers and trade partners. Standardized formats and processes save time and avoid errors when publishing legal product information, and our database is simultaneously refreshed when our suppliers update their specifications, comments Zetterquist.
Directly from the SpecPDM software, product data is prepared, verified and published via SpecPage’s online catalog, the GDSN Guide. Once specifications are loaded into a data pool, they are automatically made available to trade partners rather than sent to them individually – this reduces distribution costs and guarantees consistent data quality. Santa Maria currently publishes product data across six European countries through nine interoperable GDSN data pools; the company can determine which information is sent to each customer. Specifications are standardized according to relevant regulations, however, SpecPage assists Santa Maria in adapting product information to meet specific requirements of target countries or trade partners.
Specifications are created once per Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), unless the product has various formulations or names in different markets.
GDSN is increasingly becoming an industry standard. More robust information and increased data attributes improve the visibility and searchability of products for distributors and retailers as they search the web and their back-end ordering systems.
Santa Maria is also using SpecPage’s Supplier’s Guide to obtain legally binding product specifications from suppliers, including information about traded goods, raw materials and packaging. Their suppliers capture data online and can attach required certifications according to Santa Maria’s requirements, which can then be shared with the manufacturer at the touch of a button. Although our suppliers need to take time to fill out our specification questionnaires, it will take them less time in the future to update the required information, says Zetterquist. With the help of Supplier’s Guide, Santa Maria receives legally binding product specifications as suppliers provide an electronic signature. Audit requirements are also met thanks to a built-in document management system with integrated data history.
Suppliers record product specifications only once and can even create individual specifications for one product to meet the specific needs of different manufacturing companies.
There is no doubt that an implementation project and data consolidation can bring their own challenges, however, when product development and information solutions are well integrated they provide a quick return on investment. When overall efficiency and data quality are improved, food producers can drive innovation and profitability ensuring long-term success.
As with any technological project, much work went into migrating data from our four previous systems from three different countries, as well as data cleaning. We’re glad to have all information in one place now, allowing us to focus on delivering high-quality flavors and seasoning to our customers, concludes Zetterquist.
With SpecPage’s GDSN Guide, we have a valuable tool at hand that facilitates direct communication with our customers and trade partners
SE
SpecPDM
>300
Almondy is a Gothenburg-based company that has been baking and selling frozen cakes to the retail trade, restaurants and catering services for more than 30 years. Its almond bases are inspired by an original Swedish recipe which dates back to the 1890s. With a range of 10 delicious recipes, the bestseller Daim cake, pleases aplenty epicures that want to treat themselves after a spending spree at IKEA.
The Swedish baker has also joined forces with Philadelphia, Cadbury and Toblerone to create unique cakes. Today, just over 75,000 almond tarts are baked every day and sold in some 50 countries.
Innovation is one of Almondy’s main strategies for growth and the bakery invests a great deal of resources in developing new recipes, all of which embrace the same unique concept of delicious, simple and gluten-free. To keep up with its growing operations, Almondy identified the need to introduce an integrated software to maintain and manage data. The decision was made for SpecPage, a global solution provider which specializes in the food and beverage industry. Its SpecPDM application suite offers a central storage and specification system allowing Almondy to access and manage raw materials and recipes including ingredient lists, leveraging these to react to market demands and launch innovative desserts efficiently.
The tool also enables standardized internal processes and cost control, supporting Almondy’s growth and quality strategy.
We wanted to have better and safer control of our raw materials and recipes, comments Sara Nordqvist, Product Development Manager at Almondy. SpecPDM helps us achieve this. Recipe calculations and simulations are automated for the most part, avoiding tedious manual tasks and the risk of errors.
SpecPDM provides a single database for all product information which Almondy can utilize to develop different versions and variants of recipes. Once the compositions of raw materials are recorded in the system, the company can create recipes for half-finished and finished products. Data no longer needs to be recorded several times and gathered from archives, keeping development costs low and ensuring information is always up to date and traceable. Finally, SpecPDM automatically generates the information needed for product labeling, reports and declarations. Of the alternatives we looked at, SpecPDM seemed to fit our need the best, Nordqvist points out.
We want to make it as easy as possible for our customers to find information about our cakes and their ingredients. The automated declaration process that SpecPDM offers reassures us that we can reach this objective and that we comply with current and future rules.
The software not only allows Almondy to fully exploit its R&D potential, but also to easily and safely manage product information. SpecPDM automatically calculates allergen information and nutritional values, and produces ingredient lists and declarations according to regulatory and trade requirements. This is particularly relevant since the EU Food Information Regulation Nr. 1169/2011 came into force in December 2014. The new law requires a minimum font size and clear visual indication of ingredients that could cause allergies or intolerances on the product label.
Reflecting allergen information on the new product labels posed no problem to Almondy, as its cakes do not contain flour and are baked in a dedicated gluten-free site at its factory in Torslanda to prevent cross-contamination.
With SpecPDM, Almondy has a powerful tool available to implement additional regulatory requirements – such as information about food origins and nutritional values – in a simple manner and ensure that its products address the increasing demands of trade partners and consumers. Labels for both new and old recipes have been updated to highlight product specifications. With SpecPDM, this was a simple adjustment, says Nordqvist.
We want to make it as easy as possible for our customers to find information about our cakes and their ingredients. The automated declaration process that SpecPDM offers reassures us that we can reach this objective and that we comply with current and future rules, she adds.
The majority of Almondy’s products are sold outside Sweden; product specifications and labels therefore need to be adapted and translated to meet the requirements of the respective target country. SpecPDM helps the bakery lift the burden of customizing specification sheets and ingredient lists, as product data is maintained by default in 27 languages in the system. To support further global roll-out, any language could be added at the touch of a button. This arms Almondy with the necessary data management solution to further expand globally, maintaining its position as one of the fastest-growing frozen dessert brands.
We want to make it as easy as possible for our customers to find information about our cakes and their ingredients. The automated declaration process that SpecPDM offers reassures us that we can reach this objective and that we comply with current and future rules.
The gold veins encased in the mountains of Colorado opened their riches to many — and not just those who mined the ore.
Think of Arthur Redman Wilfley, a genius inventor who devised many patented devices, including a table to separate gold from other elements and a packingless centrifugal pump designed specifically for mining applications. His discoveries gave birth to A. R. Wilfley and Sons, a now almost century old Denver, Colorado-based pumping systems manufacturing company that sells to markets across the world. Still family-owned, Wilfley calls itself a “proud, independent” innovator in their field with 12 product lines that serve ammonium nitrate, cement and aggregate, chemical processing, fertilizer, food, beverage, water — and of course, mining — industries. “We create and sell a niche product so we go about things differently,” notes Mark Scott, Sales and Marketing Assistant (aka “Guru”). “We have great employees who believe all of us should go above and beyond every day. We take full responsibility for the entire pump. We will never tell you the seal problem is someone else’s concern.” Wilfley’s long-standing traditions of inventiveness, great products and superior customer service also sum up the reasons why the firm turned from a more “generic” sales configuration software provider to Intelliquip.
I knew of Intelliquip’s products and reputation long before we switched to them last year,” says Douglas Segovia, Director of Sales and Marketing. “The depth of their market knowledge is clearly reflected in the power and precision of the tools they’ve created. They know our business and it shows in their products.”
“The founders of Intelliquip are true pioneers in this business,” adds Troy Zellers, Director of Engineering. “I was aware of Tryg Dahl and Dave Tress when I first joined the pumping business and both were already working on automation software at Ingersoll Dresser Pump.”
Zellers points out that this in-depth experience contributes to the “dramatic” differences between Intelliquip and more generic products. “It’s analogous to advancing from a DOS platform to to a custom SaaS portal. We went to a much more nimble and robust platform. It’s so much more powerful that we are reevaluating our systems and engineering data to ensure we properly accounted for all options.” Scott explains: “Our former configurator package used a third party selector to select the pump and generate curves. These functions were completed externally and then brought back into their platform to configure, price and quote. With Intelliquip, it’s all there, all the engineering data and functions, all easy to maintain and designed specifically for our industry. Intelliquip even custom-built some extra functionality to handle our expellers — a special product for us — and it works great.”
“Specific to the markets of centrifugal pumps, rotary pumps, positive displacement pumps, blowers, and compressors — appropriate selection demands a great deal of specialized information. It’s easy to accurately select when only flow and head must be considered, but it is much more difficult when you encounter a multitude of variables and operating conditions,” says Zellers. “Unlike other systems, ninety-five percent of what we would ever need is baked into Intelliquip, and they’ve given us the opportunity to configure it even further to match the uniqueness of our products,” he continues. Segovia says that while he cannot offer specific quantifiable comparisons, after more than two decades in the field he is convinced that the Intelliquip package has accelerated Wilfley’s quoting process and improved overall productivity and accuracy: “We’re definitely more responsive and I’m confident our quote packages are more professional and complete. With systems as complex as ours can be, eliminating errors in the front end may seem an unattainable goal. It’s now within our reach.”
The “dramatic” differences between Intelliquip and more generic products are “analogous to advancing from a DOS platform to a custom SaaS portal. We went to a much more nimble and robust platform. It’s so much more powerful that we are reevaluating our systems and engineering data to ensure we properly accounted for all options.”
Troy Zellers, Director of Sales and Marketing,
A.R. Wilfley & Sons, Inc.Director of Engineering
Not only were Intelliquip’s industry knowledge and products superior, Wilfley also found a real difference in the approach to training. In contrast to a generalized training class off site, Intelliquip sent two long-time pros to Colorado, where they conducted a factfinding session that identified and mapped all the data necessary to full implementation, and then led on-site selector training. The team also worked with Wilfley to quickly launch one product line so selected users could begin experimenting with the system.
Finally, Scott flew to Intelliquip’s Bethlehem, Pennsylvania headquarters for advanced training. Scott sums it up as “very valuable.” Time was of the essence. Dave Tress, VP Product Management for Intelliquip, explains: “This implementation became a unique situation when the previous vendor discontinued service during the migration period. This was unfortunate, but a reality. We responded by accelerating our implementation plan. Through a combination of additional work done by Intelliquip, rapid training of Wilfley employees, and a great overall job by the joint project team, we sped to a solution that far exceeded the capabilities of their previous package.” “In a perfect world, you would overlap the transition,” says Scott. “Thankfully, we had Intelliquip up and running quickly, at least enough for people to start quoting in September.”
While Segovia values the entire system, he also points out that what he appreciates the most and has become his major responsibility, reminiscent of the company’s roots, is mining for business intelligence. “The system captures invaluable information. For the first time, we can easily pinpoint what product lines sell best and in what markets, what distributors close the most sales, what we’re missing in terms of requests that we can’t meet — it’s just an incredible benefit that we’re beginning to realize,” he details. Zellers agrees that Intelliquip’s BIQ (business intelligence software) opens new dimensions of thinking about their work. “Just last week, we had a big project come in, something in the order of 40 to 50 applications for an individual project. I asked Douglas to plot where the performances of each of the pumps fell so I could see it on a grander scale and gauge how it fit across our entire product pipeline. It helped me see the product line from a whole new level.” “We gather all this intelligence straight from the system,” says Segovia. “It’s more efficient, we don’t duplicate data entry nor do we add paperwork burdens to the sales team.” Segovia and the team at Wilfley also concur that, while some of their older users still shy away from technology, Intelliquip’s tools will enhance customer responsiveness from both inside sales and external distributors. “They create the most precise real time quotes and translate into 18 languages as well,” he adds. “An end-user doesn’t have to be a pump expert. Before, users had to know the pump’s physical limits and configuration constraints. Now, almost anyone can plug in flow and pressure parameters, make the optimum selection for the duty point and then quickly and accurately configure and price our pumps. It definitely results in far smarter selection and configuration.”
“The system captures invaluable information. For the first time, we can easily pinpoint what product lines sell best and in what markets, what distributors close the most sales, what we’re missing in terms of requests that we can’t meet — it’s just an incredible benefit that we’re beginning to realize.”
Douglas Segovia
Director of Sales and Marketing,
A.R. Wilfley & Sons, Inc.
Wilfley’s long-standing traditions of inventiveness, great products and superior customer service also sum up the reasons why the firm turned from a more “generic” sales configuration software provider to Intelliquip
Grant Mann serves as an Application Engineer for Thurston Machine Inc, Wilfley’s master distributor throughout Canada. He rates the improvements afforded by Intelliquip an “8 or 9” on a scale of one-to-ten. “It’s been a great addition,” he says. “The amount of information loaded into the system specific to Wilfley pumps is amazing. It’s user-friendly, live and dynamic, which is really important in an environment where customers can change their minds on flow rate or head and expect a quick response.” Added Mann, “Intelliquip incorporates all the theories of centrifugal pumps into the process. They definitely stand behind their product.” “Intelliquip’s work with Wilfley epitomizes our value proposition —- achieving the highest functionality and performance for the lowest total cost of ownership,” says Dave Brockway, President of Intelliquip. “We are fanatically dedicated to being the best in the world at providing automated selection, configuration, pricing and quoting solutions for the fluid handling and auxiliary equipment industries. Wilfley’s experience highlights the significant differences between a generic configurator and our industry-customized technology.”
Our guide to the most in-demand CPQ functions that increase revenue and accelerate sales.
A compilation of our top CPQ functions and how they drive results for manufacturer.
Configuring and quoting multimillion dollar air filtration systems eliminated errors while introducing 10% growth.
As Tommy Car Wash Systems grew, the volume of inquiries increased and their quotes became more complex and time consuming. Tommy Car Wash was looking to streamline its quote-to-order process with an easy to use tool that could integrate with NetSuite ERP.
As a result, Tommy Car Wash turned to Configure One for a CPQ solution. Together, the two systems would automate the entire quote-to-order process. Configure One’s integration with NetSuite, provided Tommy Car Wash with more than they originally expected. The old manual system based on spreadsheets became outdated.
Today, dealers are empowered to create their own quotes. Along with NetSuite, Configure One effortlessly produces professional quotations with all the necessary documents, drawings, and specifications. By automating most of the process, they have nearly eliminated configuration and order entry errors.
Tommy Car Wash Systems in Holland, Michigan manufactures car washing equipment. They are focused on providing customers with the best possible car wash, utilizing the highest quality equipment and detergents available coupled with exceptional customer service.
With a rapidly expanding business, the number of quotes Tommy Car Wash Systems was producing got to be overwhelming. The number of product options and the complexity of their quotes was also growing.
Their quotation process was manual and time-consuming. “It relied on a lot of ‘tribal knowledge’ supported by a series of spreadsheets,” said Ryan Essenburg, Operations Director. It became obvious that the old method of generating quotes was no longer appropriate.
“During the quote-to-order process, there were numerous inaccuracies or missing components. We were looking for a way to reduce the number of errors, increase our ability to upsell, and automatically produce a professional-looking quotation.
Tommy Car Wash Systems sells to independent car wash developers, “existing car wash operators, and car wash chains. They were looking for a web-based configurator that could be accessed by all of their distributors and customers.
“From the beginning, our goal was to integrate the product configurator into our web sites so that any customer or dealer can go online and configure a product and create a quote,” said Essenburg.
“We wanted to have a streamlined process with minimal manual intervention. A seamless integration between the configurator and NetSuite was essential,” said Essenburg.
Tommy Car Wash Systems signed a license agreement with Configure One in October 2008 and went live with it in early 2009.
– Ryan Essenburg,
Operations Director Tommy Car Wash Systems
Configure One provided support from a dedicated project manager throughout the implementation process and beyond. “He was very helpful throughout the implementation,” said Essenburg. “We dealt with one person that knew our company and products, instead of having to explain an issue over and over again to different people.”
Training and support from Configure One was critical. Essenburg attended a multi-day training session at Configure One’s offices. “I worked with a Configure One consultant to develop a prototype.”
The training was critical to the success of the implementation. “Since then, we have consistently been adding and maintaining the rules with new products and options.
While some companies implement a product configurator as a stand-alone system, many of Configure One’s customers integrate with back office systems, such as an ERP.
“Once a quote is created in Configure One, and approved,” said Essenburg, “the data is automatically passed to Netsuite to create a sales order.”
Built on 40 years of knowledge and expertise in the car wash industry, Tommy Car Wash Systems has assisted with the development of several hundred car washes around the world. They provide customers with all the components and expertise needed to build and operate a successful car wash—all bundled in a single package.
Configure One has reduced the amount of time spent working on dealers’ quotes by empowering its dealers with the ability to generate their own quotes.
“Configure One has proved to be a good tool for our distributors to develop a quote for their customers, and this means less work for us. Today’s quotes are more complex as we offer the customer many more options. As our business has grown in both volume and complexity, it would be impossible to do what we do today in a spreadsheet.”
– Ryan Essenburg,
Operations Director Tommy Car Wash Systems
As they became more experienced with Configure One, Tommy Car Wash soon learned many other capabilities in the product that were appropriate for their business.
“After using Configure One, we found there were many other benefits such as pulling all the documents together for that car wash project,” said Essenburg.
“Now we are utilizing a lot more features. We can enter specifications, such as water temperature and hardness, and the system selects the right water softening system or filtration, ensuring the customer gets the correct components.”
As a 6th-generation family-owned company operating for 144 years, Hartzell Air Movement has a strong heritage, but they also recognize that they must continuously evolve to be around for another 144 years. When they set out to replace their aging CPQ application, cost, efficiency, and revenue were the main priorities. They selected Configure One based on the provider’s experience in the manufacturing industry. After implementing Configure One, they’ve been able to maximize efficiency throughout their organization by getting the most out of their internal and external sales channels. The speed at which they are able to handle customer quotes has led to happier customers and increased revenue.
Hartzell Air Movement is a manufacturer of industrial ventilation and heating equipment. They serve a variety of industries, including heavy industry, marine, food processing, and energy production.
Having a company history that dates back more than a century means not only keeping their products at the forefront of their industry, but also by making sure that their internal systems keep pace with the needs of their staff, so they can best serve customers.
Hartzell manufactures industrial fans for professional engineers and companies focused on the air movement of their projects and facilities. Their CPQ journey started back in 2002 with a desktop application and moved to an online CPQ platform in 2006. More recently, the team at Hartzell was struggling with their outdated CPQ technology and maintenance was causing headaches.
To address this challenge, they put together a cross-functional team to evaluate all of the company’s options. Originally, the team thought their best course would be a custom build software system. When they started considering something off-the-shelf, they turned to Configure One. The CPQ offering from Configure One stood out because they were able to handle Hartzell’s custom business logic so gracefully from within their platform.
“Configure One had the horsepower, aptitude, and knowledge to understand our business and create a solution for us,” said David Long, VP, Sales and Technology, Hartzell Air Movement. “Their technical and engineering staff was able to quickly understand our air flow selection logic and present the right solution to our business.”
– David Long
VP, Sales and Technology Hartzell Air Movement
– David Long
VP, Sales and Technology Hartzell Air Movement
There are two important pieces to Hartzell’s online business process: the selection process and the online configuration. Configure One was able to accommodate Hartzell’s selection criteria and build this logic so it works flawlessly with the configuration module.
After getting set up with Configure One, Hartzell’s sales reps can enter air flow performance criteria in the selector and then move quickly to configuration. Now, Hartzell has a fully featured online selection and configurator tool called Hartzell FLOW — all powered by Configure One. Internally, Configure One is known as Hartzell FLOW (Fan Logic On the Web), and all orders and proposals go through the system. “For us, everything begins and ends with FLOW,” said Long. “We sell through independent sales reps and defined territories. Being the easiest, fastest manufacturer for our sales reps is important so that they can create a quote at any time on any day without needing to check with our factories.”
Before implementing Configure One, 70% of Hartzell’s quotes were entered by the factory, and 30% were entered by sales reps. Today, they’ve been able to shift that ratio so that only 40% of quote are performed by factory, and 60% are completed by sales reps. Hartzell is looking to continue this trend, with a goal of reducing the percentage of quotes produced by the factory to just 20%. Configure One has helped make things easier on Hartzell’s sales reps and enabled them to continue delighting their customers for many years to come.
Configure One is a leading provider of web-based product configurator and CPQ (configure price quote) software. Configure One has enabled both large and small companies to increase revenues and decrease costs by automating the way they sell and process orders for configurable, multi-option, and customizable products.
The management team at Scranton Products management team started
their search for a CPQ solution after dealing with repeated bill of material errors and a quote lead time of a week or longer. They were looking to streamline their entire quote-to-production systems and eliminate errors caused by manual configuration. Since implementing Configure One’s CPS solution, Scranton Products has been able to reduce lead times for quotations and drawings from nearly ten days to just a matter of minutes. Configure One also enabled Scranton’s dealers to create quotations and drawings without ever involving the company’s sales department. Improvements to BOM accuracy have helped reduce the number of product returns and customer credits by 45% in the year after going live with Configure One and an additional 50% the year after that.
Scranton Products, located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, manufactures a wide variety of synthetic commercial building products for locker rooms and restrooms. Their products include locker systems, bathroom partitions, counter tops, and shower stalls. Scranton Products also markets and manufactures products for industrial use focused on the marine and semi-conductor industries.
“Our previous process was very manual and time consuming.”
In October 2007, Scranton Products’ management team recognized the need to streamline the company’s estimating, quotation, and order processing systems. They wanted to streamline their cumbersome quote-to-order process and eliminate BOM errors.
“Our previous process was very manual and time consuming,” said Gil Garcia, Director of Sales Operations. “When a dealer requested a quotation, it went to our estimating department. They created the quote and sent it back to the dealer. We would wait for a purchase order then start the cycle of producing a drawing for the project.”
Scranton Products began searching for a CPQ solution that could meet all of their requirements in October 2007. In addition to BOM generation, they wanted a CPQ that could integrate with SAP, their ERP system.
“We selected Configure One’s CPQ based on its capabilities and value,” Garcia said. “It was also very important that we felt comfortable with the company.”
Scranton Products signed a contract with Configure One in December 2007, and by June 2008 was live on Configure One’s CPQ solution. The team at Scranton Products collected product knowledge and Configure One personnel help set up the product rules.
“The system development was a collaboration,” said Garcia. “Using Configure One’s admin tools, we created the configuration rules for additional products,” said Garcia. “We are now self-sufficient.”
The initial implementation of Configure One was limited to just stalls and screens. Scranton Products has since added more product lines and the ability to showcase products through Configure One has further enhanced the company’s position as a leader in the marketplace.
“We have a competitive advantage with Configure One,” Garcia explained. “We’ve added benches, vanities, spare parts, and we’re in the process of adding lockers. We are in a position of having a complete range of products that none of our competitors can match.”
Another important part of the project was the seamless integration of Configure One to SAP, Scranton Products’ ERP system. As a result of this integration, they’ve eliminated saved time and eliminated errors from having to enter information in multiple systems.
The second phase of the project made use of Configure One’s Real Time 2D module. This enabled users to see the impact of dimensional choices and various options within a 2D drawing while making selections.
“We’ve dramatically increased the speed by which we can get drawings in the hands of our customers,” said Garcia. “Now, dealers can create configurations without our help. They can make adjustments and then instantaneously see the results.”
Before Configure One, this process would take anywhere from three to ten days. Today, dealers can create their own drawings and quotes in a matter of minutes.
“We’ve dramatically increased the speed by which we can get drawings in the hands of our customers.”
Scranton Products has realized many benefits from using Configure One, including a dramatically faster turnaround time for creating drawings and quotations, as well as significantly improved BOM and pricing accuracy.
“If the BOM is not accurate,” said Garcia, “then the factory manufactures the wrong product, resulting in returns and a credit back to the customer.” By improving the BOM accuracy and dramatically reducing configuration errors, Scranton Products has reduced product defects/returns and customer credits issued as a result of those returns.
In 2008, Scranton Products was able to reduce credits by 45%. In 2009, they managed to reduce those levels by an additional 50% against the 2008 levels.
– Gil Garcia
Director of Sales Operations Scranton Product
Recognizing the benefits that Configure One brought to the company, Scranton Products took the opportunity to make organizational changes to improve customer service.
“We were able to combine the order entry and customer service departments,” said Garcia. “We changed the focus and name of the group to Customer Advocacy,” The department was tasked with being the internal champion for Scranton’s customers.
“They can focus on building customer relationships and manage everything from the processing of the order through to delivery,” said Garcia. “They now have the capability to create a drawing, process orders, manage customers’ expectations, and keep customers informed on day-to-day activities.
CAD integration that benefits every designer
DMStec that makes life easier for service technicians
Project dashboards for complete visibility
The flood of digital documents and the need to control them as part of their daily routines used to cause the employees at 2G Energy AG major headaches. But with PRO.FILE, they now have a PLM solution that allows them to document even their most complex products and to control their technical and business workflows – including a number of Industry 4.0 applications. When 2G first started to look into product and document management in 2012, they only had a spare parts catalog on their list. But when they realized just how powerful the PDM/PLM solution they had chosen really is, they quickly started to explore other far-reaching applications for the entire company. After all, the system is also a fully fledged DMS solution that includes electronic invoicing workflows and archives business documents with complete audit trails.
As a solution provider specializing in development, production, project management, and service, 2G manufactures CHP plants in the power range between 20 and 4,000 kW. A publicly listed company, 2G Energy AG employs 580 employees in its headquarters and its ten subsidiaries. So far, they have installed a total of 4,000 plants in 35 countries, for which they also provide technical assistance. In order to meet the rising demand for CHP plants, 2G needs to be able to maintain accurate product master data, bills of materials, and, most importantly, a spare parts catalog. The latter is what motivated the company to start considering the implementation of a PDM/PLM system in 2012 in the first place. Without one, it simply was not possible to structure the storage of CAD models and any related product data and to derive accurate bills of materials for the parts built.
The Company used to store its product data in project folders on their servers. The main disadvantages were that this would create redundant data and that CAD models would sometimes no longer work because someone had changed a file path or moved a file altogether. This would often make it difficult to retrieve the data for the most current model. And with a large portion of the spare parts found in the designs, they also lacked a basis to create a spare parts catalog from their models. Consequently, designers had to manually enter spare parts into Excel spreadsheets, which only added to their workload.
The g-box is a profitable small-scale power plant in the electrical output range of 20 to 50 kW. It is delivered as a compact, ready-for- connection module.
DMStec is a discipline of document management – tailored specifically to the needs of technical companies. It lets them map their technical structures, be it plants, products, formulas, or infrastructures.
And so, in May 2012, 2G decided to implement the PRO.FILE PDM/PLM
system along with interfaces with Solid Works and Microsoft Dynamics
NAV and commissioned the project. Just four months later, the solution
went live for CAD purposes. “In the end, the decision was between two
vendors with a very similar range of features”, explains Arne Köster, the
head of the PLM project at 2G. “What we liked about PRO.FILE was the
look and feel it provides. The system also has a decisive advantage in
that it goes beyond simple product data management to meet the
needs of traditional DMS tasks. What‘s more, the integration with
Navision allows us to store documents from the ERP system. And a
built-in web application is available to automate the processing of our
incoming invoices.”
The ERP interface is used to store and display bills of materials from PRO.FILE in Navision. The interface is so cleverly designed that all changes to the bills of materials transferred from PRO.FILE to Navision are logged. This makes it easier for production planners to identify changes and to systematically handle them. “The spare parts catalog and the bills of materials are a direct result of the work of our designers in SolidWorks. We now even have our own spare parts catalog department within our technical documentation unit,” points out Arne Köster.
The integration with SolidWorks Routing, a feature of the CAD system for the creation of pipe assemblies, is a new designer favorite. Bills of materials for a pipe assembly in SolidWorks contain sawn parts with the same item number along with the saw length for the manufacturing department to work with. This means that they do not need to create a new item number, but rather only the pipe assembly – which to Arne Köster is a significant added value and a milestone for all users who want to use the SolidWorks Routing module. “This puts us in a position where we can plan ahead much more accurately and start production early,” he explains.
– Stefan Liesne
Head of Marketing at 2G Energy
It is not just technical departments that need faster processing times and end-to-end visibility into their processes. More effective invoice processing means faster payments, the ability to take advantage of early payment discounts, and less archiving space wasted – these are the advantages that using PRO.FILE as an invoice receipt workflow has brought to 2G. A DMStec solution like PRO.FILE is fully capable of delivering the same core functionality as any current DMS. The company‘s receives some 36,000 invoices each year and managing the internal approval and accounting processes used to be time-consuming and made it very hard to track the status of an invoice.
Today, these invoices are scanned, OCR‘d (Kofax Capture), and validated. PDF files are created and archived in PRO.FILE to ensure thorough audit trails. Approvers will receive an email notification with a link to IBS Invoice, a web-based PRO.FILE invoice processing add-on delivered by PROCAD partner IBS It solutions GmbH. Here, they can view the archived invoice and approve it (or reject it). The transaction is then sent back to the accounting department for posting and payment. “DMStec provides a complete processing history for each invoice. An audit trail is generated for each document that shows who completed what process and when. This ensures compliance and allows us to destroy the original paper documents after certification by an auditor.”
The avus is a high-performance combined heat and power plant for high electrical power requirements (from 400 kW), which is used in industrial projects or to supply heat grids.
There are several examples where the DMStec system already serves as a gateway to Industry 4.0 by going beyond CAD integration and the archiving of business documents to integrate with other business applications. 2G was the first company to have its technical systems communicate autonomously to improve its service delivery. The modules of the CHP plants are equipped with sensors that are able to diagnose which component is failing.
Many incidents no longer need to be reported by phone as the plant‘s software system will automatically create an incident ticket directly within PRO.FILE, which in turn triggers a service process. The incident tickets are categorized by discipline and then worked through by the technician responsible. Machine-to-machine communication has enabled 2G to better focus its phone support services and assign field technicians more effectively. Plants are up and running again much faster, which in turn benefits the customer
“It helps us reduce the number of times our welders have to work on the construction site and allows us to now create pre-assembled and pre-piped units. These are then installed on site and put into operation.
Once the service work has been completed, PRO.FILE will automatically match any related data to the appropriate processes such as “accounting” or “material request service technician”. At the same time, the customer is provided with the relevant PDF documents. The flow of information between the systems is seamless. Arne Köster made sure of this by intelligently connecting the systems based on status changes, true to the motto: “Enter data once in the right location and have it available for everyone from there on.” Christoph Bäumer, a regional service manager at 2G, explains: “We used to have paper-based assembly reports and stacks of copies circulate around the company. Now, the PRO.FILE project dashboard allows us to instantly track the status of any report in any service region and to immediately retrieve the information our customers are looking for.”
Arne Köster, Head of the PLM project at 2G Energy.
What started with an idea for a spare parts catalog turned into a well-rounded information management solution that 2G expanded over time by gradually adding new features. “The only reason we were able to do this is the highly configurable nature of PRO.FILE,” adds Arne Köster. “Just about anything you need can be implemented quickly and relatively easily without extensive customization or programming skills. PROCAD helps us help ourselves.”
– Arne Köster
Head of the PLM project at 2G Energy
The University of Iowa capital management department’s medical equipment team manages the budgeting, planning and procurement of all new construction projects for the University of Iowa’s hospitals and clinics. Projects range from as small as a new shower room to an entire new campus facility, and everything in between. The team manages projects both in-house and with the help of external planning firms.
– Trish Moyer
Senior Project Manager
The team leverages Attainia’s medical equipment planning platform to streamline
and accelerate their planning. With pre-built room templates, an industry-leading medical equipment catalog and a collaborative interface, Attainia’s platform helps plan medical equipment up to 75% faster than with spreadsheets and manual processes.
When working with external planning firms, the university requires the planners to work in Attainia – and grants them access to work within the university’s projects in the platform. This provides immediate project visibility to all team members, and ensures the university’s project data is stored in a centralized location for all active and historical projects.
A key advantage of the Attainia platform is the unmatched ability to access, format and leverage project data, says Trish Moyer, senior project manager for medical equipment.
“I used to plan medical equipment in spreadsheets, and it was just impossible to filter and export the data in an easy and meaningful way,” she said. “Imagine exporting an equipment list for an entire hospital – it would cover the wall of a house! With Attainia, you can filter and export exactly what you need.”
“I have so many users – clinicians, finance people, you name it – and they all are interested in very different data. Being able to easily create a variety of reports tailored to the exact audiences I’m working with is extremely important.”
With access to all active and historical project data at her fingertips, Moyer says that she constantly leverages the platform to answer questions during a project and long after its completion, such as:
“We just sent out an RFP for a new project, and one of our criteria is that the firm would build the project in Attainia,” Moyer says. “Keeping our data in Attainia is an integral part of our process.”
– Trish Moyer
Senior Project Manager
by leveraging historical data to build budgets and make decisions
with internal stakeholders and external lanners
to all project data anytime, anywhere
