Emergya is a global oriented company that designs and produces wind turbines of 250kW, 500kW to 1MW. The full service company with highly experienced industry personnel offers in-house product design and certification and a highly comprehensive service offering supported by a strong domestic and international team, plus all commercial, legal and financial functions for its activities in Europe, North America and Asia.
What's the current situation?
EWT was running IFS Applications 8.2. A third party implemented the system some years ago. his was an implementation of IFS Applications with in depth configuration of modules. However, because the user community at EWT was not very involved during the completion of this project, the application and functionality were not used as intended. As a result, users perceived the solution to be overly complicated, and many users shifted to alternatives like as Excel.
Despite obstacles, the company's revenue increased significantly. In preparation for future expansion, EWT made the decision to evaluate their IFS applications, specifically how the application had been implemented. After the evaluation, it became apparent that it had not been implemented in a proper manner. EWT made the decision to optimize the IFS Applications. The goal was to make better use of this ERP system. However, the company realized that using only internal resources would have too great an impact on their organization. In the search for a suitable partner, EWT approached Eqeep.
Which demands have to be met by the ERP system?
To limit the overall impact on the team and take into account the level of adaptability of the user community, EWT adopted a phased approach. The goal of the first phase was to optimize IFS Apps to meet the needs of the Operations, Supply Chain and Finance departments. To determine these needs and identify the essential improvements in IFS Apps, interviews were conducted with management and key users in the departments.
The first phase focused on implementing the Service & Maintenance module and Multi Company functionality in IFS Apps 8.2. Another important improvement was the update of IFS Apps from version 8.2 to version 9. The main reason for the upgrade was the lack of Mobile Work Order capabilities in the IFS Apps version that EWT was using at the time. IFS Benelux and Eqeep worked together on the upgrade. IFS handled the technical transition of IFS Apps from version 8.2 to version 9 while Eqeep took care of the functional verification and testing of the application.
The Mobile Work Order capability enabled EWT to inform their Service Engineers all over the world about the work orders planned for maintenance and service. The Service Engineers book the used materials on their tablets, which sends an instant booking to the connected IFS 9 App. Previously, material bookings were done on a monthly basis. This caused stock transactions to be delayed, resulting in ad hoc replenishment activities.
Screening and updating all available and missing data was also part of the optimization. Improving the quality of the data (e.g. Leadtimes, MoQ, Multiple Lot sizes) in combination with the supply chain setup and the Mobile Work Order functionality ensured a continuous flow of data.
What are the benefits of the implementation?
Thanks to direct material bookings via the MWO app, vehicles and vans can be refilled more accurately and on time. Material transactions between sites are arranged on designated days and its is easier to pick up component, replacing ad hoc and urgent requests (many of which were paper-based). The solution is supported by an accurate dataset. The dataset that was used has now been expanded to include fields whose impact was previously unknown.
The organization now has more control over the flow of materials and can track bookings throughout the supply chain. The favorable feedback from users who saw this led the organization to explore the idea of extending the IFS applications to other departments as well.
Looking back at working with Eqeep
The collaboration between EWT and Eqeep went very well. There were a number of things that EWT particularly liked. First, the incremental approach allowed EWT's business operations to continue as usual. Second, EWT had a single point of contact at Eqeep to whom they could turn throughout the project. And finally, the IFS Applications solution and support were delivered exclusively by Eqeep with a dedicated project manager as the point of contact.
What's next?
The current setup made a huge difference to the processes that were included. As a result, a new EWT site in Greece will start using the same IFS inter-site setup as the one used in the Netherlands. Service Engineers in Greece will also start using the Mobile Work Order app for their tasks.
More departments are eager to start working with IFS as a result of the latest optimizations. The Engineering department is now being tested to determine if they can start using IFS to create bill of materials. The Dynamic Order Process (DOP) is being evaluated to be included in the Supply Chain department.
EWT has prioritized optimization requests from many angles. Some of these are likely to be incorporated in IFS by 2020. The objective is to have greater control of the Supply Chain and to improve communication and visibility across all departments.
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