Simplifying the ERP landscape to harmonize acquired entities for a leading manufacturer of air and gas handling solutions

Client

• The client is a leading provider of mission-critical air and gas handling products globally.
• Their family-run business was established in 1854 in Glasgow to service the Glasgow marine industry. Since then, it has grown organically and through acquisition and now operates factories and service centers globally with 6000 employees. Customer serves multiple sectors, including infrastructure, power generation, oil and gas, wastewater, metals, mining, general industrial applications, pulp and paper, and transportation.
• As a leading player for five decades, the customer offers customized fans and compressors with excellent quality to suit diverse customer requirements.

Challenges

Client sites across various geographies had disparate systems that did not meet the operational control and monitoring requirements. The systems were isolated, the MRP module was not being used, project management capabilities were not available, and business data was largely unstructured, leading to:

• Limited control over the inventory.
• No accurate financial forecasts.
• No real-time visibility of planning and manufacturing progress.
• No project controls and no sub-contract process mapping.
• Lack of dashboard and reports for analysis, simulation, and real-time reporting.
• Gaps from order booking to invoice - bill of materials (BOM) not updated during order booking, costing sheet not linked with BOM, and no MRP forecasting done.

LTM Solution

LTM implemented a global template across finance, supply chain, production, and other core business processes with Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP and related technologies. The solution enabled:

• Controlling costs with a better view of all expenditures, especially material costs.
• Easy access to customer information with a customer 360° view.
• Implementing better control measures for production and inventory with a supply chain module.
• A single holistic view of the enterprise’s key business processes and data, especially in the project space.
• Strengthening of group reporting processes, tax localization, and financial controls with better data and integration.
• Process automation that helped the finance stream clear the invoice processing backlog and GL reconciliation process issues (Inventory / WIP / Fixed Assets).
• Improving the ordering process through integral MRP function, supporting changes in the business model (from engineer to order to configure to order processes).
• Role-based workspaces and dashboards that empowered employees with role-specific, rich, and up-to-date information with additional ability to build new reports and dashboards.
• Integrated BI reporting with real-time information, which reduced manual efforts on report preparation, provided visibility of cost projections, margin improvement/erosion, inventory, production status, and improved sub-contracting process KPIs.

Business Benefits

This transformation program helped the client integrate their core business processes and overcome many hurdles in operational efficiency, process, and people management, productivity, and visibility of real-time data. They achieved:

• Greater productivity:  Removing the mundane and completing tasks faster with automated processes.
• Streamlined processes and better control:  Integrated system with a real-time view of their core business processes.
• Structured processes and data: Data-based decisions, teams focused on actions rather than collecting data.
• Solution for all order types: On-demand project margin visibility and accurate order status reporting for all types of orders.
• Ready for future growth: Capable of integration with other businesses.
• Built-in business intelligence: View the data and reports in real-time.
• User-friendly interface: Familiar web-based interface, common data model to support leveraging global data, integrated with other Microsoft tools.
• Improved customer order handling: Faster execution of orders and creation of quotes from the system.
• Compliance with local tax regulations: Efficiently managed the localized scenario with the localization platform shared by Microsoft.
• Secure Payment: Quickly adapted to the changing banking regulations and provided encrypted payment facilities.
• Compliance with local statutory requirements: Running global operations and managing local statutory requirements through layers posting, simplifying reporting to local auditors/regulatory.

KPI

• Approximately 25% Increase in operational efficiency with central processes across various functions. 
• Approximately 30% Improvement in order fulfillment with a streamlined order management process.
• Approximately 20% improvement in sales/order management.
• Approximately 40% Improvement in production metrics.

Client Quote

The business is ramping up and using the new system in a controlled way, with the LTM team on hand to support them during these weeks of hypercare.

We have only got to this point during a complex and challenging project due to the constant effort and expertise of the project team, and a huge component of this is the dedication of the LTM consultants.

- Client Global ERP Director