Even though KROHNE Group production sites are fully digitised, until recently all the data was confined in separate silos. Since all those systems could not be synchronised, it was not possible for the manufacturer of industrial instrumentation to have an overview of the data and real-time information. After two years scouring the market for the right partner, the Group eventually found Ometa: “They built a booking.com for the industry.”

KROHNE Group designs and manufactures high-tech industrial process measuring instrumentation. The solutions are marketed in many sectors, from oil and gas extraction to water purification or the food industry.

Operations Manager Leon de Borgie: “The entire product development takes place in R&D centres located in the Group’s so-called lead factories in the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Germany.” In addition, the Group has 12 production sites worldwide, including in China, the United States and Russia. They manufacture the products developed in the lead factories.

No overview or real-time information

Leon de Borgie: “Every KROHNE site is fully digitised. We keep data in our systems and databases for every product that rolls off the production line. Until recently, however, these systems could not communicate with each other. For example, if a customer inquired about the status of his order, our sales rep might have to contact four or five different colleagues to track that order. Same story whenever a change or update had to be made to a product after ordering.”

Long story short: nobody had a bird’s eye view and the teams were sometimes overtaken by events. Leon de Borgie: “Our employees could not rely on real-time information for their work. This was due to the fact that we had to extract bits of information from each separate system and then use the data to put together a complex jigsaw puzzle. We urgently needed to get rid of this outdated working method to make our sites future ready and streamline the exchange of information between them.”

“We keep data for every product in systems and databases. Until recently, however, they could not communicate with each other.”

Ometa offers the best solution

 KROHNE Group spent two years scouring the market for a potential partner. Leon de Borgie: “Whenever would-be suppliers presented their proof of concept, we faced the same issues: either a lot of customisation was required to align the platform with the production sites, or the provider had proposed a solution involving the horizontal or bus integration of our existing systems, with a high risk of synchronisation and communication issues.”

“Ometa, on the other hand, came up with a vertical integration solution. Their plan was to create a single interface above our existing applications and databases. Data from all underlying systems would end up in one digital dashboard accessible to all relevant departments.”

“Data from all underlying systems ends up in one digital dashboard accessible to all relevant departments.”

A ‘Booking.com’ for the production site

The result: the possibility to track and trace every product in the system with one push of a button. In addition, the solution would allow employees to intervene quickly and efficiently to resolve issues during production, and that directly through a single digital workplace. KROHNE Group definitely saw the merit of the proposed vertical integration and decided to partner up with Ometa.

Leon de Borgie: “You can compare it with booking.com: not only does it allow you to check room availability in real time; you can also book the hotel room of your choice directly. Ometa actually built a kind of booking.com for the industry.”

The interface is currently being rolled out in the European lead factories, and the other production sites will be next in a second stage. Even though the Netherlands lead factory was the first to start, the implementation has already gone further in the UK. The existing Dutch database structures are the cause of the delay.

“Ometa actually built a kind of booking.com for the industry.”

An expert team with extensive experience

 Leon de Borgie: “We had no fewer than 50,000 different routings in our ERP system for 20 different products.” An unexpected problem that has put a brake on implementation. Yet, in collaboration with the Ometa experts, the KROHNE team is currently unravelling this particular tangle. Leon de Borgie: “You can tell by the team members’ resolute approach that they are not novices in this siutation. With more than 20 years of experience supplying solutions to manufacturing companies, they are quite familiar with all the possible obstacles.

In short, for KROHNE Group, Ometa is the ideal sparring partner. Leon de Borgie: “Since the rollout is still in full swing, it is still far too early to measure ROI. One thing is certain, however: we are building a lean company together.”

Smurfit Kappa is a world leader in paper-based packaging solutions, such as corrugated packaging, displays and the ingenious ‘bag in box’ solution. The Irish multinational has operations in 35 countries, employs some 46,000 people worldwide and has a turnover of 8.9 billion euros. In the Benelux, the company launched ‘Customer Connect’, an ambitious automation project. Unlocking the ERP system was a crucial aspect of the project, which they entrusted to Ometa.

The Smurfit Kappa ‘Customer Connect’ project was launched in the Benelux by Arno Voets, Controller at Smurfit Kappa MNL: “Our aim is to get customers to stop viewing our operating companies as separate entities, and rather consider them as part of a whole: ‘One Smurfit Kappa’. To achieve this, we want to do more than supply the best products: we also provide our customers with consolidated data.”

No stock overview

 The project is composed of two phases. The first phase focused on the ERP system: “One of the problems was that any given customer could only track an order through the customer zone of the operating company with which it had placed an order. The system did not have the capacity to see whether the same customer had orders placed with multiple operating companies. In other words: there was no overarching real-time overview.”

“There was an additional challenge in that, in order to get a complete picture, we needed data from legacy systems, which differ depending on the operating company,” Arno continues. “Some operating companies, for example, work with a Corrugated Business Information System (COBIS), while others don’t. This leads to data often being presented in different formats.”

Chosen for its flexibility

 Arno therefore had to look for a software partner. “Even though I had invited proposals from several contenders, Ometa stood head and shoulders above the rest. I had no doubts about their expertise: a few years earlier I had already attended one of their presentations on system integration at an event. Their flexibility is their main asset. Many software companies tend to build a complex new system that only they know, making sure you, the customer, are no longer able to operate or adapt it. Ometa, on the other hand, proposed a solution that allowed us to preserve our existing ERP system.”

“Ometa proposed a solution that allowed us to preserve our existing ERP system.” – Arno Voets, Controller at Smurfit Kappa MNL

Ron Jongeneelen, Business Analyst at Smurfit Kappa Vandra, was also closely involved with the project. Ron: “Before we started working on the technical aspect, we first surveyed our customers in the Benelux. We asked them to tell us exactly which information and user experience they wanted to find on our new customer platform.”

And that’s where Ometa came in. Ron: “In essence Ometa placed a framework on top of the existing ERP system. An ‘extra layer’, as it were. The difference is huge: this integration allows customers to log in only once to get a real-time overview of all their pending orders, regardless of the operating company. With this extra layer, it is possible to consolidate data from different systems and write data back into the source system. In addition, companies are automatically linked to a group or parent company and we anticipate customers with questions about their stock. For example, they no longer need to contact our internal sales service.”

“Ometa placed a framework on top of our existing ERP system, an ‘extra layer’ as it were.” – Ron Jongeneelen, Business Analyst at Smurfit Kappa Vandra

Ometa in the lead

In a transformation like this one, it is important to address and communicate every step systematically. Arno: “What I really appreciated is that Ometa took the lead in this project. We had and still have a fruitful and close relationship with their team. They have organised various info and training sessions and are undeniable experts at communicating technical matters clearly.”

Pilot project with potential

The new system has been up-and-running since early 2019. Arno: “About 150 customers with COBIS as a legacy system are now using the new portal. The plan now is to roll this out to the other customers, as well as operating companies that use other legacy systems. The global potential: 370 operating companies and 60,000 customers.”

“After a successful test run, wed are quite motivated on the eve of phase two,” adds Arno. “During that phase, we plan to study ways of offering our customers a tailored order service, depending on their order volume. For customers who order periodically, for example, we are working on software that can independently extract orders from emails or SMS messages. We already have a win-win: thanks to the framework, our employees save time while our customers now have an overview and increased convenience. And that’s what matters to us: working together towards our customer’s success.”

Waterleiding Maatschappij Limburg (WML) supplies drinking water to more than 500,000 households and 15,000 companies in the province of Limburg. The Ometa framework enables the drinking water company to link its ERP system to SharePoint Online. The result: streamlined document management and higher efficiency.

While all WML key data about customers, suppliers, projects and employees had been neatly structured in SAP, the Limburg drinking water company’s ERP system, for many years, the associated documents had been scattered here and there on local file servers, individual hard drives and the mailboxes of employees.

Framework as USP

Project Manager Aart Nap: “People were e-mailing documents to each other and storing them somewhere locally for editing purposes and to forward them again later. This kept happening until we got up to 19 versions of some files. As a result, it would take a long time to track down the most recent version of a document. Not to mention the risk of error.”

Improvements had to be made to streamline and update the system. That is why, three years ago, WML started looking for a partner to implement a document management system. Since the organisation wanted to remain within the Microsoft portfolio, the selected option was SharePoint in an Office365 environment. Aart Nap: “Among the proposals submitted by the different SharePoint implementers, the Ometa concept stood out immediately. They were the only ones to provide us with an integrated solution for our information management in the form of a framework between SharePoint Online and SAP.”

“It would take a long time to track down the most recent version of a document. Not to mention the risk of error.“ – Aart Nap

Automatic file creation

 The entire WML office environment has now been switched to the Ometa framework. The next phase of the rollout will concern the field staff. Kay Nauman, Functional Application Specialist Microsoft & Office365, tells us more: “SharePoint Online is our only access point to view and edit documents and associated ERP data in real time. The entire system runs in the cloud, which means that employees can work any time anywhere, without the need for cumbersome login procedures or local file storage.”

But there is more: the Ometa framework automatically creates files based on the structures in the ERP system. Kay Nauman: “When a new employee starts working, for example, a personnel file is created as soon as the newcomer’s data is entered in SAP. Same story for customers, suppliers, projects, etc.: specific actions in the ERP environment trigger the creation of files in SharePoint. What an employee will or will not be able to see depends on his or her role in the organisation.”

“SharePoint Online is our only access point to view and edit documents and associated ERP data in real time.” –  Kay Nauman

A boost for productivity

The new working method has already begun to pay off as employees waste less time searching, editing and sharing files. Plus, they are also 100% sure that they work in the correct version of a file, which improves the quality of information. Aart Nap: “Research by Gartner shows that an employee spends on average an hour a week looking for documents. If we can halve that time, we will have achieved an incredible time saving for WML at an organisational level.”

Kay Nauman: “Even though the various departments are still getting used to the Ometa solution, in the foreseeable future it will lead to improved mutual cooperation and higher productivity. In short, it is thanks to this solution that we can really enter the digital age.”

Digitaal Sociaal Dossier schakelt een versnelling hoger met overgang naar O365

De transformatie van de klassieke papieren dossiers naar een digitale variant komt in een stroomversnelling door de beschikbaarheid van het Digitaal Sociaal Dossier op O365.
Daar het merendeel van de openbare besturen reeds de kaart van Office365 heeft getrokken, volgt het DSD deze logische evolutie.

Via DSD op O365 zijn de sociale dossiers real time beschikbaar van op elk device, en is er een adaptieve weergave voor mobiele toestellen.
Nu werken op afstand de norm wordt en medewerkers op elke moment over de correcte informatie moeten kunnen beschikken, is de toegang tot data langs deze weg steeds gegarandeerd!

De mogelijkheden van het DSD werden in deze versie nog verder uitgebreid met functies die het voor een gebruiker nog eenvoudiger maken om zijn/haar dossier te beheren.
We denken hierbij aan drag&drop van meerdere documenten met automatische opening tagging-scherm, de archivering-functie om documenten naar een archief-pagina te verplaatsen, de eenvoudige export-functie voor het opstellen van inspectiedossiers of de toegang voor raadsleden tot documenten met een specifieke tag.

Het Ometa framework zorgt voor de automatische dossiercreatie in O365 wanneer er dossiers in de back-office applicatie worden toegevoegd of gewijzigd.
Bij grote papierstromen is ook de integratie met Arco scanning ter beschikking, waardoor gescande documenten via een QR-code in het juiste dossier en de betreffende rubriek worden afgeleverd.

Het DSD op O365 is dus een onontbeerlijk hulpmiddel bij de overgang naar een digitale werking binnen het bestuur.
Daarnaast zal het DSD blijven Innoveren (we denken hierbij bv. aan een connectie met MS Teams) om de gebruikers maximaal te ondersteunen in hun dagelijkse werking.

Wenst u meer informatie over de werking van het DSD, aarzel dan niet om contact te nemen met Isabelle Dehond via Isabelle.Dehond@Cipalschaubroeck.
Bij onze partner Ometa kan u terecht bij Luc Deleu via Luc.Deleu@Ometa.net.