Overview
Andritz Feed & Biofuel manufacture, repair and service machinery for the feed and biofuel industry. They were established in 2000, based in Hull, employ around 30 staff and are a subsidiary of a large global company, Andritz AG.
Andritz Feed & Biofuel were running SAP R3 and a decision was made by Andritz AG that a major SAP upgrade would be needed to be rolled out globally across all sites.
Business Challenges
Andritz Feed & Biofuel was faced with finding a solution that could bring it into line with the rest of the group.
What we didn’t take into account was that smaller companies like ourselves have limited resources for coming into line with everyone else. We had approximately 45,000-part numbers that would have needed to be renumbered, so we were instructed to find an alternative that would fit in with the business needs.”
Colin Cox, Systems Analyst at Andritz AG
Because of the scale of the project, which could involve bespoke builds encompassing large amounts of service work and a requirement for billing of time and materials, Andritz Feed & Biofuel were told by another SAP Business One partner that standard SAP Business One could not cater for their needs, and that the software would instead need to be re-coded in order to work for them. This would turn out to be a complex and costly approach that ran into years and tied them into bespoke re-engineering which was becoming a problem. It turned to Frontline to help.
Frontline implemented SAP Business One for Project Management. It looked at how business needs and IT solutions could be integrated to deliver a return on integration for Andritz.
After speaking with various Frontline customers and carrying out a site visit to see SAP Business One for Project Management in action, the decision was made to go ahead, once they were reassured of Frontline’s skills in delivering SAP solutions based on our commitment to ITIL service delivery through the Connected Delivery methodology. Due to year end fast approaching, the install needed to be completed within one month. This was met through a lot of hard work from both parties and regular progress reviews to ensure timescales were met.
Results
The following results have been achieved.
- Rapid implementation in one month
- IT management simplicity, without the high maintenance costs.
- A solution that’s tailored to the business
- A solution that harnesses the industry standard solutions available from SAP for cost-effectiveness
- True business and IT alignment.
- Resolution to an existing IT challenge with help from a knowledgeable partner
- Support from Frontline’s developers in installing off-the-shelf or bespoke implementations via its unique Connected Delivery method means Return on Integration.
