Vitra
Tiles
5 . The Project
5.1 The eBusiness Solution – business requirements
5.1.1 Creating remote access to ERP systems for customers
and staff
The challenge here was to create access to the company’s ERP systems
internally and externally. Internal access was crucial to the efficient
management of multi-site production. Synchronizing production among multiple
plants requires real-time bi-directional information sharing, including
functionality for change management, work allocation, tracking, information
visibility, collaboration management, and performance management.
External access was required in order to offer customers the kind of service
they now demand and in order to maintain differentiation in the marketplace.
This required a global real-time view of finished goods inventory. Any
manufacturer needs to address each customer’s specific order, credit,
invoice, and payment logic. When customer requirements change, the cost
of meeting those customer requirements must be accurately calculated.
For priority customers, it is important to be able to reserve and allocate
inventory. And increasingly, manufacturers must respond to a customer’s
need to know details of their order status in real time. By delivering
the up-to date information about order, production and delivery to customers
and employees Vitra would be able to:
- improve
their decision making ability
- increase
their competitive advantage
By giving
individual application ability to customers and employees Vitra would:
- increase
data correctness
- decrease
operational costs
- increase
the time spent by employees on activities with higher
added value to the company
The following
diagram offers a visual view of the relationship between systems, customers
and staff:
By opening up the ERP system to customers they were enabled to:
- See
stock
- Make
an order
- Make
an enquiry in relation to an existing order
Substantial
benefit was gained from freeing up sales staff to concentrate on high-value
customer service where previously they had been taking manual orders,
answering enquiries and checking inventories. However, in order to deliver
the benefits of true automation to the customer the next sub-project was
required.
5.1.2 Enabling integration between Vitra’s and
customer’s systems – B2B integration
The first phase was of the project allowed Vitra’s customers to place
their orders over the web. However, that still meant double entry for
them. First, the purchase order entry for their own system and then placing
the order over the Web with Vitra’s system. To avoid this double
entry Vitra decided to get the order information from the customer’s
own system by extracting from the internal purchase order information.
Larger customers already have the ability to automatically load purchase
orders details as orders directly.
During this phase of the project extensive feedback was obtained from
a series of pilot customers in order to ensure a sound understanding of
the technical and logistics issues the customers faced in doing business
with Vitra.
5.1.3 Integration of Ireland’s and Turkey’s
separate ERP systems
As described above Vitra Tiles have two operating sites, based in Turkey
and Ireland. Currently they are running Prism in their Turkish site and
Protean in Ireland. There is a need for tight coupling between the Turkish
and Irish systems. Prior to the eBusiness implementation data maintenance
and updates had to be manually maintained in both the Prism and protean
databases. To reduce this duplication Vitra Tiles identified the need
to automatically update the protean database to reflect maintenance within
the prism system.
Data to be synchronized:
- Resource
Codes
- Production
Models
- Price
Sheets
- The
required transactions in both systems because of
shipments between those two companies.
- Automatic
order / Purchase order creation
- Receiving
Activity
- Shipment
- Invoicing
5.1.4
Development of web site with customer value-add services
Vitra set themselves a clear objective in the development of their customerfacing
website: “To help to extend our marketing activities to a larger
portion of the market at a higher speed and a lower cost.” A significant
amount of research and analysis was invested into getting the site right.
The analysis
included the following:
- The
Internet Tile Market
- What
is the size of the Internet -based tile market in
Ireland and Turkey?
- Customers
- Who
are the customers?
- Best
of Breed
- What
does it mean to be best of breed in this market?
- Marketing
- What
marketing activities are required?
- Governance
- How
should the channel be governed?
- Functionality
- What
are the key aspects of functionality required?
The customers
were identified as follows:
- Domestic
resellers
- International
resellers
- Architects
- End
user customers
- Info
Centres
Best-of-breed
service in this market was defined as offering the following:
- To be
the first choice out of all the ceramic tile producer’s
web pages through upgrading the page parallel to
technological changes, keeping the information up
to date, and building trust.
- To help
increase customer loyalty by answering and finding
solutions all questions, suggestions, complaints
and requests at the short possible time.
- To
create dependent customers by satisfying customer
needs and by delivering an easily comprehendible
and user-friendly web site.
The real success
of the website has been in substituting the printed catalogue Vitra previously
used for the bulk of their marketing. Catalogues are expensive and impossible
to update with new products and information. A substantial cost saving
has occurred and the company now has an interactive channel through which
they can develop customer relationships.
One of the innovative services offered via the web is the “Virtual
Design Tool”. Customers can view a bathroom and drag and drop different
tile colours and designs onto it. It enables them to test and evaluate
different creative designs before making the purchase decision.
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