Speeding up time: Kemper Beton's innovative configurator
Since early March, Kemper Beton has been working with a configurator that is expected to halve the time from quotation to delivery of a project with customised elements to four weeks. A team from Cadac and Kemper signed up for the implementation, which took almost a year. 'It was worth the wait,' says Rob Reijnders, commercial manager at the Tilburg-based company. 'The configurator has a positive effect on the complete business operation; from enquiry to order processing and overview and production drawings.
Kemper Beton is everywhere
Concrete retaining walls, steps and concrete slabs. Indispensable in infrastructure. 'If you start paying attention to them, you won't have enough eyes,' says Rob Reijnders. 'Kemper Beton is really is everywhere. In noise walls along motorways, in car parks, the living quarters for animals in zoos, in just about all Dutch amusement parks, gardens, industrial estates, as walkways, floor slabs and yard partitions. Ever seen that concrete wall with all the holes in it? Those are there for swallows to nest. Conceived and made here in Tilburg.'
Remains the thought that concrete, is concrete. Also a misunderstanding. 'Concrete comes in many different compositions. Some have to be able to withstand water, others heat or cold. There are different sizes, thicknesses and shapes. Concrete has endless applications. Not for nothing did Kemper specialise in one: retaining walls and slabs'.
The configurator has a positive effect on the entire business; from enquiry to order processing and overview and production drawings.
Rob Reijnders
Commercial Manager
Experience with configurators from Epicor
Products that are always in demand, but at the same time with low margins and competition. Reason for the company to automate and digitise, encouraged by parent company BTE. Last year, the choice fell on developing a configurator to be linked to the existing ERP and CRM systems and the Tekla design programme. 'A complicated job,' knows Edwin Noël, IT business partner at BTE Group. 'Fortunately, we already had some experience with configurators from Epicor, which Cadac implemented for sister company Romein Beton. However, linking with other systems is always a challenge. Moreover, we are not talking about a simple copy. Every IT landscape configuration is customised.'
Quotations with visualisation
Rob Reijnders explains why he wanted a configurator from a commercial point of view. 'Our customers are increasingly asking for quotations with a visualisation of the end result. So we couldn't provide those. At least, not professionally. We made a sketch and they had to make do with that. Calculating the price was also a lot of work. We always had to look up the parts lists and other data, take into account the changing prices of raw materials, transport and energy prices. Making an offer therefore took a long time, sometimes too long. You actually want to respond immediately, especially in a market where work is increasingly just-in-time.
BTE Group
The history of Kemper Beton goes back well before the Second World War. The founder once started in IJsselmonde as a manufacturer of concrete paving slabs, still supplied components for bunkers and moved to Tilburg in the 1960s. The company had several owners until it became part of the BTE Group in 2002, a chain of nine Dutch concrete companies, each with its own speciality. Growth using digitisation and automation is priority number one.
CPQ strategy: halving processes
However, embracing a Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) strategy does not mean you can never deviate. 'There is always room to make customer-specific adjustments. After approval, we shoot the order into planning and production via ERP. Newly configured combinations are automatically created as articles in ERP. I expect us to reduce the complete process of projects with standardised customisation from eight to five and maybe even four weeks. A halving, in other words.'
The benefits of process shortening and configuration management
Does shortening the process yield more customers. 'Well,' continues Rob Reijnders, 'eventually it does. We can plan and spread better, buy more efficiently and keep stock. Using the configurator provides a lot of valuable data to make predictions and deploy capacity optimally. The big advantage is that the quotation is right the first time, because we work with our standard products and up-to-date data. There can no longer be any misunderstandings with regard to administration and invoicing either, because everything is linked. We can serve customers faster, just-in-time as they want. While maintaining human contact. There is plenty of time and space for consultation and we can still supply special tailor-made products.
The potential of configuring
With a firmer market position as a result. 'Interesting for the entire BTE Group,' says Edwin Noël. 'We are now also working with Cadac at Vebo Staal with the same automation. Configurators offer a lot of potential. Perhaps in the future we can also let our customers configure themselves like you do when you put together a car via the internet. But we haven't reached that point yet. For now, we only use the configurators ourselves to make quotations and as a basis for the final designs.'
Time savings and error reduction
Rob Reijnders and Edwin Noël look back on an intensive and above all successful project with Cadac. We are more than satisfied and in the end we got more than expected. The first quotations with the configurator have now been sent out. We will only be able to say exactly what the savings will be in a few months' time, but we are expecting substantial time savings in order processing and a more efficient production process with fewer errors.
Kemper Beton & Cadac: a worthwhile project
Cadac worked with a team of six specialists on the project at Kemper Beton. Here, too, satisfaction prevails. 'Of course,' says account manager Roxanne Van der Linden. 'We were even thanked with a present, something we don't experience every day. For us, this is a very valuable project and a basis for moving forward. Not only with BTE, but also with other companies that want to implement an integrated configurator. With every delivery, we also make another step forward.'