Nimbus Control helps provide a blueprint for ERP implementation

Client Overview
Spirax-Sarco is a multi-national company employing 4,000 people in 39 countries. For over 100 years, Spirax has been partnering steam users and specifiers, worldwide, to improve the performance of their plant and processes. They manufacture steam and process fluid control products that are used in all forms of industry from chemical plants and refineries to hospital heating systems. Steam is still a very effective way of delivering and transferring heat quickly as well as being one of the most environmentally friendly forms of energy.

Scenario and Challenges
Following the appointment of a new CEO in 1998, cross-company integration was introduced as an objective to improve the way information was shared on a global basis. Central to this strategy was the standardisation of back-office systems and a drive towards using IT more effectively to bring about efficiency improvements within the business.

Like many multi-national companies, each country used local IT solutions, many of which needed replacing or updating to not only meet the challenges of global trading but also to achieve ISO and Euro compliance. The lack of a centrally co-ordinated approach meant higher costs across the company, inconsistency in reporting and ultimately, impact on the customer experience. This situation was compounded by the fact that each country had its own business processes and documentation, making standardisation difficult at best with a high risk factor for the successful implementation of business changes.

Spirax recognised the inefficiency of this approach but didnt have a formal methodology for documenting and comparing internal business processes from country to country. They did however believe that a common process thread could be found throughout the group given the right process mapping software.

In 2000, Spirax-Sarco in Spain set out to replace their ERP system. Having implemented JD Edwards One World software in France and the UK, it made sense to take the French implementation and use this as a basis for Spain. This meant taking the French business processes and applying them to Spain so that One World could be implemented. It soon became clear that the French implementation was very specific to the way the French company operated and that it would be almost impossible to replicate the One World system in Spain without starting from scratch.

Solution
Using Nimbus Control Spirax-Spain was able to map their as is and to be business processes and provide a foundation for managing the change process that the company was about to undergo a situation they recognised to be fraught with risk. Despite initial resistance to this approach by the Spanish, the benefits of using Nimbus Control quickly became clear, both to deliver short term process and communication improvements as well as clearing the way for a smooth implementation of their ERP system. The processes were captured and documented over a three month pre implementation phase.

Benefits
Prior to implementing One World, using Nimbus Control helped to:

• Identify and document existing business processes
• Highlight areas for improvement within existing processes
• Clearly see the need and implications of making those changes
• Identify the connections between different areas of the business
• Achieve buy-in from users at all levels

This was particularly important in a Spanish business culture with little experience of the concept of ERP software.

Post implementation of One World the continuing benefits of using Nimbus Control were:

• Improved communication.
• Training focused on the process rather than just the software functionality.
• Documentation to ISO 9000 standards.
• Excellent training material for new users of the One World system.

Both authors and users of Nimbus Control in Spain were impressed by its usability and very quickly appreciated the benefits of documenting processes and understanding the implications of introducing changes.

Results
Nimbus Control helped Spirax-Spain to implement their new ERP system in 6 months. The very positive experience of the Spanish implementation is being used by Spirax to develop a blue print for subsequent rollouts of ERP implementations. The high-level process maps will allow the management within other countries to, at the very least, review their own processes and see how closely they align to the model in Spain.

"Control helped us to manage the ERP implementation in a much more controlled way and also provided us with a blue print documentation for subsequent roll-outs," says Group Systems Manager, Ian Fretwell. "Spain was the smoothest ERP implementation I have ever experienced within Spirax-Sarco."

See other manufacturing & petrochemical clients | Spirax Sarco website