Rodovre, Denmark – Imagine that your company builds heavy machinery – machines up to two stories tall, containing hundreds of individual parts, and involving thousands of drawings and documents. Now, imagine that your company has to be able to put its finger on this data for decades, because that’s how long the machines typically last. That was the daunting challenge faced recently by Atlas-Stord, a company headquartered in Denmark and with offices throughout Europe, the United States, and South America.
Atlas-Stord’s products are a wide range of industrial heaters, cookers, driers and evaporators, used, for the most part, to remove water from end products such as food byproducts. One of the company’s earliest niches was, and continues to be, fish processing. In fact, one of Atlas Stord’s products is a self-contained unit that’s mounted onboard a fishing vessel so that fish can be processed at sea, rather than waiting for the ship to return to port.
Accessing product data – for decades
The company has been developing heavy machinery for more than a century, with each machine lasting an average up to 20 years, and with changes and improvements constantly being made over time. That’s an enormous amount of information, and the company needed not only to store it, but to access, view, and print manufacturing documents about any of these machines – on demand. Atlas Stord’s management took a long hard look at its business model in order to come up with the best possible way to manage and view product data, and it came up with a very innovative solution.
Finding information is one thing; being able to view and print it is another
“We knew that the Microsoft Axapta system would serve as the foundation for our enterprise system,” reports Michael Pedersen, an independent consultant hired by Atlas-Stord’s President to work specifically on this project. “We used business objects to link together the thousands of different pieces of information that pertain to each of our machines. On the business side, that includes documents, reports, spreadsheets, and presentations, to name a few. On the R&D side, that includes AutoCAD and related files including bill of materials, assembly instructions, maintenance information, and quality assurance data.”
Plans were made to put a seat of the ERP system on every person’s desk, and have it serve as the backbone for the entire company. A major challenge, however, was the fact that although the ERP system allowed everyone to locate every file that pertained to every machine, it didn’t allow people to open nor print those files. The design staff, for example, was the only group which had AutoCAD software on their desktops and could therefore open CAD drawings.
AutoVue provides the solution
“We searched on the Internet for a viewing and printing technology, something that would enable Atlas-Stord personnel to open, view, and print virtually any file that they encountered,” continues Pedersen. “We also wanted a product that would be a good investment for the future, and we found all that in AutoVue software from Cimmetry Systems.”
Solution takes shape
Atlas Stord’s solution was taking shape: the ERP system was going to manage files and direct people to the data that they needed, while AutoVue was going to enable people to view and print virtually any file that they encountered. One final hurdle had to be overcome, however, and that was the fact that no integration existed between Axapta and AutoVue. That was solved by 3Net, the AutoVue value added reseller based in Denmark, which built the integration and developed a strong link between the ERP system and AutoVue.
AutoVue goes live
Atlas-Stord’s enterprise solution – the ERP system with AutoVue delivering viewing/printing technology – began as a pilot program in September of 2003 and went live in February of 2004. The company has some 100 people using this solution on their desktops on a daily basis, and is already realizing significant business benefits as a result.
Time savings and high quality drawing output in Engineering
“As a direct result of this new system,” explains Pedersen, “we expect to shave one or two days off each order that comes into the engineering department. Why? Mostly because they won’t be interrupted so often anymore. Prior to this solution, people would disrupt the engineers whenever they needed a drawing or bill of materials. Now they can view and print them all by themselves using AutoVue.”
“The engineering department was very particular when it came to drawing output, but AutoVue passed with flying colors,” he continues. “We had to adjust a number of preference settings, but drawings are now being output just right – right down to the thickness of individual lines. We also like the fact that down the road we might be able to use the redlining capability. One thing we’re already thinking about doing is inserting remarks onto drawings such as ‘approved’ or ‘not approved.’ There are many features of AutoVue that we hope to take advantage of in the future.”
Breaking down internal walls and barriers
“By combining AutoVue and ERP technology, we had the opportunity to alter existing processes and remove the barriers between departments,” observes Pedersen, “and that’s exactly what we did here at Atlas-Stord.”
Improved ability to work with outsourcing partners
Atlas-Stord relies upon a complex outsourcing model. While machinery is conceived and designed using internal staff, the company draws upon a network of raw material suppliers and manufacturing facilities in order to turn its ideas into manufactured and assembled reality. “It was key that this new enterprise system be able to manage the handoff of information from Atlas-Stord to its suppliers and manufacturers, and it does,” Pedersen notes. “We can now gather all of the information pertaining to a new job easily, because it’s all linked together through a single business object, and we can view and print all relative documents on demand using AutoVue.”
Pushbutton access to drawings and documents
Imagine the benefits of having everyone inside your company being able to view and print any document – regardless of which software program created it – with the push of a button. That’s something that the staff of Atlas-Stord now enjoys. According to Pedersen, “By integrating AutoVue into this solution, we have actually taken it to greater heights. It’s now much more than an ERP system. It’s also a document management system that reaches into such areas as sales, purchasing, accounting, and inventory.”
The bottom line
By linking the broad document viewing and printing capabilities of AutoVue with the enterprise resource planning capabilities of the ERP system, Atlas-Stord has put in place a powerful yet easy to use solution that will serve the company well for years to come. “We are making knowledge not only visible, but also readily available across the organization. That’s probably the key reason why we are doing this,” says Pedersen. “In the long term, Atlas-Stord will realize a huge benefit from this new technology.” |