abas-User Report:
Hagsfelder Werkstätten & Wohngemeinschaften Karlsruhe gGmbH
Karlsruhe (D)
www.hwk.com

“For us its flexibility that counts” - Workshop for the handicapped relies on abas ERP

Anybody who thinks of workshops for handicapped persons as antiquated facilities, where simple products are produced with basic tools, is behind times. An excellent example: the Hagsfelder Werkstätten (HWK) in Karlsruhe, Germany. The modern, medium sized company employs about 1,100 at six different locations, of which 220 are in administration and 880 handicapped in the areas of production and services. In the ERP area, HWK relies on software and support from ABAS Software AG.

Workplace and habitat - This motto encompasses the central concern for the company foundation of the Hagsfelder Werkstätten. For handicapped people the active participation in our social work sphere is to be safeguarded and at the same time a habitat, tailored to their needs, ought to be created. The objectives of the workshop require an unusually broad spectrum of work areas, as for each disabled person a suitable job must be found and offered. “That necessary variety, which does not allow the concentration on one or two product lines and also requires the constant enhancement of our performance capabilities, is the biggest entrepreneurial challenge to HWK”, emphasizes CEO Norbert van Eickels. To reach these targets, sticking to free market parameters, the production and service company concentrates on the requirements and expectations of the customers. The right to this claim substantiated HWK in 1998 with the certification of the quality management to DIN ISO 9001, which was verified by the TÜV (Technical Supervisory Association) Southern Germany in autumn 2001.

Concentration on variety

The proximity of the ABAS AG, as a Karlsruhe company, to HWK was not the deciding factor for the selection of the ERP system. “It is splendid, when the partner lives just around the corner, but the determining point for the cooperation with the software house were the excellent references from medium sized production companies and the positive experiences with workshops for the handicapped persons. “It is splendid, when the partner lives just around the corner, but the determining point for the cooperation with the software house were the excellent references from medium sized production companies and the positive experiences with workshops for the handicapped, which ABAS brings along. The Südpfalzwerkstatt gGmbH, the Mariaberger Heime and the Geschützten Werkstätten Ges.mbH in Vienna rely with their business organization on the abas Business Software.

For an ERP provider, a company like HWK poses a challenge: Besides the problems with the numerous locations a large number of business areas has to be covered. Behind the description production and services, completely different company departments like assembly and packaging, furniture making and object construction, wood working, industrial metal processing, injection moulding of plastics, medical engineering, textile processing, gardening and landscaping as well as a crockery and tableware service. “We are reliable suppliers and often act as ‘extended workbench’ of our clients or purely as a service provider”, says van Eickels and continues: “Our customers attach importance to quality and adherence to delivery dates. Using abas Business Software we can guarantee both.”

A big challenge for the application of an ERP system are, besides the different business areas, the frequently changing products. “We are not a typical industrial enterprise with a definite range of products and fixed prices - we have to adapt flexibly to the orders position. This flexibility we also expect from a ERP system”, stresses the CEO.

Parting with old IT

In the past HWK relied in the area of medical engineering on SAP R/2, which covered warehouse management, production and financial accounting. For the people from Karlsruhe, this solution was a obsolescent model as the currency changeover to the Euro would have required a costly new version. Added on had to be the high operational and maintenance costs, as the software was supported by an external computer center. In all other business was in operation. “The necessity to link a reorganization of the company with a standardized ERP solution was obvious”, remembers van Eickels, who, as a former CEO of the Südpfalzwerkstatt (also a large workshop for handicapped persons) had made positive experiences with ABAS. “At that time we had ourselves intensively involved in the choice of an ERP system and decided on ABAS. The high adaptability of the system to the special requirements of a multifaceted production was convincing”, he stresses. “abas ERP guarantees a continuous, transparent data flow. The organizational standard reached through the software in the company keeps costs at a low level.” Based on this knowledge it was it was easy for him to support HWK during summer 2001, even before his actual start date at the company at the end of 2001, in their decision making process for ABAS. An ERP working group consisting of heads of departments and key users also recommended the system. It was planned to start with the new software in the medical engineering area on January 1st, 2002 - an ambitious target for the implementation of an ERP system within the framework of a company reorganization.

Step by step

Isochronous with the connection of the system in medical engineering, SAP/R2 was switched off. “We worked without a safety net as we were convinced that the changeover would be successful, we haddone intensive groundwork”, IT manager Joachim Fix sums up. An additional difficulty was that at the same time the upgrading of the IT infrastructure was necessary, especially the linking of the branch locations to the headquarters. “Besides a number of technical problems, a good performance was important for the ERP linkage”, explains Fix. The time pressure was immense. Although abas Business Software as a standard already covers many areas and tasks, further adjustments are necessary in such a diverse company as HWK. It was essential to analyse internal structures and processes. “We accomplished this with a small group of key users and heads of departments, as well as the management executives. Very positive from our point of view was the participation of the abas advisers. One can see, that they bring a host of experience with them and are able to introduce this know how into customer projects”, explains Fix. During the preparatory work and the following implementation of the ERP system the Karlsruher proceeded step by step: every business area was, one by one, analysed, structures optimized, data sorted and then taken into the ERP software. “A project of this size and in this time frame is best handled this way”, explains Fix and adds that the optimization process has not yet been completed. A big role was played by the data transfer from the previous operating system SAP R/2 and the access solution in the area of financial accounting. This part was carried out by the abas technicians with an excellent result - after the import of the database only a small amount of reworking was necessary. The abas Business Software was installed on a Linux server to which 150 clients are connected. Currently there are 25 licenses in use. In further stages of expansion these will be supplemented by further licenses. The different locations are linked to the server by DSL line (digital subscriber line), which allows a fast access to data and their processing. Meanwhile, HWK is using the abas Business Soft-ware in the areas of purchasing, scheduling, production, warehouse management, cost accounting and financial accounting. “It has been shown that the quality and flexibility of the software was as important for us as the know how and the commitment of the abas advisers”, summarizes CEO van Eickels.