Customer story: On the road to efficiency and innovation - the introduction of SpareParts365 at Gerhard Dücker GmbH & Co. KG
Introduction
Our family-owned company based in Stadtlohn specializes in machines for the environmental, landscape maintenance and agricultural sectors. We are one of the leading suppliers of front slope mowers. The product range includes universal mowers, universal side mowers, verge mowers, embankment mowers and mower combinations. It also includes branch and hedge trimmers, hedge trimmers, sweepers and verge cutters.
Our customers include federal authorities, state agencies, municipal and city administrations, contractors and farmers. Sales are handled by a network of dealerships in Germany as well as Unimog general agencies and agricultural machinery dealers. Various sales partnerships exist in Europe. The foreign share is 20%.
The company was founded in 1904 and initially manufactured hay blowers, hay tedders and grain mills. We currently employ around 130 people and have an annual turnover of 35 million euros. Today, Mr. Christian Dücker is the fourth generation to manage the business
The challenge
The electronic spare parts catalog, which had served faithfully for years, was no longer future-proof. With an outdated system that no longer met the requirements and offered no possibility for online publication, a solution was urgently needed. However, the biggest hurdle was not only the technological change, but also the transfer of data from the old system and the switch to automated processes. This resulted in the following core requirements, which the new system had to fulfill in any case:
- Online publication of spare parts catalogs
- Migration of the existing old catalogs to the new solution
- Extensive automation of the processes for creating and maintaining the data
- Possibility of creating serial number-related catalogs and selecting the appropriate catalog by entering serial numbers.
The decision
After a thorough examination of the available options, SpareParts365 was chosen. The main reasons for this decision were
- Integrated portal solution
- Cloud version available as SaaS (Software as a Service)
- No investment required thanks to subscription model
- Low implementation and operating costs
- No duplicate data maintenance
- Modern and intuitive “look & feel”
- Low-risk entry into the project possible
This innovative software solution not only promised a solution to current problems, but also a future-proof platform for the company. From the integrated portal solution to the intuitive user interface, SpareParts365 offered everything Gerhard Dücker GmbH & Co. KG needed to provide its customers with quick and easy access.
The implementation
Once the decision had been made, the company began with the implementation. The first step was to convert the data from the existing system and provide an online catalog whose content corresponded 1:1 to the old catalog. In the meantime, Dücker began converting the processes for data maintenance so that the first test data could be generated from the ERP system. Once the decision had been made not to invest any internal effort in converting data, the development of a pre-processor was commissioned, which converted the existing data from ERP, design and documentation into the SpareParts365 import format.
The results
Finally, the moment of truth had arrived: The go-live of SpareParts365 at Gerhard Dücker GmbH & Co. KG. The new possibilities offered to the employees were impressive:
- Selecting a catalog via a product structure or via the serial number
- Use of the new, automatically created serial number-related catalogs for newly produced devices, as well as the old, converted catalogs for older devices
- Display of additional documents and price information
- Collection of the required spare parts in a shopping cart, with the option of sending an e-mail inquiry to Dücker’s spare parts sales department via a fully-fledged store function
From simple navigation in the catalog, serial number-related catalogs, to fast and error-free ordering of spare parts – SpareParts365 made it possible. Catalog creators also benefit from simplified data maintenance and automated processes:
- The data required for the spare parts catalog is maintained entirely in proALPHA, avoiding inconsistencies and transmission errors.
- In addition to standard catalogs for the individual product types, serial number-related catalogs are generated using the product files from proALPHA so that the customer can find a spare parts catalog that corresponds exactly to the construction status of their machine.
- This significantly reduced the time and effort required for catalog creation and maintenance.
The company was ready for a new era of efficiency and innovation in the spare parts business.
Conclusion:
The task of transferring all the required information from the existing system without losing any data proved to be challenging, but could be achieved with manageable effort.
Setting up and configuring the online solution with SpareParts365 required surprisingly little effort. The functionalities required to identify and order spare parts easily and without errors are available in the SpareParts365 portal solution and are intuitive to use.
Operating the portal as a cloud solution has major advantages compared to in-house operation. There is no need to spend time and money on setting up, operating and maintaining a corresponding infrastructure or to build up and maintain the necessary expertise. Using the subscription variant of SpareParts365 also enabled a risk-free start to the project.
Once again, the internal challenge proved to be adapting the necessary processes for data maintenance and successfully integrating the employees concerned.
How it continued:
After a short test phase with selected factory representatives in Germany and abroad, the spare parts portal was made generally available to our dealer network. In addition, every purchaser of a machine now has limited access to the catalog data as a guest, which was quickly and easily implemented using the SpareParts365 authorization concept with role model. Thanks to the intuitive operation, user acceptance was high right from the start and use of the ordering option increased rapidly.
This led to a noticeable reduction in the workload of our spare parts sales staff and reduced the error rate when entering orders by 15%. Our specialist dealers’ workshops in particular now appreciate being able to view the assemblies and machines in a 3D model. This is often a valuable aid in the identification and assembly of spare parts.
