C. Oostrom's Convervenfabrieken BV
Dutch food company drives business ahead by turning to Microsoft Dynamics NAV
C. Oostrom’s Conservenfabrieken (Coroos) preserves fruit and vegetables for a raft of leading European retailers, under private labels and the brand name Coroos. The Dutch company employs 250 people but the number doubles during the summer, as the harvesting season for many of its products begins. It operates from two major sites, in Kapelle and Geldermalsen. The company needed a financial and business management solution that was suitable for the Euro. Its previous software was geared towards old European currencies and did not provide much insight into vital business processes such as environmental and freight surcharges, packaging, and recipes. By turning to Microsoft Dynamics® NAV the company was able to gain a full insight into all of its processes from purchases through to delivery. Technology partner, Schouw Informatisering also developed specific solutions for each office. Together the solutions provided COROOS with penetrating insight into its business processes, enabling it to track, trace, and anticipate trends and streamline logistics processes.
Background
C. Oostrom’s Conservenfabrieken (Coroos) desperately needed a new IT solution. Its existing software was not suitable for Euro currency transactions and it did not have a detailed enough view into its own processes and inventory. Andries van Iwaarden, Information Technology Manager, Coroos says: "We supply the most important European food retailers in sixteen countries. Each customer wants to have their own label on the can or pot and we have a large range of products in stock for all these clients. As a result, we need to have perfect insight into the inventory so that we can plan our production accordingly." Coroos’s business is dictated by seasonal rhythms. For example, fresh peas, carrots, cherries and broad beans are harvested in June. These are preserved in jars or cans to be sold the following April. "For each of our clients we store enough inventory for a year that it is ready to ship. The labels go on when the order is made, so we plan production with an estimate in mind of what will be required. We always supply from stock. When a product is ordered it is immediately readied for delivery and often delivered in the same day.
"Nothing can afford to go wrong in this ordering and branding process because our logistics processes are very time sensitive. If something did go wrong, for example, the delivery times were inaccurate, within no time there will be a mass of lorries building up at our depots. This is why we needed a software solution that could provide us with consistent information about the inventory process across the whole organisation." Specifically the company wanted optimal insight into the status of sales contracts, deliveries and turnover rates. It wanted to enable all departments to be able to see product orders directly to ensure accurate production planning. Messaging between the departments was also important and to achieve this objective the company needed an EDI module that would integrate with any new solution in order to process messages much more quickly.
Solution
Following a careful evaluation of competing products Coroos chose Dynamics NAV. Andries van Iwaarden, says: "Dynamics NAV partners gave us a software demonstration and the functionality it provides fitted perfectly with the culture and processes of our business. We charged an existing technology partner, Schouw Informatisering (SI) to implement Dynamics NAV and develop further functionality such as EDI capability. For eight months, a project group worked exceedingly hard to add further functionality to the software for business specific needs to renew the hardware platform and to gather the company data and convert it onto the new system. Van Iwaarden, says: "The result was a very smooth implementation. Within 36 hours our two factories were running one database on a single hardware platform."
"Thanks to the transparency of the Dynamics NAV software and the use of a single database we are better equipped to provide the information required. We can also react faster, with more adequate and more detailed information." SI also developed a products ingredients module which was added to the company’s master file without any alterations. This enabled it to calculate new food contents lists which can be added to in the database if appropriate. This means employees no longer have to run around asking colleagues about product changes. This results in greater efficiency. Van Iwaarden, says: "Our employees took to Dynamics NAV very quickly and it’s a pleasure to see how these people who were very wary of computers a year ago are so enthusiastic about the system now. "Using Dynamics NAV as a fundamental component within our system SI has developed an incredibly flexible solution which is unique in its class. With Dynamics NAV as the core we now service almost all user requirements with the extra elements developed by SI. These developments are a great boon and have no adverse effect on the performance or functionality of Dynamics NAV. "For example, a sales and warehouse module enables us to process orders inconceivably quickly. And what’s more, the warehouse has better insight into the sales orders. We can start picking an order received by EDI within minutes of it being entered into our system. "We have made a good choice with Dynamics NAV and the solutions provided by SI and we anticipate that the Dynamics NAV based system is really going to drive our business forward in the future."
Benefits
Cost savings
Coroos is making significant annual savings because fewer mistakes are being made which leads to better decision making. Van Iwaarden says, "Thanks to Dynamics NAV we now have radically improved insight into our business processes as well as instant availability of real-time management information." Dynamics NAV can also be tailored to changing business circumstances. For example the installation of a new production line does not require new investments in Dynamics NAV. "Microsoft Dynamics simply grows with our business needs," says Van Iwaarden.
Time savings
Order entry time has been reduced by 40 percent since Coroos started using Dynamics NAV coupled to EDI. It has also led to a coherent structuring and overview of data about volumes, packaging and stacking. Van Iwaarden says, "Now that this data is much more clearly structured and easier to read, we are working much more efficiently."
Real-time information
Because managers can see the exact status of business processes they are far better placed to ensure that processes are running correctly.