In 1970 the Brothers Hüttenes KG Düsseldorf and the Albertuswerke GmbH in Hannover joined to form the largest, European special company for foundry resources: the Hüttenes-Albertus Chemische Werke GmbH Düsseldorf. The corporation, that yielded a turnover of 100 Mio. Euro in 2001, employs 400 workers today and it is represented with subsidiaries, joint-ventures and licensees in about 30 countries on 5 continents.

In addition to fixing agents based on synthetic resins, the range of products of the corporation includes ready-made cores, resources for pressure casting and chemical-metallurgical foundry products. Within the federation of these commercial enterprises, solutions for other market sectors are being developed: raw material for lacquering industry, fixing agents for grinding wheels, molding forms for electrical devices and other high-powered working materials.

In the course of converting to the Euro, the business management decided to introduce a new, integrated ERP-System to efficiently control the production processes at the sites in Düsseldorf and Hannover. The previous system had become inefficient and could not be further developed. „As many other mid-sized companies, we had an overgrown EDV- and Software-System, consisting of many individual components, which illustrated certain functionality. These systems were partially linked together via interfaces and partially not linked at all“, said Dieter Flegel, IT-Leader at Hüttenes-Albertus was the situation in 2000.
 

The selection process for a new ERP-System was opened in the same year. The selection was narrowed to SAP, CHARISMA from GUS and the standard software ORDAT.ERP. „Within the scope of a Key-User-Concept together with our users we performed the presentations of these providers with some of our own game data. In conclusion, we let our users take the decision in a corporate-internal selection procedure with the assistance of analysis matrices and weighting factors“, explained Mr. Flegel the selection process in December 2000. Together we decided to implement ORDAT.ERP.

The most important reason: the specifications of the HA-Group for an integrated ERP-solution were met to a great extent by the software. Additional arguments for the decision were an adequate price-performance relation, the clear arrangement of the program structures, a short, clearly-defined introductory phase, the customer-proximal further development of the system as well as the fact, that ORDAT offers system development and consulting from one source.

„The project could be clearly calculated at the onset“, reported Dieter Flegel. „ORDAT offered us a clear, transparent concept with a seriously calculated introduction budget, and the high degree of fulfillment of the ORDAT.ERP-Standards made numerous, significant adaptations superfluous.“ In the sector operating systems, Hüttenes-Albertus wanted to decide for itself between Unix and NT. The specifications of the corporation for stability and dependability as well as the required high amount of users spoke in favor of Unix in the team with Oracle RDBMS.

At the beginning of the introductory project, a difference product requirement specification with fine concepts was established by ORDAT together with Hüttenes-Albertus and priorities were determined. In June 2001 the implementation of the system was begun. Initially, the required adaptations of the system to the specifications of Hüttenes-Aalbertus were developed on site at ORDAT. Pertinent thereto was, e.g. an efficient container administration with consideration for inspections by the technical association, among others.

„Through the excellent cooperation with ORDAT we were able to perform our ambitious project absolutely according to plan in the shortest amount of time“, said IT-Leader Mr. Flegel. „The ORDAT project team not only assured a smooth procedure, but also demonstrated significant cost-cutting potential in the structuring of operations.“

Die Materialwirtschaft/Lagerverwaltung hat die Applikationen von ORDAT.ERP-MOBILE bei der Restrukturierung der Bestandsführung und Disposition genauso schätzen gelernt wie der Verkaufsinnendienst die Nutzung der ORDAT.ERP-Fax-Optionen von ORDAT.ERP-COMM. Mit der Verknüpfung von ORDAT.ERP und ANTARES, einem Business-Intelligence( BI )-System des ORDAT-Partners, wurde inzwischen auch eine Plattform für schnelle und flexible Auswertungen geschaffen. ORDAT adhered to a Key-User-Concept for the introduction, by which selected employees of the customer acquired essential competence in handling the system. The inclusion of remaining sites can be performed by Hütteness-Albertus on their own account.

With ORDAT.ERP, Hüttenes-Albertus is now using a uniform system for all functional areas, production sites and clients.

IT-Leader Mr. Flegel: „Through the integrated solution, our business procedures have become much more transparent, information flows more rapidly, the procedures are accelerated. The employees have extensive information about events in the entire corporation. The frequent telephone conversations or copies which occurred previously – for example in the shipping area – no longer apply.“

As complete solution, ORDAT.ERP offers an optimal integration of partial systems without any external systems. Client overlapping possibilities permit ideal transparency of material inventories and the flow of valuables for all companies of the HA-Group. An immediate consequence is the direct administration of consignment warehouses.

„It is our goal to fully and correctly met the specifications of our customers now and in the future“, summarized the general manager Rainer Hüttenes. „The experience to date with ORDAT have shown us, that we are on the right path.“ Therefore, after completion of the second implementation phase in the Spring of 2003, the remaining domestic and some foreign sites will be linked up with the ERP-System.

Back to the reference page