Global sales configurator with SAP® IPC

With the conversion of the SAP® IPC solution into a fully compatible offline version, it was possible to create a unique configuration system for STILL GmbH

Still MXX

STILL GMBH

STILL has long been one of the lea­ding sup­pli­ers of for­k­lift trucks, warehouse tech­no­lo­gy, plat­form trucks and trac­tors as well as the latest intra­lo­gi­stics sys­tems. With over 7,000 employees, four pro­duc­tion plants, 14 dea­ler­ships in Ger­ma­ny, 20 sub­si­dia­ry com­pa­nies abroad, plus a dea­ler net­work con­sis­ting of 246 dea­lers world­wi­de, STILL is suc­cessful­ly acti­ve on an inter­na­tio­nal sca­le. With the hig­hest qua­li­ty, relia­bi­li­ty and inno­va­ti­ve tech­no­lo­gy, STILL is mee­ting, today and in the future, the requi­re­ments of small, medi­um and lar­ge com­pa­nies.

THE TASK

For a for­k­lift truck, for exam­p­le, the­re are on avera­ge bet­ween 1.5 and 3.6 mil­li­on pos­si­ble com­bi­na­ti­on opti­ons for con­fi­gura­ble mate­ri­als. In addi­ti­on to the huge volu­mes of pro­duct-spe­ci­fic data, the­re is the issue of mul­ti­l­in­gua­lism, with 18 lan­guages and eight cur­ren­ci­es sup­port­ed at pre­sent. STILL has been suc­cessful­ly using SAP soft­ware to mana­ge cus­to­mer-spe­ci­fic requi­re­ments for many years. To com­ple­te its auto­ma­ted sales pro­ces­ses, STILL nee­ded a solu­ti­on
for inte­gra­ting exter­nal dea­lers and employees wit­hout MSA access. The task was to deve­lop a ful­ly com­pa­ti­ble off­line CD solu­ti­on sui­ta­ble for dis­tri­bu­ti­on, based on and in par­al­lel with the exis­ting in-house SAP con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on solu­ti­on.

THE PROCESS

The core of the off­line appli­ca­ti­on is the data­ba­se for saving the mas­ter data for the con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on model. To ensu­re fle­xi­bi­li­ty with regard to the instal­la­ti­on, the ORISA File Data­ba­se is used for the off­line ver­si­on. The data saved here is com­pa­ti­ble with the ori­gi­nal MS SQL Ser­ver. SQL com­mands are still used
to access to the ORISA File Data­ba­se. In addi­ti­on to fle­xi­ble instal­la­ti­on, the ORISA File Data­ba­se offers high-speed access com­bi­ned with low memo­ry requi­re­ments. The­se bene­fits are the result of opti­mi­sed access struc­tures and effec­ti­ve com­pres­si­on algo­rith­ms.

“We are very satis­fied with the imple­men­ted con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on solu­ti­on. The pro­found know­ledge of ORISA in terms of the SAP soft­ware has con­tri­bu­ted to this.“

- Ulf Schna­cken­berg, Mar­ke­ting, Team­lead Con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on Sys­tems STILL GmbH

THE OUTCOME

With the con­ver­si­on of the SAP® IPC solu­ti­on into a ful­ly com­pa­ti­ble off­line ver­si­on, it was pos­si­ble to crea­te a uni­que con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on sys­tem for STILL GmbH. The resul­ting appli­ca­ti­on based on SAP® IPC includes all data and pro­gram com­pon­ents for con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on within the off­line solu­ti­on. The appli­ca­ti­on runs wit­hout instal­la­ti­on and is dis­tri­bu­ted on CD to seve­ral
hundred PCs world­wi­de. STILL cho­se to dis­tri­bu­te updated CDs every quar­ter to ensu­re secu­re and relia­ble admi­nis­tra­ti­on and aut­ho­ri­sa­ti­on. ORISA also offers the opti­on of web-based dis­tri­bu­ti­on and updates. Only con­fi­gu­ra­ti­ons from the cur­rent CD are accept­ed by the hand­ling IT pro­ces­ses. Clear struc­tures and boun­da­ries for the crea­ted con­fi­gu­ra­ti­ons pre­vent pos­si­ble faults in the pro­cess
chains and exces­si­ve con­trol requi­re­ments. The con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on sys­tem archi­tec­tu­re is crea­ted in such a way that chan­ges are gene­ral­ly only imple­men­ted at the data level. To meet spe­cial con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on requests that are not cover­ed by the model, ORISA expan­ded the SAP con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on stan­dard.
If the cus­to­mer choo­ses spe­cial equip­ment for an opti­on, this opti­on is mark­ed for spe­cial tre­at­ment and can be descri­bed using free text. When the con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on result is trans­fer­red to the SAP® ERP sys­tem, the spe­cial tre­at­ment ins­truc­tions are reco­g­nis­ed and the descrip­ti­on of the spe­cial request is docu­men­ted and orga­nis­ed.

THE OUTLOOK

The inte­gra­ti­on of the exter­nal sales orga­ni­sa­ti­on, dea­lers who work with STILL in par­ti­cu­lar, into an over­all con­cept for the STILL con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on sys­tem pro­ved to be an instant suc­cess. The intui­ti­ve user inter­face, the high level of func­tion­a­li­ty, con­sis­ten­cy and trans­pa­ren­cy enable the com­pa­ny to respond
more effec­tively and pro­vi­de more relia­ble infor­ma­ti­on to cus­to­mers and increase com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness. The con­cept of the off­line con­fi­gu­ra­tor met the func­tion­al expec­ta­ti­ons of STILL with respect to hand­ling and imple­men­ta­ti­on of the sales con­cept.

The Project in figures

84

pro­duct groups and mar­ket-ori­en­ted exe­cu­ti­on of the pro­ducts

1,5 — 3,6 Mio

com­bi­na­ti­on pos­si­bi­li­ties of the con­fi­gura­ble mate­ri­als

14

lan­guages and six cur­ren­ci­es

> 720

user world­wi­de

>10

month until world­wi­de com­mis­sio­ning

Customer benefits at a glance

  • Cus­to­mi­sed adapt­a­ti­on of the exis­ting IPC solu­ti­on for opti­mum off­line ope­ra­ti­on

  • Off­line solu­ti­on easy to imple­ment and update

  • Can run on exter­nal PCs belon­ging to dea­lers

  • Bin­ding, accu­ra­te con­fi­gu­ra­ti­ons with repro­du­ci­b­le results

  • Stan­dar­di­sed quo­ta­ti­on pro­cess and auto­ma­tic docu­ment gene­ra­ti­on