CREALIS® simplifies business processes

Toyota Material Handling Deutschland GmbH (TMHDE) is optimising the tender process by introducing the standardised sales configurator for the three sales pillars: direct sales, key account and independent dealers

TOYOTA MATERIAL HANDLING DEUTSCHLAND GMBH

Toyo­ta Mate­ri­al Hand­ling Deutsch­land (TMHDE) with head office in Isern­ha­gen near Han­no­ver is the local repre­sen­ta­ti­ve of the world‘s lar­gest manu­fac­tu­rer of trucks, Toyo­ta Indus­tries Cor­po­ra­ti­on. TMHDE offers the BT and Toyo­ta brand trucks and cor­re­spon­ding ser­vices through dual field sales. The pro­duct ran­ge extends from hand pal­let trucks to trac­tors and for­k­lifts with all kinds of dri­ve through to warehouse manage­ment sys­tems.

THE CHALLENGE

Toyo­ta Mate­ri­al Hand­ling Deutsch­land has a clo­se­ly mes­hed sales net­work, which includes six Toyo­ta Stap­ler Cen­ters, eight branch offices and 17 dea­lers. Sin­ce 2016 warehouse tech­ni­que equip­ment and other pro­ducts can be purcha­sed via online shop.
In 2011 the idea deve­lo­ped of intro­du­cing one pro­duct con­fi­gu­ra­tor for dif­fe­rent pro­duct types with their vari­ants and repla­cing the exis­ting coll­ec­tion sys­tems. The con­fi­gu­ra­tor is to be available online and off­line. Decis­i­on makers con­side­red it to be very important that the truck data can be model­led and updated very fle­xi­bly in-house and wit­hout any exter­nal assis­tance. This rela­tes to incor­po­ra­ting tech­ni­cal modi­fi­ca­ti­ons or pri­ce increa­ses as well as adding new types of equip­ment.

THE PROCESS

The pro­ject was com­ple­ted using the ORISA con­fi­gu­ra­tor CREALIS®. This con­ta­ins know­ledge-based soft­ware tools to mana­ge pro­duct data and the con­fi­gu­ra­tor to con­fi­gu­re pro­ducts with a varie­ty of vari­ants. Staff from Toyo­ta were able to acqui­re their first prac­ti­cal expe­ri­en­ces model­ling a pro­duct during a joint preli­mi­na­ry pro­ject. The result was extre­me­ly posi­ti­ve, which led to the other models from the ran­ge on offer from TMHDE also being con­sis­t­ent­ly incor­po­ra­ted into the con­fi­gu­ra­tor. With the com­ple­ti­on of this model­ling work, 75 % of the dai­ly busi­ness can now alre­a­dy be pro­ces­sed using fast, fault-free and con­ve­ni­ent IT-aided ten­der pre­pa­ra­ti­on. It was obvious to also inte­gra­te Toyota‘s „Busi­ness Solu­ti­on“ division‘s are­as of respon­si­bi­li­ty, such as ser­vice, finan­cing and lea­sing, into the over­all solu­ti­on next. Other pro­ces­ses, such as the part exch­an­ge of used equip­ment, lea­sing cal­cu­la­ti­on and cre­dit check, were also inte­gra­ted par­al­lel to this. At the end of the pro­ject pha­se, the dif­fe­rent requi­re­ments dea­lers had of the con­fi­gu­ra­tor and the respec­ti­ve IT envi­ron­ments on site had to be con­side­red.

THE OUTCOME

Sales has been working ful­ly with the CREALIS® pro­duct con­fi­gu­ra­tor sin­ce April 2013, which quick­ly met with the employees‘ appr­oval. Fol­lo­wing the roll­out and initi­al expe­ri­ence with the pro­duct con­fi­gu­ra­tor in day-to-day busi­ness, the­re has been a clear qua­li­ty gain with offers and orders. A flaw­less offer is now rea­ching cus­to­mers in no time at all. The num­ber of queries
regar­ding sub­se­quent order pro­ces­ses also drop­ped rapidly. In addi­ti­on, rough­ly 94 % time is saved when pre­pa­ring an offer for seve­ral items of equip­ment inclu­ding their finan­cing. The sales of one pro­duct group was in fact almost dou­bled. Pri­ce manage­ment and the cre­dit appr­oval pro­cess are shown in full and in accordance with the dif­fe­rent requi­re­ments of dea­lers within the sales con­fi­gu­ra­tor. Dea­lers have a pro­duct con­fi­gu­ra­tor geared to their requi­re­ments at their dis­po­sal. Gene­ral­ly, both the con­fi­gu­ra­tor ver­si­ons use the same model data and basic pri­ces for the equip­ment. As a result, inde­pen­dent dea­lers are also able to quick­ly pro­vi­de their cus­to­mer with a ten­der at any time thanks to online and off­line access. 295 models are curr­ent­ly incor­po­ra­ted in the truck manu­fac­tu­rer‘ s pro­duct con­fi­gu­ra­tor at the moment, which are used to deter­mi­ne the pri­ce of used machi­nes. Rough­ly 240 model vari­ants can be sel­ec­ted using the con­fi­gu­ra­tor and orde­red at one of the Toyo­ta pro­duc­tion sites.

THE OUTLOOK

„Here in Ger­ma­ny we were the first Toyo­ta Mate­ri­al Hand­ling Euro­pe sales branch office to use this kind of con­fi­gu­ra­tor suc­cessful­ly and are the­r­e­fo­re assum­ing a cer­tain pio­nee­ring role,“ reports Ste­phan Kauf­mann.
„We are very hap­py as we have achie­ved our goals. With the assis­tance of the pro­duct con­fi­gu­ra­tor all the divi­si­ons and are­as of respon­si­bi­li­ty, such as long-term lea­sing, part-exch­an­ge of used equip­ment, cre­dit check and dis­coun­ting can be done in an online and off­line ver­si­on. In the mean­ti­me, approx. 15,000 data­sets are available for the pro­duct con­fi­gu­ra­tor.
The ori­gi­nal objec­ti­ve was to do 75 % of the ten­der pre­pa­ra­ti­on using the con­fi­gu­ra­tor, today we are in fact achie­ving more than 90% with the addi­tio­nal map­ping of the Busi­ness Solu­ti­on divi­si­on in the sys­tem. All that is left to con­clude is that we are very well posi­tio­ned for the future. Even more smal­ler are­as of respon­si­bi­li­ty can be impro­ved with the help of the con­fi­gu­ra­tor. For exam­p­le, we are thin­king about making our cus­to­mers offers for short-term lea­sing too. Sim­pli­fied hand­ling is being con­side­red in key accounts, e.g. the lis­ting of seve­ral lea­sed machi­nes in the key account busi­ness,“ sum­ma­ri­ses Gün­ter Simo­nis, Key Account Direc­tor and mem­ber of the exe­cu­ti­ve board at TMHDE.
Toyo­ta is plan­ning ano­ther poten­ti­al busi­ness with finan­cing in after-sales over the next few years. Cus­to­mers can expect a full ran­ge for equip­ment, ser­vice and finan­cing in future.

„The­re are signi­fi­cant time and cost savings as well as an increase of sales and com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness.“

- Gün­ther Simo­nis, Head of Key Account and mem­ber of the manage­ment board of TMHDE

The project in figures

94%

time saving in the offer pro­cess

90%

offer pro­ces­sing with the con­fi­gu­ra­tor

250

inter­nal and exter­nal user

49

inde­pen­dent dea­ler user

A summary of the customer benefits:

  • Huge time and cos­ts savings thanks to quick fea­si­bi­li­ty checks and
    ten­der pre­pa­ra­ti­on

  • Easy to modi­fy during the ten­der pha­se

  • Self-expl­ana­to­ry and simp­le to learn con­fi­gu­ra­tor ope­ra­ti­on

  • An appearance that wins over customer‘s trust

  • Huge time and cost savings wtithin sales and pro­duc­tion

  • Indi­vi­du­al­ly con­fi­gu­red repre­sen­ta­ti­on of any equip­ment ope­ra­ting hours