Columbus completed the project of upgrade IT infrastuktury in Uhrenholt-Russia company

Continuously growing business scale Uhrenholt-Russia demanded optimization of the information environment providing efficiency of business processes and control over the state of affairs in the company. The being available IT tools did not cope fully with all volume of tasks that led to the decision on implementation of the single integrated system.

First of all Uhrenholt-Russia was required to provide the high accuracy of sales planning and purchases, to automate processes of approval and control of payments, to maintain optimum level of warehouse stocks and to manage pricing. As an optimal solution the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform giving a broad set of opportunities for the comprehensive analysis and management of different components of business was selected. And the partner Uhrenholt-Russia on this project became the Columbus company having rich experience of successful work with the business products Microsoft Dynamics.

Within the first stage of implementation the issues connected taking into account fixed assets and intangible assets, personnel office-work, payrolls and compensations were resolved. In a new ERP system there were all necessary data on acceptance, transfers and dismissals of employees, time keeping of working time, calculation of the PIT, holidays and sick-lists is kept, recalculation of charges and deduction for the last periods, formation of pay-sheets and some other opportunities are available. Besides, reference books of divisions, employees and positions were developed and unified.

Commenting on the project course, the Chief information officer Uhrenholt-Russia Dudnikov Alexey noted: "Upgrade of the IT-system became the imminent solution symbolizing a new stage in work of our company. The Microsoft Dynamics AH system was the optimal response to those requests which arose during our work recently. Cooperation with Columbus IT completely meets our expectations, and we are sure that results of works will allow to strengthen even more Uhrenholt-Russia the leader positions in the market"

the Project is complete in 2012

During the second stage the project team started a financial and logistic circuit of a system. The solution Columbus on the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform optimized sales management, stocks and purchases, settlings with clients and suppliers, provided full conducting accounting, tax accounting and also reporting under RAS.

"Regarding sales management we obtained quick access to relevant data to current orders, we can quickly calculate complete product cost with all overheads, consider retrobonuses, analyze data on a remaining balance, make diagrams of shipment. Daily in a system more than 1000 orders are processed. Required goods quantity in a warehouse taking into account expiration dates and the model of selection specified for the client is reserved automatically. Accounting of planned dates of shipment allows us to execute first of all urgent orders, and then to automatically make out reserves on others, including earlier created orders", - Alexey Dudnikov noted.

In turn, integration with EDI allows to simplify process of a design and approval of orders of clients of the company, in particular, by large retail networks for which existence of EDI is the integral condition of cooperation.

As a result of implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX Uhrenholt-Russia improved management of all cycle of purchasing activity and merchandising, ensuring control of purchase prices became especially important task. At order placement data from price lists of suppliers and their discounts are loaded into a system automatically, and after product acceptance from the supplier contrastive analysis of the prices of price lists with the actual prices in delivery notes is carried out.

The new ERP solution contains reliable and up-to-date information about products remaining balance in a warehouse by commodity nomenclatures and batches – with indication of issue date, expiration dates, weight and dimensional characteristics and other data. Integration with the WMS system provided more accurate accounting of the shipped products, time of reconciliation of data on stock balance was reduced from several to 15 o'clock minutes, the procedure of inventory also became simpler.

Not less important components of the new Microsoft Dynamics AX system are instruments of summary planning. The solution Uhrenholt-Russia allows to make purchase plans of products in the short-term and long-term periods on the basis of the sales plan taking into account current orders and customer needs, stock balance.

"For each order for shipment of Microsoft Dynamics AX automatically creates a necessary set of the accompanying documentation, including veterinary certificates, certificates and references, commodity-transport delivery notes, invoices, route sheets. We managed to reduce products delivery costs by 38%", - Dudnikov Alexey adds.

"Expiration dates of goods in a warehouse and existence of veterinary accompanying documents are controlled tightly. If the packet of necessary certificates and certificates is absent in the accounting system, the batch is blocked for sale", - Denis Kosenkov, the manager of projects of Columbus reported. Besides, the company purchased new opportunities for rendering services of safe custody. For this purpose specialists of Columbus implemented in the ERP system simultaneous accounting, selection and routing of orders for products Uhrenholt-Russia and also products which are on safe custody. The solution allowed to increase sharply quality control of the shipped orders and to minimize expenses on returns of products.

Using the treasurer module which is specially developed by specialists of Columbus, the financial department Uhrenholt-Russia managed to organize more effective management of cash flows. The solution locates all necessary means for planning, approval and control of execution of payments, allows to create payment orders based on the approved requests for payment and to export them to a system the client bank. Account managers Uhrenholt-Russia also quickly receive data on the status of client payments and can flexibly manage credit limits, thereby warning overdue payments of partners and growth of their debt.

Within the project specialists of Columbus unrolled the client portal equipped with all necessary tools for round-the-clock operation of the company with customers. This solution is especially relevant for regional retail networks. The client portal allows to issue the purchase order of products Uhrenholt-Russia in a few minutes, in the online mode to keep track of the status of its accomplishment, to receive certificates of conformity and product qualities, to keep the reporting under settlement.

Result

The complex ERP solution created by specialists of Columbus allowed to reach Uhrenholt-Russia qualitatively new interoperability layer with clients and partners, to provide profit increase of the company and to get additional competitive advantages regarding assortment management, pricing and merchandising.