Inside-out: Fit for the future

Increasing customer requirements, business globalization and rapid changes in IT technology induced ProfilArbed in the mid-nineties to initiate a reinforcement of its market position and to reduce its costs. A detailed action plan enabling ProfilArbed to react quickly and flexibly to future requirements was set up. The project lasted several years and it is now completed with great success. The main steps were as follows: The customer order processing, so far splitted up in many responsibilities, was replaced by a new organization based on two contacts, the salesperson and the order manager, acting together as a sales binom. Order entry, order status, rolling schedules and documents are exchanged with the major customers via EDI-interfaces. The mini-mill concept with electric arc furnaces and continuous casting was introduced in all five plants. All production control systems were technically and functionally standardized and integrated into the commercial central order book. The mainframe based R/2 components RF (finance), RA (asset management) and RM (material management), together with the in-house developed cost controlling and project systems were migrated to SAP R/3 and afterwards converted to Euro. The in-house customer order processing systems were replaced by the SAP R/3 components SD (sales and distribution) and MM (material management). Based on these essential steps and following the strategy of "inside-out", ProfilArbed may face today's and tomorrow's challenges with confidence. Highly integrated and reliable business data can be exchanged with customers, suppliers and partners through state-of-the-art technologies.