Download the Case Study

The post DHL Freight appeared first on ERP Today.

Faced with a fragmented IT landscape, the challenge of retaining knowledge amid personnel turnover, and the increasing complexity of its projects, the company embarked on an ambitious transformation program aptly named Founding the Future. At the heart of this initiative lies the implementation of IFS Cloud, a strategic move designed to create a unified, future-proof backbone for the entire organization.

In conversation with ERP Today, Ralph Staal, Program Manager for the IFS implementation at Van Oord, shed light on the strategic imperatives that led the organization to embark on this journey.

“A couple of years ago, we knew we had to focus on leveraging the data we create daily,” Staal explained. “However, we struggled to translate that into proper initiatives that harmonize our application landscape and secure the foundational business processes in finance, procurement, and supply chain, especially on the project side.”

Addressing Complexity

A key driver was the evolving nature of Van Oord’s work and workforce as their projects became increasingly complex. Compounding this was the attrition of personnel as they take a lot of knowledge with them, making it imperative for Van Oord to set up a system that can institutionalize this valuable experience.

“By implementing a degree of standardization, we would have a way to retain knowledge and use that for our future projects to create better budgets, designs, and forecasts,” Staal said.

The desire to be more data-oriented was also paramount, with Staal emphasizing the practical need “to make sure we have the right data at the right time with the right person looking at it to take the right decision.”

A Strategic Fit

Given these goals, a simple cloud migration wouldn’t do for Van Oord; it was a ground-up implementation that also included replacing a legacy finance system. Van Oord is already a construction and engineering customer for IFS and after a thorough selection process, IFS Cloud, emerged as the clear choice for its maritime business too. “IFS really stood out,” Staal recounted. “We found that IFS had the best understanding of how contracting projects work; in terms of terminology and functionality, we just found that they were a good fit for our industry.”

IFS Success has really helped us make sure that we made the right decisions. – Ralph Staal, Program Manager for IFS implementation at Van Oord

The platform’s balance between standardization and flexibility was also appealing. “IFS is configurable, but it’s not extremely customized,” Staal observed, adding, “We’re trying to stick to standard as much as possible.”

According to Staal, the move toward the cloud was logical. “When we roll out the solution, we want to have one that is connected, reusable, and scalable,” he confirmed.

Navigating the Implementation Journey

Implementing a new ERP across a global, project-centric organization is inherently challenging. Van Oord faced hurdles like migrating from an extremely fragmented application landscape, establishing data and process ownership in an environment where these concepts were relatively new, and aligning numerous stakeholders across traditional organizational silos.

“Aligning with all the stakeholders so that we don’t face resistance later is the real challenge,” Staal admitted. Adding to the complexity, Van Oord is simultaneously implementing other major systems, like Workday and new planning solutions, requiring careful coordination and integration.

When Staal spoke with ERP Today in April, the project was nearing a major milestone. “We are at the final stages of the acceptance phase and will begin the user acceptance test phase for our first release in two weeks,” he shared. “Our first real entity will go live in June.”

Throughout this complex process, Van Oord has leveraged IFS Success—an engagement model delivering the knowledge and tools for customers to realize their true, long-term business potential. Staal noted that IFS Success “has really proven its worth, helping with explaining the best practices, doing design validations, and providing guidance on critical decisions.”

He added: “IFS Success has really proven its worth in the past year and half. [The] Customer Success Manager could look at some of the things we’re missing in our project and utilize IFS Success to provide that value to our project and our organization and that came in many different forms.”

“IFS Success has really helped us make sure that we made the right decisions,” Staal affirmed adding that he expected IFS Success to continue playing a large role in helping the company set up future support organization.

It’s about people working in a solution; not a solution dictating how people should work.

Future Focus

Van Oord expects significant benefits once the system is up and running in H2 this year. Technically, scalability and the ability to stay current with IFS updates by adhering to standards are key. For the business, Staal expected “better decision making through rolled-up data and insights, enhanced collaboration between the departments, and greater efficiency via reduced manual work, leading to faster financial closing and fewer errors.” Improved procurement cycle times and supplier performance management are also major targets.

Crucially, IFS Cloud also provides a foundation for future innovation. “As soon as we have this solid foundation in place, we can shift our focus [to] more innovative developments on top of our cloud solutions,” Staal said, hinting at future explorations like AI, enhanced sustainability tracking, and Quality, Health, Safety, Environment (QHSE) modules within IFS.

The Human Element

However, Staal emphasized that technology is only part of the equation. Effective change management, handled by a dedicated stream within the program using tools like a change network of ambassadors, remains critical. The biggest challenge is embedding ownership within the business itself. “The business is also taking ownership of what we deliver because the change will happen in the department. It will not happen in the project,” he explained.

Reflecting on the broader lessons learned, Staal concluded, “The real challenge is to really step away, and not so much look at a solution, but at how you work together and what you want to achieve together. In the end, it’s about people working in a solution, not a solution dictating how people should work.”

What This Means for ERP Insiders

Industry-specific cloud ERP is the norm for complex sectors. The market for cloud ERP is expected to hit around $74 billion by 2029, growing over 12% annually. However, the real momentum for companies in asset-intensive, project-driven sectors like Van Oord lies in industry-specific cloud solutions. While manufacturing leads overall ERP adoption, specialized providers gain traction because they embed deep domain knowledge, relevant KPIs, and pre-configured processes like complex project accounting or asset lifecycle management out-of-the-box. Van Oord’s selection explicitly hinged on finding a vendor that truly understood the contracting world and project core, which is why it chose IFS. Generic solutions often require heavy, risky customization to meet these unique demands, whereas industry-focused platforms like IFS Cloud offer a faster path to value and align better with specific operational needs.

Balance control, integration, and vendor alignment. Companies like Van Oord operate globally, often in remote locations, manage high-value assets, and handle complex projects, making their enterprise application strategy critical. When considering hybrid cloud ERP, key decision criteria include data governance & security, integration complexity, edge capabilities, and vendor industry focus. For the latter, for example, IFS focuses on asset-intensive, project-centric, and service-focused organizations in sectors like Construction, Energy, Utilities, Aerospace & Defense, Manufacturing, and Maritime. Aligning your needs with a vendor’s core competency reduces implementation risk and ensures the platform evolves with relevant industry capabilities.

Foster supply chain resilience amid volatility. Near-term factors like shifting tariffs highlight the need for supply chains built for resilience, not just static efficiency. Organizations should, therefore, expect their Cloud ERP provider to offer capabilities like unified visibility, scenario modeling, sourcing flexibility, and agile execution. For instance, Babcock International (Energy & Marine) leverages IFS as a full ERP across complex, multi-billion-dollar projects (like aircraft carrier construction and nuclear submarine maintenance). They have completed over 4,630 projects using IFS, relying on it as their “single point of truth” for managing materials, costs, labor, and asset maintenance across 12,000 users. Similarly, Royal IHC (Maritime) successfully consolidated 17 disparate legacy ERP systems into a single global IFS instance across 37 operating units in just 2.5 years, achieving significant standardization and efficiency gains.

The post Charting a New Course: Van Oord Builds its Future on IFS Cloud appeared first on ERP Today.

Various integration and consulting services have supported SNCF Réseau in major changes, audit actions and the appropriation of new uses by users.

At the end of 2023, to optimize HARMONIS maintenance activities, the DGNUM has decided to entrust them to a single integrator in a Skills Center.

Innovations under the sign of agility

The arrival of Inetum in November 2023 marked a new stage with the implementation of a team made up of varied and complementary profiles.

“There was still room for improvement in terms of monitoring developments and comitology,” recalls Arnaud Maillard, ServiceNow Business Unit Manager at the DGNUM. “Requests for changes to the Harmonis platform were arriving by e-mail, with errors in prioritization or arbitration”.

“We now have a work methodology that enables us to industrialize thanks to an agile organization with 2-week iterations,” stresses Armelle Fichou, Sales specialist ServiceNow at Inetum.

This agile method is accompanied by a new, structured comitology. Communication is also progressing with the “HARMONIS Café”, biannual events where the team presents the latest major developments and new features. “A café area on the SNCF Réseau website is temporarily mobilized to present various workshops on themes related to the tool, to attract users and get their feedback”, explains Arnaud Maillard.

One year on, the results are in. “From the moment we introduced a centralized approach, and the agile method for managing changes, these new features have been fairly well accepted,” confirms Arnaud Maillard.

Particular attention was also paid to the quality of the data in the CMDB. “There used to be a certain mistrust of the CMDB, but this has been overcome by the work carried out by the HARMONIS Skills Centre,” says the SNCF Réseau project manager with satisfaction.

AI, the next step

Standardization remains a priority. “As an integrator at Inetum, a major challenge is to make every effort to return to the standards of the ServiceNow platform to better meet needs, and then to enrich its use once this basis has been respected,” explains Armelle Fichou. “And that’s just the beginning. The next logical step, for example, would be to think about improving the service with AI.”

An example of a possible application for application user support management. “We’re in the process of setting up a virtual agent,” reveals Arnaud Maillard. “They use a knowledge base available in another tool interfaced with HARMONIS. We plan to transfer this base to the HARMONIS platform; but rather than simply migrate it, we’re going to set up new ways of accessing this knowledge via a virtual agent, a chatbot.”

The post SNCF Réseau modernizes its IT management: how Inetum contributes to the implementation of ServiceNow appeared first on ERP Today.

Warehouse automation benefits

From autonomous robots to AI-powered systems, automation provides warehouses with the efficiency and productivity needed to strengthen the supply chain. Businesses can gain considerably by implementing automation in their warehouses. Some of these benefits include:

Faster Order Fulfillment: Automated systems like conveyors, sorters, and robots move and process orders with speed and accuracy, leading to faster delivery times and improved customer satisfaction. Faster order fulfillment leads to quicker delivery times, improving customer satisfaction.

Reduced Order Picking Time: Picking solutions like goods-to-person systems minimize the time spent searching for and retrieving items, increasing overall productivity. Moreover, warehouses can handle more orders with the same or fewer resources.

Lower Costs: Organizations can reduce their reliance on manual labor, lowering labor costs and improving cost-effectiveness. Automated systems are less prone to human error, reducing the costs associated with incorrect orders, damaged goods, and inventory discrepancies.

Improved Space Utilization and Safety: Storage automation like AS/RS (Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems) can maximize warehouse space utilization, reducing the need for larger facilities. By mechanizing repetitive and physically demanding tasks, automation can improve workplace safety for employees, reducing the risk of injuries.

Improved Inventory Visibility and Accuracy: Real-time tracking of inventory movement and location allows for better inventory management, minimizing stockouts and overstocking. Automated systems also provide accurate and up-to-date inventory data, improving the overall accuracy of inventory records.

The rise of WMS

Still, streamlining and optimizing every aspect of warehouse operations can pose a problem, especially if an organization uses different automation processes. Software solutions like WMS can help integrate various automation systems to streamline a warehouse’s processes.

Companies like Tecsys partner with warehousers to provide a robust WMS that seamlessly integrates with various automated equipment and technologies. Tecsys WMS can integrate with a wide range of automated systems, including conveyors, AS/RS, sorting Systems, robotics, and Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs). It also incorporates Warehouse Control System (WCS) functionality to:

• Control and coordinate the movement of automated equipment.
• Optimize equipment utilization and throughput.
• Monitor and track the performance of automated systems.

What this means for ERP insiders: 

• Integrating automation technologies into a WMS can help organizations gain real-time visibility and control of their warehouse operations. It enables them to track goods throughout the supply chain, identify and resolve bottlenecks, and proactively adjust and optimize warehouse performance.
• Organizations can also increase their throughput, reduce order fulfillment times, minimize labor costs, while boosting their workforce’s productivity by automating repetitive tasks. Automating with a WMS also enhances accuracy and improves inventory management.
• In essence, WMSs, like the ones provided by Tecsys, act as the central nervous system for automated warehouses, orchestrating the movement of goods and ensuring smooth and efficient operations.
• Automation technologies like WMS also use AI, which is poised to transform how supply chains operate. Participating in research like this survey from SAPinsider can help organizations compare their current positions on the AI and automation journey with their peers.

The post Unleashing efficiency: How a WMS cuts cost and improves accuracy in warehousing appeared first on ERP Today.