Inforay at Stork

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Company profile

Stork has a workforce numbering 13,000, of whom 10,000 are based in the Netherlands. Throughout the world the group supplies systems, components and provides services in the following five core areas: textile and other printing, poultry processing and convenience food, aviation and space travel, and industrial components and engineering services. These operations are performed in 50 operating companies spread over some 80 centers.

Problem

The Corporate Procurement department at Stork enters into contracts with suppliers for the entire group covering matters such as facility supplies, amongst others, as well as raw materials such as metal, and industrial maintenance equipment. The operating companies have a duty to make use of these group-wide procurement contracts as far as possible. Targets have been linked to this, in respect of which people are held to account.

In the past the procurement figures were supplied by the operating companies on a floppy disk and loaded into a corporate application. The head office then made them available to the operating companies again. Because of this, the Stork companies only had a limited insight into their procurement figures. It was also a lengthy and difficult process.

Solution

Since the beginning of 2003 all 50 of Stork’s operating companies have been using Inforay business monitors to track, analyze, and adapt their procurement patterns. There are a total of 150 users, mainly buyers and also a number of controllers.

Now the operating companies enter their own figures and they and the head office can view these in Inforay much sooner. In addition, the figures are recognizable and are consequently accepted. If one clicks on the degree of participation, a list of suppliers of each commodity is displayed. Clicking on a supplier will even retrieve the relevant invoicing details. If the degree of participation is 80%, you can see what the remaining 20% is made up of and whether that can be changed. As a user you therefore not only have a list, but you can also zoom in to examine the details.

To the Corporate Procurement Department Inforay is really an analytical tool. It enables them to analyze the buying pattern and figures. The data used in Inforay is updated after each month is closed out. The business monitors contain the sales figures for each supplier and commodity, and the degree of participation involving the group contracts.

Results

Inforay business monitors provide the users with access to rather detailed information to enable them to change their buying patterns. In addition, Inforay enables Corporate Procurement to analyze buying pattern and figures. The data in Inforay is recognizable for everyone and therefore no longer open to discussion. Also, for the application administrators it is very easy tot extend the existing business monitors with new database connections, making it possible to quickly fill changing information needs.

Success factors

• Everyone is talking about the same figures.

• The figures are easily recognizable and are also easy to trace.

• Inforay was selected because it is so user-friendly and can be distributed very easily to users in all 50 operating companies.

• The great speed with which both new business monitors can be created and existing ones modified.

• The structure of the information model that Inforay uses, very closely matches the business’s information requirements.

• The monitor was ready within a lead time of one month.

• Those people who wish to conduct a more extensive analysis, can do so themselves after they have attended a day-long training course at Inforay. You do not need a technician for this and that saves a lot of time.