Beiersdorf-Jobst
Glovia Supports Medical Hosiery
Common complaints such as varicose veins and leg ulcers have a relatively low priority amongst the health services of the world. Yet they cause untold distress for millions of people. For a few, there are surgical remedies; but for many others the only relief is provided by medical hosiery. To alleviate the suffering of such people, Beiersdorf-Jobst manufactures a range of vascular stockings and wound care products.
The parent company, Beiersdorf AG- based in Hamburg, Germany - acquired Jobst in 1990, and the company now has its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. It also has manufacturing operations in Europe, Asia, and Australia. Altogether, Beiersdorf-Jobst employs just under 700 people and generates an annual revenue of approximately $80 million. It is the market leader for compression hosiery, and the first choice of physicians throughout the US.
Beiersdorf-Jobst produces both custom made and ready-to-wear hosiery and it operates in a highly competitive business environment. To maintain its strong market position, the company has to keep its costs to a minimum and fulfill customer orders without delay. Computer-aided design and computer-integrated manufacturing systems help to streamline the whole process and give Beiersdorf-Jobst a competitive edge.
The company's relationship with Glovia dates back to 1992. "It was the most cost effective solution we could find," says David Madanski, Systems and Programming Manager at Beiersdorf-Jobst.
Made-to-measure
Beiersdorf-Jobst's Glovia application, glovia.com, runs with Oracle on two RS6000 systems - one for development and one for production. Altogether there are around 450 named users in the company, of whom 150 or so will be using the system concurrently.
"Over the years we've had to customize glovia.com because of our made to measure garments. A standard manufacturing company doesn't have to deal with all these subtle variations of size and shape. The customization is very easy to do in fact, and we've also designed our own systems for rebates, contract administration, sales analysis and distribution. It's a paperless operation and it's integrated with, and fully controlled by, glovia.com."
The company evaluated other ERP packages before finally settling for Glovia.
"These other packages were very cost prohibitive in the US, for a company our size," says Madanski. "And we'd have had to change the way we run our business. glovia.com is very flexible and we can modify it to fit our business needs. Not the other way round. If our managers or directors want to change a process or improve a system, they know we can do it. That's a major advantage."
e-commerce
One of the big imponderables for many organizations is e-commerce. The question is not if but when to implement e-commerce. So far Beiersdorf-Jobst has adopted a wait and see policy. "After Y2K was over there was a big buzz in the industry about e-business, but our customers aren't yet demanding it," says Madanski. "So the management view was to let the market shake itself out and the software mature a little. We've now looked at the Glovia product and we were very impressed by the demo. It's fully integrated, yet you can tailor it to your own needs and add or drop fields as necessary. We expect to move rapidly on this front during the year."
The integration aspect is particularly important as it means there's no need to duplicate data on a Web server or to download pricing and business rules. With glovia.com, customers have direct access to live data. It saves effort and avoids the effort of synchronizing different sets of data. "From what I've seen, Glovia's e-commerce offering is a very strong product," adds Madanski. "And the company is very aware of the market and its customers, so they regularly provide upgrades that address our business needs."
Paperless Operation
One of Beiersdorf-Jobst's long term strategies is to extend the paperless principle to the whole organization. It is currently working on a document management project in its Toledo plant, which handles patients' measurements, doctors' prescriptions and all other order-related data. "We're trying to capture it electronically as it comes in, using fax servers, scanners and other technology, and then integrating it with glovia.com," says Madanski.
He also envisages using Glovia for sales force automation (SFA) and for customer relationship management (CRM). By having the database fully integrated within the Glovia system it will be simpler and far less expensive to implement applications such as CRM and SFA. "This will strengthen our customer relationships as we'll be able to respond globally as a company, so that everyone who has contact with a customer will be able to pull up current and historical data instantly. They'll also have direct access to any notes made by the field sales people. It's all about personal service and responsiveness - and that's what gives us a competitive edge."
Streamlined Operation
From a business perspective, the principal benefits of glovia.com have been the streamlining of internal processes and procedures. Headcount has been reduced and direct data entry means that the inventories are updated in real time, and they are always accurate. This is very different from legacy batch processing systems, where the customer files, inventory and balances inventory are updated overnight.
Post sales service and support from Glovia has been excellent according to Madanski. They are now in the midst of an upgrading project and his people exchange e-mails with Glovia almost daily. The response is both positive and rapid. "They've also provided in-house training on some of the Oracle and PROIV Superlayer programming tools, and we rate it very highly.
"Overall, I'd say that Glovia does what we want. And if we need to change anything, such as screen displays or report formats, we can customize it very easily," says Madanski.
But in the end, what counts more than anything else with Madanski is reliability. "The system never crashes," he says. "We've been on the old version for almost eight years and now we are upgrading without any problems. What's more it supports growth, multi-currency operations and e-commerce, so it's the ideal platform for the future."