Global manufacturer improves business process automation and transparency

Company Overview

WMF (Württembergische Metallwaren Fabrik AG) is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and retailers of design-driven table and kitchenware products. Based in Germany, WMF maintains a large network of retail outlets and an online store.

Business Challenge

When WMF first began exploring business process automation, it was seeking a way to optimize its order-to-cash processes so it could provide management with the latest financial and business data, easily, quickly, and securely. The company also needed to coordinate processes across its subsidiary companies, including the management, publishing and distribution of product sheets, reports, financial data, and other electronic documents. WMF wanted to move away from old-fashioned time-based job scheduling to comprehensive process automation. WMF was experiencing two challenges with their current job scheduling. One, they required “blackout” periods to calculate future schedules during which time no jobs could run. Two, they were unable to coordinate process automation in their UNIX environment. WMF investigated several solutions, none of which met their demands. Then, they discovered Redwood’s cloud-based IT and business process automation platform and Redwood Reporting.

Solution

WMF selected RunMyJobs by Redwood and Redwood Reporting solutions to optimize its order-to-cash processes. Together these solutions deliver an environment that provides management with easy and secure access to the latest financial data. The company dramatically reduced processing times and enabled fast responses to support long-term strategic IT growth for the business. Further, RunMyJobs by Redwood and Redwood Reporting now automate processes across all environments, including UNIX, and across all subsidiary companies. The solution also manages, publishes, and distributes product sheets, reports, financial data, and all other business critical documents. WMF can now prioritize certain daily ERP processes and restrict or throttle down lower-urgency end-user requests as needed. This ensures enough capacity is available on the SAP® system to deliver timely data and run mission-critical activities. WMF can then automatically reassign work to other SAP ERP systems by spreading the load over less used resources, optimizing hardware capacity.

Instead of the old-fashioned process of scheduling each event separately, Redwood’s “file events” feature initiates much of WMF’s report production and optimizes data distribution. Now the same event that triggers sales and inventory data processing can also initiate processes that convert reports to PDF, publish them to the report repository, and distribute them through email alert notification.

Results

Redwood enables WMF to manage complex processes that otherwise could not be executed by SAP’s reporting and automation capabilities. This integrated approach ensures alignment and clarity in day-to-day business.

• Visibility: With the correct transactional data in place, WMF can be confident that Redwood Reporting publishes and distributes relevant and up-to-date information.
• Flexibility: The company automates processes across disparate platforms and technologies.
• Reliability: WMF now has reliable warehouse product turnaround and accurate next-day replenishment.
• Consolidation: WMF’s entire global enterprise is coordinated and controlled from a single view—bringing together global subsidiaries and complex supply chains.