"Tools for life" - under this slogan, the family-owned company GE-DORE has been manufacturing high-quality tools, special tools, and tailor-made solutions for diverse, safe, and professional use in industry and trade since 1919. To reduce the high manual share in sales and demand planning, the family-owned company from Remscheid decided to use REMIRA TIA A3 software for Sales & Operations Planning.
The goals using the S&OP software are clearly defined: Improvement of the forecast key figures, a higher frequency of stock turnover, more transparency, and ultimately a higher delivery reliability and satisfaction among the more than 4,000 customers of the tool manufacturer. This is made possible by the self-learning forecasting processes in TIA A3, which contribute to optimized sales planning. "In this way, we will avoid slow-moving items in the future and significantly reduce the overall workload in sales planning. In TIA, we can also compare the planning with the originally set annual plan and derive a sales forecast from the sales planning," says Jan Volknandt, Project Manager Process Optimization at GEDORE, summarizing the benefits of TIA A3.
The company is represented in over 100 countries worldwide and employs more than 2,000 people at its six German locations and production facilities in Brazil, England, Austria, and South Africa. At the same time, GEDORE offers one of the broadest ranges of any European tool manufacturer, with around 20,000 saleable end articles.
Before TIA A3 was implemented, sales and demand planning was carried out using semi-automated Access databases and Excel templates. The process included a high manual part for the provision of the data basis, consolidation of the planning quantities, validation and import into the ERP system. The SaaS solution REMIRA TIA A3, on the other hand, supports companies in all phases of product management with precise sales planning and forecasting and helps to integrate the sales side into demand planning. The intelligent software reduces planning effort, increases evaluation options, and improves the accuracy of forecasts and sales planning.
The challenges at GEDORE were, on the one hand, the large variety of products and, on the other hand, the high volatilities in sales volumes. "In TIA A3, we have individually adjustable sections and additional fields and graphical displays in the dashboard that allow us to work efficiently. All important information can be seen immediately. There is also an automatic evaluation of key figures already established in the company such as MAPE, wMAPE, tracking signal (TS) and wTS. The connection of TIA A3 to our ERP system was also automatic and completely problem-free," says Mr. Volknandt, expressing his satisfaction with the implementation process.
For GEDORE, the high level of competence in sales planning played a particularly important role in the decision in favor of TIA A3. Those responsible are expecting a massive improvement in planning quality and will also be able to reconcile sales planning with turnover planning from now on. "Until now, we have focused on the important articles, but now, thanks to the management-by-exception approach, we can also optimally plan B and C articles. In REMIRA, we have also found a provider with a SaaS solution that has a wide range of customers," Jan Volknandt summarizes.
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