Diageo NEL
Logistics Reconciliation System

Client:Diageo Scotland Limited – Northern European Logistics
Location:Multiple Distribution centers throughout Europe
Industry:Manufacturing / Drinks Distribution
Solution Type:Consulting and Custom Solution Development
Background

Diageo is a group of international consumer drinks-goods companies with portfolio of world-famous brands. Diageo uses a warehousing and logistics company to deliver its goods to retail customers worldwide.

Diageo Northern European Logistics (NEL) covers Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg, Netherlands, and Switzerland. Diageo NEL used an independent costing system to calculate warehousing and secondary distribution costs and to prepare performance reports for its logistics operation. This legacy system was not owned by Diageo, and had the drawbacks that it did not support a warehouse costing model with fixed cost budget and transportation matrix. The system also did not provide required reconciliation and KPI reporting capabilities.

Diageo NEL challenged KBS with the goal of creating a faster and more accurate cost calculation and reporting solution for the NEL markets.

KBS Solution

KBS created a user-friendly reconciliation and reporting system interfaced with Diageo’s SAP and third party distribution systems which:

• Reduced error inducing manual processes and increased confidence in data integrity
• Eliminated time consuming data verification or reconciliation exercises
• Increased speed and effectiveness of reporting
• Provided independence to the NEL markets by offering access to a library of reports online
• Provided a modular system for periodic updates to costing models
• Reduced operational costs by eliminating the third-party monthly services

Project Activities

Project was completed in several stages including:

1. Investigation of warehouse costing models, transport cost, cost calculation, allocation, and reporting requirement
2. Creation of functional requirements specification of the new application
3. Application User Interface design
4. Web-based KPI reporting system design
5. Daigeo SAP and distribution company inbound and outbound interfaces design
6. Technical design and custom solution development
7. Implementation and roll-out to each market

Outcomes

New custom software interfaced with SAP and distribution systems created a cost-effective framework for logistics costs reconciliation. Based on comparison and cost calculation of customer, order and fulfillment data based on actual deliveries, Diageo has a full control of logistics costs and any delivery discrepancies on monthly basis. The system also enabled inter-company cost allocation on each Diageo order, at the product, customer and market levels.

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© 2012 Keystone Business Solutions, All rights reserved.

Elanders AB
Complex ERP Program Management

Client:Elanders AB
Location:Sweden, Italy and Hungary
Industry:Printing
Solution Type:Consulting
Background

Elanders is a global printing group with services from individual products to total solutions in printed matter logistics.

Elanders goal was to standardize business processes and consolidate a number of fulfillment and accounting systems introduced through company acquisitions. The project was initiated with an aggressive deadline and initially managed in-house. Elanders quickly realized that project of this size and complexity needed dedicated program management from a professional solution provider.

The group appointed KBS to create an overall specifications guideline and coordinate partner companies responsible for the implementation of the following systems:

1. Microsoft Dynamics AX as the finance ERP platform
2. DiMS! - print industry-specific production and logistics ERP system
3. xWare's xTrade middleware as the system integration platform
4. Elanders internal system for structuring and handling the digital resources

KBS Solution

The project involved coordination the team of 25 ERP consultants from Sweden, Netherlands, Italy and Hungary as well as company representatives across 4 offices.

Throughout the 18 month project, KBS brought structure and order to the project, completed full business and accounting requirements review, and resolved complex system integration issues related to costing and inventory valuation differences in the finance and logistics systems.

Outcomes

Elanders’ management was freed from day-to-day program coordination. The projects were completed in a structured, timely and fully documented way with a minimum distraction from operations. Consolidated ERP systems enabled Elanders to fulfill critical reporting obligations to a major global account.

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© 2012 Keystone Business Solutions, All rights reserved.

Electrolux Italy
In-Line Label Printing Solution

Client:Electrolux Italy
Location:Italy, Sweden
Industry:Manufacturing
Solution Type:Consulting and Custom Solution Development
Background

Electrolux relies on multiple in-line printed labels within its White box consumer goods manufacturing process. An Italy based Electrolux manufacturing facility decided to change label printing stock vendors to save costs. The label printing process software however, was the property of the current vendor and controlled the label contents and was tied to a custom label database maintained by Electrolux. As the switch was already initiated, replacement software to drive the printing process was urgently required to prevent any delays in production. The new system was to be under the full control and ownership of Electrolux.

No standard label software was compatible with the Electrolux label definition database and the existing in-line printers. KBS was therefore tasked with the creation of a custom replacement printing software solution.

KBS Solution

KBS' solution consisted of a custom Web frontend integrated with a StreamServe application server to be used as the base output engine for label contents delivery and rendering.

This combination of the standard and custom software lead to a flexible and reliable solution to cover all of the plant’s label management and printing needs.

KBS created a sourced XML interface used for label layout rendering, barcode generation and print delivery to label printers. The software supported all existing label printers, interfaced with the label definition database, and required little operator training.

Project Activities

The project deliveries included:

1. Proof of concept – creation of prototype of label printing from existing database
2. Programming of custom data converter
3. User interface design
4. StreamServe interface specification and testing
5. Application implementation, deployment, and testing of each label print
6. Electrolux R&D training and acceptance testing
7. Print operator training

Outcomes

Manufacturing interruption at the Electrolux plant was successfully avoided. Electrolux received a state of the art web-based application for label definition, label printing and Print Operator support. The full rights and ownership of the application were also transferred to Electrolux at the completion of the project and KBS remains available to provide real-time application support which has been minimal.

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© 2012 Keystone Business Solutions, All rights reserved.

Morgan Stanley
Employee Time Recording System

Client:Morgan Stanley Hungary Analytics Ltd
Location:Hungary
Industry:Banking and Finance
Solution Type:Consulting
Background

Morgan Stanley operates a Business Services and Technology Centre in Budapest providing operations, financial control and information technology services supporting their activities in North America and Europe.

Morgan Stanley's global HR system is PeopleSoft, a system which covers most of its Center’s HR needs. The specific nature of operations in Hungary and the complex labor requirements in Hungary however requires a complex, time consuming process to manage and report overtime hours, time in lieu, oncall, work time cycles, and multiple approvers in addition to the more standard time worked, absentee, and holiday reporting needs.

These could be theoretically solved with programming additions to the global PeopleSoft HR system but at a great expense and effort. Therefore Morgan Stanley decided to automate the processes in Budapest by implementing a separate fully compliant Time Recording System in cooperation with KBS.

KBS Solution

KBS completed detailed evaluation of Morgan Stanley’s needs and processes covering the following areas:

• Morgan Stanley's policies, procedures and workflows
• Compliance to Hungarian Labor Code requirements
• Production of accurate time records for payroll and audits
• Automation of time-consuming manual processes including
  • Employee profile interface to PeopleSoft HR
  • Employee entitlements management
  • Time records management
  • Overtime, on-call, and absence management
• Reporting requirements for management, HR, and statutory purposes
• Technical and IT security requirements

Through a number of workshops with Morgan Stanley’s VP-level executives, KBS created a detailed design and system specification of the new business processes. The system blueprint successfully passed an audit by Morgan Stanley’s London-based security group including physical, logical, infrastructure, application design, and data security requirements.

Outcomes

Based on KBS' expertise in HR application design and Hungarian statutory compliance, Morgan Stanley obtained a complete roadmap for the development and rollout of the Employee Time Recording system in Hungary. As the project planning included executives at Morgan Stanley, the KBS lead team was able to produce solutions that not only provide adequate coverage for all of Hungary’s labor compliance requirements but that also significantly reduced managers’ and employees’ time required for employee scheduling and time reporting.

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© 2012 Keystone Business Solutions, All rights reserved.