How Heveck VriesVers became future-proof.

Ambition and scalability

Heveck has used and continued to develop the Cobol application for 30 years. In recent years, however, it became apparent that the ERP system was no longer scalable and did not meet the modern requirements of flexibility and efficiency. In addition, integrating with modern systems was not feasible in most cases.

No access to developers

Apart from the challenge of finding a Cobol developer, there was no developer who dared to venture into the further development of the ERP system. There was a lack of insight into the consequences of implementing changes. As a result, efficiency gains were no longer possible and processes could no longer be optimized. The small adjustments that were made did not have the desired success, which in turn led to annoyance and frustration among the staff.

Knowledge loss

Much knowledge was lost due to departing staff. The combination of an outdated system and limited access to capable developers created a challenge. Optimizations and automations proved difficult to achieve, in part because of the many manual operations in these processes. The knowledge of the processes was in the minds of long-time employees. Knowledge gained over the years and difficult to transfer to the new employees. This resulted in an onboarding process that took months. In addition, like many other organizations, Heveck had difficulty finding and attracting the right personnel.

Outdated system

The technology of the Cobol system was severely outdated. The user interface no longer met the requirements of the modern workforce, the system had to be navigated by keyboard, and the backend was also out of date. The limitations in linking different applications caused further frustration and knowledge loss. Heveck found itself in a vicious cycle.  

All this allowed the competition to overtake Heveck VriesVers on all sides. Where the organization could not take innovative steps, such as picking orders with bar codes, the competition did. Heveck did have to take the step toward modernization.

From 1980 to 2020

The new system was built modularly in sprints, but delivered all at once. To verify that the system worked flawlessly, the Cobol system ran alongside the new ERP system for one more month.

The question Heveck put to fizor. had three components:

1. How do we make Heveck future proof?
2. How does Heveck access development capacity?
3. How will Heveck become scalable, innovative and flexible again?

The Cobol ERP system was therefore completely replaced by a system built on the Thinkwise platform. Heveck's further requirements for the ERP system were:

1. Scalable: new applications and innovations needed to be incorporated quickly and easily,
2. Future-proof: the system must be able to last another 30 years, so to speak,
3. Knowledge retention: the ERP must be intuitive and quickly learnable. In addition, it must at all times code current and easily optimized.

The desired optimizations could be realized. For example, Heveck had the desire to pick orders using barcode scanning instead of manually searching with a paper in hand. In the future, voice-based order picking is on the wish list. Another wish was an optimized and especially automated forecasting process. Even the weather affects what products Heveck delivers to customers, and the organization benefited from a process that looks back at data to make accurate forecasts.

Result

What did the implementation of the new system give Heveck? First, the new ERP system is an upgrade to the 2020s with a modern user interface and intuitive and mouse-driven navigation. The new UI makes the system many times more user-friendly. It can also be picked up faster by new employees, shortening the onboarding process by months.

The company now has automated processes in the areas of order processing, forecasting, route planning and warehousing, and is able to differentiate itself from the competition through the speed and flexibility these processes offer them.

With the new ERP system, Heveck is agile and can move with the market. Thus, they quickly realized a quick win with the implementation of a portal where customers could track delivery accuracy. Business goals are also met faster, such as doubling the warehouse.

Whatever the business vision, Heveck VriesVers has an ERP system that has no limit and to which any desired application can be added.