Dematic Asia Pacific

The Company: About Dematic Asia Pacific

Based in Sydney, Dematic Asia Pacific provides a vast range of intelligent logistics and materials handling solutions around the world. The company is committed to combining research and development with manufacturing to produce more reliable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions. Dematic has developed and implemented more than 5,000 systems for some of the world’s biggest companies. Its knowledge of local conditions means it tailors solutions to suit customer needs. Each customer, regardless of its size, receives a materials handling solution designed to bolster productivity.

The Situation: Efficiency in Manufacturing

Setting the Strategy

A philosophy of continuously improving productivity and efficiency in manufacturing is essential to Dematic’s market success. Underpinning this outlook is an ERP system that works for the business, with flexibility to move with Dematic’s Asia Pacific business needs. Dematic chose Infor™ SyteLine for its capabilities and business opportunities, and most importantly, its ability to be implemented quickly without impacting customer business.

Customers such as Woolworths, Coles, Cadbury Schweppes, Coca-Cola Amatil, Big W, Dick Smith Electronics, The Reject Shop, Australian Pharmaceutical Industries, Blackmores, Postal Logistics, Huawei China, Kellel Logistics Singapore, and Foodstuffs NZ are among those that benefit from improvements coming from Dematic’s use of SyteLine.

The Solution: Infor CloudSuite Industrial SyteLine ERP

Getting Business-specific

Allan Davies, chief information officer, Dematic Asia Pacific, says the flexibility of SyteLine means it can be personalized to meet end-user needs as well as used to develop and generate specific reports.

In addition, SyteLine integrates readily with new and improved Infor CSyteLineorporate Performance Management and Infor Expense Management software and has set in motion the use of a field mobility solution. These solutions all meet Dematic’s strict operational criteria. In addition to being cost-effective, user-friendly, and customizable, the solutions must:

• Support business needs.
• Provide an 18-month return on investment.
• Use a standard operating system and software (Windows,
  SQL, etc.).
• Offer a low total cost of ownership.
• Allow personalization.

By implementing Corporate Performance Management software, Dematic Asia Pacific can cope with changing economic circumstances. Using Corporate Performance Management, the company can develop different business models and show the impact they have on the bottom line. The flexibility of Corporate Performance Management allows Dematic to quickly model different scenarios and get accurate, up-to-date information for business decisions. 

“Infor developed a sound understanding of our business models, and we established that Corporate Performance Management was a viable solution to replace our legacy multiple-spreadsheet system, which was prone to human error,” Davies says. ​“As the financials are directly loaded from SyteLine, we have eliminated the possibility of human error in rekeying this information into a spreadsheet and significantly reduced the effort to prepare the financial reports.”

The company also decided to deploy Infor Expense Management, resulting in improved project reporting. ​“As many one-off purchases, travel, and accommodation costs are covered by company-issued credit cards, we needed an expense system that was easy to use and intuitive. Our previous system was too complex. Expense Management works well with SyteLine and is more appealing to users, which makes them more willing to complete their expenses on time.”

Dematic identified SyteLine Field Service-Plus to enhance customer service delivery, and back-office functionality, and establish the foundation for implementing electronic field devices. ​“Implementing a solution that allows us to retrieve data from the field in a timely way helps us generate invoices faster.

Field Service-Plus is the keystone to building this solution for Dematic in this region. Once we deploy mobile devices, we will be able to focus on more customer value-add services,” Davies adds.

The Results: Infor CloudSuite Syteline ERP Implementation Benefits

Dematic and Infor made a joint cooperative effort to implement all applications. ​“Dematic staff gained a deeper understanding of the applications by working closely with Infor, which helps in long-term administration and support hours,” Davies says. The tangible results of each system include:

• SyteLine: Cloning costs saved Dematic AUD2.6 million because the company was able to migrate in a very short timeframe. The yearly cost of ownership dropped AUD600,000 to just over AUD100,000.
• Field Service-Plus: With the full field mobile system not yet implemented, the assessment of savings is incomplete.
• Corporate Performance Management: The company estimates savings at 100 man-days per year.
• Expense Management: Licensing and maintenance costs dropped by approximately 85%, eliminating 194 man-days of keying effort due to integration with SyteLine.
  

“All of the applications we have implemented are robust and sound,” Davies reports. ​“Based on my experience with other ERP systems, I can confirm that we respond to user requests significantly faster with these Infor applications than we could have in the past.”

A Better Business

Dematic is now looking at opportunities that Infor ION Suite may offer and is keeping a close eye on how Infor SyteLine will embrace the mobile device market. It also plans to look at the Infor PLM Discrete application. ​“We are also just starting to look at how the event system within Infor SyteLine can help us automate some of our current manual processes such as purchase order generation and approval,” Davies says.