Industry: Manufacturing, Trade, Wholesale and Distribution
Category: Cloud, SAP S/4HANA

One way-of-working and unique data management for all sites

In this story you can read how RIHO has real-time insight into the total international operation.

Read the full story

With this new system, we can make all data transparent. We are now able to take the right decisions at the right time.

Guy Claesen, CEO, RIHO International

Challenges and benefits

What challenges did RIHO encounter?

  • The different systems of the international branches were not integrated with each other. RIHO wanted a single system to achieve greater efficiency, cost savings, and better quality. And with it: being able to provide better service to customers.
  • The different locations worked with their own master data and their own processes. To gain insight, data had to be collected and consolidated from different points. This increased the risk of errors. RIHO therefore wanted to move towards a uniform way of working and a single source of truth.
  • Due to the fragmented application landscape, there was no direct insight into the total supply chain and daily processes such as production, inventory, sales, and more.

What solutions did we implement?

  • SAP S/4HANA public cloud.
  • Various Label Apps via an integration with Nicelabel and applications built on the SAP Business Technology Platform: Customer Label, Sales Kit Label, Shipping Label, Product Label.
  • Confirm Production Operation App – these applications were also built on SAP BTP.
  • Integration with it.cloudscan, a mobile scan solution for warehousing.
  • Product master data app for filter options characteristics integrated with SAP S/4HANA via a Mendix API.

What is improving for RIHO now?

  • All locations work according to the same processes through one integrated system. RIHO thus has a single source of truth for all entities, which can be used to analyse data from all production and warehouse locations in real time. This allows the company to make the right decisions when it matters.
  • With every location working in the same way, processes are carried out more efficiently and the quality of production, inventory management and services, among others, has improved and remains consistent.
  • RIHO’s data management now has a unified approach. This means that all product data, pricing, and product names (also in different languages), and more, are maintained centrally and can be accessed in one place. This saves time and reduces the risk of errors.
  • Because data can be retrieved in real time, analysed and reported in a standardized way, the number of errors is reduced, production planning can be monitored faster and better, and RIHO can proactively identify and take action if needed.
  • RIHO saves considerably on IT costs because the company uses a cloud solution. Maintenance of the system is therefore easier, and it is automatically provided with the latest updates.

Industry: Manufacturing
Products: Bathroom furniture, showers and baths
Locaties: Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary
Medewerkers: 170 employees across locations
Website: www.riho.com

1 single source of truth

When your customer immediately experiences the benefits of your software solution in their daily operations within the first few weeks, you know you have chosen the right system together! This is certainly true for RIHO International, where the public cloud edition of SAP S/4HANA went live in May 2022. This designer and manufacturer of high-quality bathrooms, sanitaryware, and bathroom furniture’s former system was at the limits of its capabilities. The requirements for the new software? Instant insight into figures, product data and supply chain processes of daily operations, a uniform way of working for all locations and standardized – but above all easy and quick to retrieve – reporting. Check, check, and double check: because this is exactly what we implemented together with RIHO.

How we gave RIHO International control over production, stock, logistics, and finance
Watch on How we gave RIHO International control over production, stock, logistics, and finance

🌍 7 locations throughout Europe
👥 170 employees
✔️ 1 integrated system
✔️ 1 standardized way of working
✔️ 1 single source of truth

That is what we developed and implemented together with RIHO to give them control over production, stock levels, and IT costs. In this video, you’ll discover how.

A smooth go-live for all entities

“We now have real-time insight into things we couldn’t possibly see before,” says group CEO Guy Claesen about the benefits of the SAP S/4HANA system that went live in May 2022. And that was exactly what RIHO wanted: more insight and a single view of all entities. All six locations of the group switched to the new system during the go-live. Simultaneously. And that went “generally pretty smooth”, says Claesen.

Processes are already running more efficiently

Control and insight: from finance to production and from stock management to logistics. That’s what RIHO got. The group’s various branches previously worked with their own software system and their own master data. If you wanted to know whether production planning was on schedule or how stock levels of warehouses compared to each other, you first had to collect, consolidate, and manually analyze the data from different points.

Claesen: “And our way of working was prone to errors this way. That is why we wanted to move towards a single system for all entities. Now we are looking at uniform data and work is done in the same way at all locations. And we are already seeing that our processes are becoming faster and more efficient.”

The ability to act upon insights directly

Conjuring up the status of your production planning on your screen in 10 seconds? That’s now possible. “And in doing so, we save valuable time and reduce the number of mistakes. For example, we can now monitor production schedules much better. Will there be a bottleneck or are we expecting one? Then we can intervene proactively now,” says Claesen. Bardo Govaarts, R&D manager at RIHO adds: “With the click of a button, we can instantly see what we have sold that day or week. We now know when to produce and when to stop producing. We now have a much better grip on production, stock and delivery times, allowing us to serve our customers even better.”

One system to store all data

Besides the quick insights into the overall operation, the new system also brings a unified form of data management. Which also makes Govaarts contented: “All product data, pricing, and product names (also in different languages), and more, are now kept in one place. This way, everyone works with the same set of data. When you enter a new product in the system, you make it immediately available to all locations. That also saves a lot of time and reduces the risk of errors.”

Instant insight and cost savings? Choose cloud

The choice for both SAP S/4HANA and us as an implementation partner was simple. On the implementation of a SaaS solution, Claesen says: “We are not a small company, but we’re neither a mastodon. If you opt for an on-premise ERP, your IT department becomes very large. Since we wanted both real-time insight into all locations and save costs on IT and maintenance, we quickly opted for a cloud solution.”

A conscious choice for SAP

Claesen explains their choice for SAP: “If you’re prepared to adapt to the system – and not the other way round – implementations go faster. We made that choice consciously. Our sites in Eastern Europe were already working with SAP ECC and therefore the learning curve would be lower for staff to get acquainted with the system. In addition, we were satisfied with our previous partnership with Czech colleagues from NTT DATA Business Solutions.”

Claesen is also satisfied with the working methods of its Dutch counterpart: “The consultants delivered a team effort together with our key-users. They were flexible, the interaction was great, and they are not at all bureaucratic. To set up the system successfully, we chose to define domains together and assign an expert to them. We also appointed an owner per business process and worked per country with a dedicated key-user who was involved in the process early on. The latter trained colleagues in the system.”

A sustainable partnership

Our joint approach proved successful. During implementation we used predefined processes that have already proven themselves at other companies, so that users quickly got an impression of the possibilities for their daily work. We enriched the quality of data several times, to create a solid advantage point to start with. And after that, it was a matter of practicing with the system and a lot of testing before the final go-live.

Claesen: “Although there’s always room for improvement, the final go-live went quite smoothly as a result of our careful approach. We put our processes for production, logistics, sales, and finance live without any hurdles. As far as I’m concerned, the relationship between RIHO and NTT DATA Business Solutions is one that I hope to continue for years to come.”

Discover the solutions mentioned

Why did RIHO choose us as a partner?

  • Our proposed approach corresponded to how RIHO wanted to handle the implementation: with both consultants and key users working together as a team effort. There was a lot of attention for the learning curve of RIHO’s own people. After all, they are the ones who need to work with the system.
  • At the sites in Eastern Europe, SAP was already running and RIHO already gained experience with our Czech colleagues of NTT DATA Business Solutions, and that worked well.
  • We have experience with similar projects in the manufacturing industry.

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