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Reference Case
Reference Case
Facts about Strukton Rail AB
• Founded | 2001• Revenue | SEK 2.5 billion• Number of employees | 870• Geographical location | Stockholm (HQ)
Reference Case | Strukton Rail by Itero Business Solutions, 4PS Partner
4PS Construct - The right system for Strukton
A fully integrated business system with clear industry functionality and support is the perfect solution for Strukton Rail. Together with a dedicated system manager and an engaged workforce, the whole company is working to optimise its processes.
A Scandanavian railway giant with Dutch rootsStrukton Rail AB works on the maintenance and con-struction of railways, metro systems and tramways in Scandinavia, with a focus on Sweden and Denmark. The company was previously called Banproduktion, but in 1999 it was purchased by Dutch company Strukton Railinfra BV.
The Strukton Rail Group has its origin in the Dutch nati-onal railway company and has numerous other operati-
ons. In early 2014 Strukton also purchased all of Balfour Beatty Railways’ Scandinavian operations and doubled its size. Today, Strukton Rail is Sweden’s largest private railway contractor with 870 employees and a revenue of SEK 2.5 billion. Among other major projects, it has full responsi-bility for the maintenance of the Stockholm metro system infrastructure. Strukton’s biggest customers are the Swedish Transport Administration and Stockholm County Council.
Lack of service functionality and possibility of follow-up and proactivity Earlier solutions lack full service functionality covering all the needs of the business. A greater need to monitor pro-cesses in a better way is also evident. In 2013 Strukton Rail (Sweden) switched over to the 4PS Construct ERP solution, which is a comprehensive industry solution built on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV platform. The industry solution covers most of the main processes including sales, purchasing, projects, service, plant management and finance.
“Compared with earlier systems, 4PS is distinguished by being fully adapted for our operations. We have also put a
lot of focus on configuring the key areas to suit us even better. We began with service and will continue by fine tuning project management,” says Stephan Winkler, system owner at Strukton Rail AB.
“4PS is fully adapted for our operations”
Better flow simplifies Strukton’s workday and steamlines all integrated third-party systems
Strukton works with a number of third-party systems which it integrates with 4PS Construct. The company has worked together with Itero to achieve as smooth and optimised a flow as possible. Today, Strukton’s customers can report a fault that then reaches Strukton in the form of an automatically generated service order in 4PS. 30 minutes later the order is out with service technicians in the field on a mobile interface through which the technicians can process the order and report time and materials.
The entire flow from fault notification to invoicing of maintenance is automated to minimise administration. By inte-grating the third-party systems that Strukton uses, each expert system can support its process in a fully integrated and optimised solution.
Business Intelligence is an important part of the overall solution
Reporting and follow-up are two important compo-nents for Strukton and something that is prioritised in its current work. Previously, there were problems relating to coordinating different data sources and the work was both slow and complicated. Today, these components are managed using Business Intelligence tools that are integrated with the 4PS Con-struct ERP system. In connection with upgrading to the latest version of 4PS, a data store was created in a dedi-cated database to handle the volumes of data produced in the system. SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) are used for analysis and to obtain relevant decision support.
“Keeping track of what’s going on and being able to act on it is important. The next step is to undertake further work to better visualise data, and above all to improve accessibility within the organisation,” explains Stephan. Strukton is currently working together with Itero to deve-lop the reporting further. The visualisation of key figures in a smart and flexible way for presentation to regional managers is part of the internal work. One result is that you can quickly permeate down to the lowest transaction level to understand and act on the data. “It is simple, no matter where you are working, to get an overview, see what you are responsible for and act on it,” says Stephan.
Training is the key to successful implementati-on projects
Strukton’s ambition is to continuously adapt and improve both its internal processes and the actual use of the sys-tem. The approach is not only to develop 4PS but also all other integrations, associated systems and processes. Users are therefore encouraged to provide feedback and ideas on how they would like to further optimise their work.
Today, Strukton has more than 300 users of 4PS Con-struct and most of them are engaged in the develop-ment of processes and functionality. Stephan believes that training in the different systems is a key to success with an implementation. “It is important to reconnect after training and evaluate so that users do not return to their old way of working,” he says. For example, Strukt-on uses videos to supplement manuals during internal training. This makes it easier to follow up on the trai-ning, and users can return to the material on their own. Feedback and reconnecting are also important parts of the training.
5Encourage users to submit input and ideas. In a large company it can be difficult to see all opportunities for improvement from the top. The best ideas often come from our users, and then together we can prioritise what we should improve and work on first.
Five tips to get users engaged Stephan concludes by sharing five tips to simplify the transition to a new system while continuing to drive the business forward once the implementation project is over:
1Focus on training. Training and follow-up are key – spend time on them. This applies not just to training in the system itself, but also in all the surrounding processes.
4Explain why users should do things in a certain way. It can sometimes be tough to drive change through an entire company, but when users un-derstand how different things are interrelated and influence each other, it becomes easier to accept change and better understand the big picture.
3Demand good documentation. This is one way of further disseminating knowledge internally and should be a requirement both internally and for your partner.
2Disseminate knowledge out into the business. In our case it is about having superusers out in the regions with the users to facilitate everyday work as well as to work with easily accessible materials which the users can take in on their own.
About Itero, 4PS Partner
Itero develops and streamlines business processes for compa-nies in the construction industry. Several Swedish companies make use of integrated functionality of Itero and 4PS. A profes-sional staff makes sure that your business processes improves by implementing IT. The Itero offices are both in Gothenburg and Stockholm.
More info: www.itero.se
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www.4ps.eu
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About 4PS
4PS creates, implements and maintains the best ICT for the glo-bal Construction, Civil Engineering and Installation industry. The ERP solution 4PS Construct is available in more than 20 countries and worldwide over 600 companies realise the most beautiful projects by using this software.
Next to the ERP software 4PS Construct, 4PS also developed a mobile solution, various functional apps and portal solutions. All solutions are based on Microsoft Technology.
More info: www.4ps.eu
