Rile is a globally active supplier. Its customers come from a wide variety of sectors. These include the capital goods and aviation industries as well as mechanical engineering and manufacturing. Accordingly, the company offers a wide range of products and services. This would not be possible without a powerful digital platform, especially as several plants need to be networked with each other.
The realignment was a perfect start for the then new project manager Siegfried Weber: "The conversion of the multisite environment was actually my first project at Rile. Looking back, it couldn't have been better for me. This meant that I was confronted with all areas of the company at once - both organizationally and in terms of IT. Especially with regard to my current role as CDO (Chief Digital Officer) and the prospective expansions on the store floor, that was worth its weight in gold".
Cover different production processes
With the PSIpenta ERP suite, the various products and their specific processes can be planned and controlled in their entirety. Be it
- CNC machining,
- carbon processing and
- special machine construction or
- automation and robotics technology.
Automated production requires small batch sizes with long-term structures as well as agile and fast production with a high proportion of manual work. Certified documentation procedures are also required.
If the company also operates a temporary employment agency for assembly specialists, then it becomes obvious why a CDO must also be on board. "This is precisely where a major challenge for our ERP system lies. Because these differences are also reflected in the production processes and must be able to be mapped. At the same time, we are also pursuing the goal of establishing uniform processes across all plants wherever it makes sense and is feasible," the business IT specialist sums up.
Motivating employees and saving costs with usability
The user-friendliness of the ERP system is central to the company's interests. This benefits two thirds of the workforce, who use the integrated personnel administration system to record their working hours - but above all the 50 main users. Usability was given a significant boost by the migration to the new version 9 of the ERP system with PSI Click Design. With the new graphics editor, user interfaces can be configured individually or according to their role and area of responsibility within the company.
Click Design makes day-to-day work easier in all departments at Rile. "The effect is perhaps best explained by the combined or configurable dialogs that each user can click together individually," Weber goes into detail.
"An example: I define an 'Article dialog' and use the 'Article' business object as the leading object. I can now link this table with other objects, e.g. parts list, routing and warehouse stock. As a result, the user can see all relevant information about the article and its dependencies at a glance and can edit them with full functionality. If he switches to another article, he also sees this in the defined dialog structure or combination.
These dialogs are much more efficient and therefore save time. Thanks to their ease of use, they also increase employee motivation and satisfaction.
Fast response to customer requests
In addition to usability, Weber also focuses on the ability of the ERP system to adapt flexibly to the needs of the company and the market:
"The importance of agile, flexible structures is currently increasing. This means that we have to be able to react very quickly to changing market conditions and, above all, to customer requirements. Processes therefore sometimes change much faster than they did ten years ago," says the CDO, explaining the advantages. "Today, we benefit all the more from the fact that PSIpenta can be configured flexibly and adaptations are still 90% part of the standard".
Into the future with innovation and teamwork
The RILE Group continues to focus on expansion. A core element is the expansion of sales, which has been centralized in a separate company. The ERP system records all quotations, orders and other customer transactions for Rile's new trading company. PSIpenta Multisite then automatically forwards the customer request as an order to one of the four production sites. At the same time, the multi-plant software calculates the reduced internal price and transmits it to the responsible department.
Although he has been supporting the interests of the company for 20 years, the "newcomer" Siegfried Weber is still enthusiastic about it today:
Without PSIpenta and the mapping of our company structures in the multisite environment, a smooth process would not be possible.
The basic features
- Automated processes,
- common data management and
- high transparency
continuously reduce costs and time. The ERP system and its team of consultants thus ensure motivated and satisfied users. "I think I can easily say that PSI is one of our closest partners," enthuses CDO Weber.
"The team has a great deal of expertise and is always on hand with help and advice. That's a very important point for me: the fun we have working together makes me want to take on more projects". Future plans include the expansion of the MES area and the expansion of store floor management.
New business areas through digital networking
In order to survive on the market, companies rely on digital networking. This applies in particular to the smooth flow of data across different locations. The RILE Group masters these functional challenges with the PSIpenta ERP suite. But CDO Siegfried Weber is certain that it is the distinctive usability and the good teamwork with external service provider that round off the package for a successful future.
