ERP solution keeps everything together Technical weaving mill GKD opts for business software abas ERP

Karlsruhe, July 2007 - After having survived a market break, the family company GKD is now a worldwide market leader for technically demanding fabrics for architecture, filtration industry and process conveyor belting. The abas ERP software is used to organize the business processes. The business solution supports fast-moving business developments through its high level of adjustability and scalability.

This is the appearance of hidden champions: from the outside not many things suggest that a worldwide operating company is concealed behind the clinical facade of the company buildings. The company's products, used as anti-turbulence screens in wind tunnel applications or as antistatic filter belts in flake board and formed fabric manufacture, is also highly esteemed by architects around the world. The GKD - Gebr. Kufferath AG in Düren (Germany), founded in 1925, has systematically developed from being a vendor of standard woven wire cloth towards supplying mesh types woven of metals and plastics for technically demanding applications.

Mixture of serial and individual production
All three business areas of this industry and the approximately 530 employees are contributing in equal shares to the total revenue of 75 million Euro (2006). "If we have many orders we use production batch one. We cooperate with the worldwide Champions League in architecture - individual adjustments to object-specific situations and requirements of the architects are in demand, " Bergschneider describes the requirements. Recent examples are the New Jewish Synagogue in Munich, the Concert Hall in Dusseldorf or London Heathrow Airport. In addition, there is also mass production, meaning the machines are running without an operator, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, sometimes for months. "We are a very interesting mixture of large and small series, and individual production," summarizes IT employee Franz-Josef Malsbenden the requirements of production, planning and company management solution from abas ERP.

Over the past 16 years the ERP system was constantly modernized and thus continuously developed along with the company, says Malsbenden. "We have constantly been adjusting the ERP system from the very first minute we used it." At that time there were no special solutions for weaving mills on the market. Thus, GKD came up with the idea to buy a flexible, expandable ERP solution, which could be tailored to their requirements. "This was the decisive point for abas ERP," remembers Malsbenden.

Furthermore, the weaving mill was able to increase the speed of innovation regarding product innovations and production optimization. 70 percent of GKD products are not older than three years. "All new, woven media which are produced on weaving looms are running, or used to run, with GKD patents." Cost savings on the vendor-side are also envisioned: the vendors are to become directly responsible for the warehouses. For many vendor parts we only cooperate with one vendor. This, however, takes place very closely and in the long term (single sourcing concept), therefore, according to Jürgen Berschneider, it also makes sense to let the vendor schedule the material: when they want to deliver what and where." Nowadays, the vendors are also included when there is interaction with the customers.

GKD also gives a lot of responsibility to its subsidiaries. For example, they can chose and apply the ERP system they want. But also the US subsidiary in Cambridge, Maryland, has opted for the implementation of abas ERP in 2003. The former sales branch has become a producing subsidiary with 40 employees and is very content with its decision, according to Tom Powley, President GKD-USA. He says: "The application has helped us to save costs, so that we can concentrate on our core businss and are able to exchange information more easily with GKD-Germany. The implementation took place without any problems." The largest subsidiary with 120 employees is in South-Africa, the most recent subsidiary was founded in 2005, in Peking, China.

Always upgradeable, despite many own programs
GKD programmed the lot management itself in abas ERP and all other functionalities which were required over the years. For example a high-bay warehouse control or a chaotic warhouse with menu navigation. "Two years ago the lot management was the last extensive programming project," remembers Malsbenden. "At that time it didn't exist in abas ERP. Nowadays, many of the functionalities required by us are available in the standard. Thanks to regular upgrades we are always up-to-date, despite our own programming." Franz-Josef Malsbenden adds that this is due to the fully developed abas upgrade procedure. "Even though we modified everything that could be changed, we only have very little adjustment requirements."

ERP and Linux
GKD was one of the first users that were using abas ERP on the Linux platform. For the past 15 years at GKD, the open source operating system has been forming the basis for the ERP solution by abas which is today providing about 80 percent of its applications on Linux. "Unfortunately we still haven't succeeded to work with Linux on the front-end side in the Office world," regrets GKD area manager Jürgen Bergschneider. "Since we communicate a lot with the outside world we have to ensure that everyone understands our Office documents. As soon as this works, we will change." According to Bergschneider, Linux advantages are the stability of the operating system, the reduction of costs for software licenses - "this amounts to several thousand Euros a year" - and the independence from Microsoft.