Hansen Technologies Streamlines Business Processes by Gaining Greater Accessibility to Key Data with Microsoft Dynamics™

Tectura offers a global leader in manufacturing a flexible, integrated business solution to support its product innovations and growing customer demands

Founded in 1980, Hansen Technologies Corporation continues to lead the industrial refrigeration industry with innovative products, excellent customer service, and outstanding technical support. Hansen offers an extensive line of components for industrial refrigeration systems including sealed motor valves, control valves, shut-off valves, pressurerelief valves, refrigerant pumps, air purgers, defrost controls, and liquid level controls. The company’s knowledgeable engineering staff has continued to develop original and essential products to meet the needs of its valued customers consistently over the past 20 years.

However, with increasing customer demand and projections for strong growth, Hansen needed to ensure that its business systems would support such a promising future. Unfortunately, its existing financial and manufacturing systems were somewhat disparate, proprietary, and simply not built to scale. That being the case, Hansen started a pursuit to find a scalable, flexible, integrated business solution that would ensure its ability to support both the delivery of superior products and first class customer service. Hansen would not compromise on its commitment to quickly servicing its customers.

A Growing Need for Change

There were a number of drivers that prompted Hansen to implement a new business system. First, the company managed its business processes using proprietary applications that ran on an HP 9000 server. Upgrading this system and keeping up with changes in the business required outside help and at an expensive cost. And with solid company growth expectations, the costs associated with outside system support only promised to become even greater.

As customer demand increased, system performance became an issue across several departments. Although the existing business system contained a significant amount of information, managers found it very difficult to retrieve it in a usable format. In lieu of customizations, mangers were forced to import the data into Microsoft® Excel and spend precious time manipulating the data for their specific needs. This was not an effective or productive use of time.

Hansen also needed to streamline its customer service, manufacturing, and warehouse processes to accommodate an increase in orders. Processing an order, for example, involved a manual process of filling out paperwork and physically walking it from department to department. The 2 Hansen Technologies Case Study company estimated that processing one single order required employees to walk more than one quarter of a mile.

Of equal importance is Hansen’s ability to more accurately forecast its manufacturing requirements, allowing it to take advantage of opportunities to purchase “blocks” of manufacturing time from vendors. Without the ability to commit to its vendors, Hansen would become less able to effectively compete against larger competitors for services, thus making it very challenging for the company to predict and control its own production processes.

Finding the Right Solution

With increasing needs for a flexible business solution that would improve access to information, streamline processes, increase productivity, and support company growth, Hansen decided to implement Microsoft Dynamics™ GP.

Tectura, an award-winning Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, was selected by Hansen based upon their solid reputation in the services marketplace, coupled with their deep knowledge and experience in the manufacturing and distribution industry. So together, the combined Tectura and Hansen implementation team conducted an initial analysis of Hansen’s business processes and system requirements. The team included representation from all levels and functions of the organizationupper management and other key stakeholders from the engineering, customer service, and accounting departments. This type of participation ensured that the new business solution would be usable at every level within the company, making it a win-win for everyone impacted by the change. Once the solution was scoped out, Tectura was able to deliver Hansen comprehensive manufacturing functionality tightly integrated with powerful financial and analytical capabilities. In total, Hansen decided upon an end-to-end Microsoft solution, starting with a Microsoft Windows® Server and Microsoft SQL Server™ platform foundation. From there, Hansen harnesses the power of Microsoft Windows® and Microsoft Office which only amplifies its ability to capitalize on the capabilities within Microsoft Dynamics. Beyond Microsoft technology, the solution also included integrations with other thirdparty applications, such as AnyView Creator and Browser (a portal) and StarShip Shipping (a manifest application). The total solution would allow Hansen to truly connect with its customers and partners.

Realizing Quick Returns

With its new Microsoft solution, both Hansen and its customers have quickly reaped benefits. Powerful and easy to use, Microsoft Dynamics has streamlined production planning and empowered customer service and operations employees to process orders more efficiently. Internal employees have been able to use the software in a flexible manner when changes occur, enabling Hansen to dynamically change the system as its business changes. Now, a change to the system can be done in 15 minutes at a cost of approximately $50 USD per incident, rather than the $500 USD spent previously. As a result, Hansen has seen measurable improvements across the company, including reduced costs, increased productivity, and improved customer satisfaction.

“We knew we needed a solution that could offer us functionality that would help us grow our business, while at the same time, would be easy to maintain. We knew the only way to satisfy these requirements would be through implementing a new solution, through change.” Brad Bremer Implementation Project Manager Hansen Technologies 3 Hansen Technologies Case Study Streamlined planning processes have allowed Hansen employees and partners to access information and view it in the way that makes the most sense for them. Improved manufacturing process workflow has enabled Hansen’s manufacturing floor to process orders faster, configure orders more precisely, track item status and location, and increase on-time shipments. Hansen has replaced manual processing methods with a single point of entry for order information and an automated workflow. Information is received more quickly, and now manufacturing is notified of new and change orders within minutes rather than the four to five hours it used to take to compile manufacturing information. Employees and customers are now able to access their shipment information, find their tracking numbers, and then track the shipment themselves. They can even track their respective Accounts Payable (AP) information. Thus, customer satisfaction has improved on all fronts: reduced order lead-times/back-orders; increased order accuracy; and increased visibility into Hansen shipping for its supply chain.

With flexible, integrated information, the management team at Hansen Technologies has full visibility into operations processes- from forecasted consumption, through work-in-progress (WIP), to shipment tracking. Rather than manually compiling summary reports each day, managers can now create and review up-to-date reports, in a variety of formats, at any time. In the past, Hansen’s customer service team had to manually write summary reports for management that included the number of orders and number of shipments generated per day. This data is now presented online automatically and ready for viewing by management, anytime. Reports are created from the system, powered by Microsoft technologies, not manually by the customer service employee.

Tight control of material supplies is critical for all manufacturing organizations. Microsoft Dynamics provides streamlined planning capabilities that allow management to accurately forecast and plan materials requirements. Based on consumption rates, Hansen managers can view requirements thirty to sixty days in advance so that they inventory and manufacturing processes can keep pace with customer needs. Purchase orders are initiated automatically, helping to ensure that the flow of materials coincides with production planning.

Since implementing its new solution, Hansen’s inventory levels have stabilized, while sales and inventory consumption has increased. The number of back orders is down, increasing delivery performance and improving customer satisfaction. In addition, the Hansen team can fully project external sourcing requirements to its vendor community, thus taking advantage of aggregated, committed pricing with its key suppliers.

With such a strong commitment to customers and in compliance with ISO standards, Hansen regularly conducts customer satisfaction surveys. Since implementing Microsoft Dynamics, customer satisfaction is on the increase. By streamlining order processing and integrating information across the organization, Hansen has been able to achieve shorter lead times, reduced back orders, increased order accuracy, and greater visibility into the supply chain. “After learning more about Microsoft Dynamics, we knew it would be an easy to implement, cost-effective solution that would also provide excellent functionality capabilities across the board. We needed a strong ERP system right out-of-the-box. Microsoft Dynamics was that solution.” Brad Bremer Implementation Project Manager Hansen Technologies 4 Hansen Technologies Case Study Customers can access order information via the Web, gaining insight into shipment tracking numbers and invoices. With immediate access to invoices, customers can print them out and enter them into their own AP systems much faster, enabling them to take full advantage of Hansen’s discount pricing terms. This is a win for Hansen as well, because customer payments arrive sooner for an improved cash flow and financial close. Implementing the portal also has reduced incoming customer calls by 20 percent, freeing up the customer service and sales teams to focus on true value-added activities.

Continuing to Connect with Customers

This was only the beginning for Hansen in realizing its returns from an integrated Microsoft Dynamics solution. Since its initial implementation, Hansen has successfully moved through the learning curve associated with deploying a new business solution. With such great user receptivity levels, the company continues to expand the level of functionality it leverages from its Microsoft Dynamics solution. Hansen plans to continue to do so as business demands. For Hansen, customer-centered excellence is core to its business. The company was recognized by Microsoft for its commitment to customers by receiving the 2004 Pinnacle Award for Excellence in Customer Service. This award acknowledges customers whose business management solution helps them measurably improve the value and levels of services delivered to their internal and/ or external customers. And Hansen Technologies continues to gain measurable improvements across the board and expects to see even more.

That being the case, the company is anxious to move forward in implementing Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM during 2007. Weaving customer relationship management functionality into its existing Microsoft solution will provide even deeper visibility and insight into the needs of Hansen Technologies’ customers. Doing so will also support Hansen’s efforts in strengthening its connection with customers and will also enable management to make smarter business decisions faster. An invaluable business dimension for any organization to acquire.