HEULE WERKZEUG AG

Industry

precision tools

Department

Sales, management, product management, production

Region

Balgach, Switzerland

The customer

Since its founding days as a contract manufacturer in 1961, HEULE Werkzeug AG has been concerned with optimizing process times in machining. The focus is on the development and manufacture of tools for the front and back machining of bores in a single operation.

Based in Balgach, Switzerland, the company has established itself as a world market leader in the more than 55 years of its existence.

Around 90 dedicated employees work for Heule at its headquarters and in subsidiaries in the USA, China and Korea.

Initial situation

In order to be able to generate key figures more efficiently as a basis for business decisions, the tool specialist was looking for business intelligence software. It was particularly important to Heule that the solution had the ability to extract data from various source systems and combine it into meaningful key figures.

"Previously, we had to first export the required data from each of our four IT systems in use individually and then manually link them together in Excel and map them in graphs in order to make a statement," said Ulf Heule, CEO, HEULE Werkzeug AG. "This process was both too time-consuming and too error-prone for us."

Solution

While evaluating various solutions available on the market, Mr. Eisenbart became aware of Qlik and had its products presented to him by ppmc AG, a certified Qlik Solution Provider specializing in customized business intelligence solutions for medium-sized companies in the Alpine Rhine Valley.

The guided analytics software QlikView was convincing. Its patented software engine compresses data and makes it available in main memory for immediate analysis by various users. For data sources that do not fit in the main memory due to their size, QlikView establishes a direct connection to the source system. Data access is correspondingly fast.

The patented technology, the associative data analysis as well as the possibilities for collaboration and mobile information evaluation create an environment in which users can ask and answer as many questions as they like - alone or in a team and independent of their location.

ppmc AG was also convinced, as Ulf Heule explains. "ppmc is very familiar with both the development environment of the Qlik product family and the solutions of our system landscape. In addition, it was important for us to have a partner close by. Solving a task together at a table is much more goal-oriented than over the phone or email. ppmc really took the time to understand our requirements and implement them on a collegial basis." Within a few weeks, all steps were implemented to the productive usability of a first application.

Areas of application and benefits

Around 14 employees are currently using the application to generate and analyze key sales figures such as sales, incoming orders, open orders, etc. The application is also being used to analyze the sales figures. Are the orders coming in as planned? Are we meeting our budgets? How high are the returns? Are we reaching the weekly figures? These are typical questions that employees can now find quick and up-to-date answers to - data is updated hourly.

"In addition, the figures also benefit us for budgeting," adds Eisenbart. "We evaluate what we have achieved for sales volumes per week, month and year and with what seasonal fluctuations. This results in indicators for the budget to be planned."

On the one hand, Heule benefits from time savings with the use of Qlik, as the CEO confirms: "Before using QlikView for key figure generation, we needed an average of four hours per working week to generate the key figures needed for reporting. Now, just a few minutes are enough."

On the other hand, information transparency has increased significantly, says Ulf Heule: "With QlikView, we can generate the various key figures from different sources without having to intervene manually again. I filter in the first dashboard and then get the appropriately filtered information displayed across all queries from order entry down to the representative. This means we can now see correlations that we wouldn't have been able to work out manually in the past."

Future

In a further project step, data access is to be fine-tuned depending on the user in order to ensure that employees receive exactly "the right amount" of information required for their respective work area.

In addition, all internal and external quality deviation reports are to be mapped and analyzed in QlikView in the future. Applications for the areas of planning and production are also conceivable.