PANTEC ENGINEERING AG

Industry

Mechanical engineering, automation, medical technology

Department

Controlling, Purchasing, Finance, Research & Development, Management, IT, Warehouse, Human Resources, Production, Quality Assurance, Sales

Region

Ruggell, Liechtenstein

The customer

Pantec is a globally operating technology supplier for mechanical engineering and medical technology and offers services and complete solutions in the field of automation and mechatronic systems. Customers primarily include machine builders in Switzerland, Germany and Italy as well as machine operators around the world. In addition, there are worldwide customers for medical technology applications/devices. Founded in 1990, the company employs around 100 people at its headquarters in Ruggell (Liechtenstein) and in subsidiaries in Switzerland and China.

Initial situation

As an internationally oriented group of companies, Pantec is mainly active in the capital goods and services sector. Fluctuations in orders and exchange rates, investment cycles and economic policy influences are very present in this market environment. This makes it all the more important for the technology supplier to have access to up-to-date, decision-relevant information at all times. "In order to be able to react more flexibly to changing conditions on the market, access to current, decision-relevant information and the mapping of division-relevant key figures within the framework of company-wide controlling are essential," says Jürgen Schwarzmann, CFO, Pantec Engineering AG. "Here we have seen clear technological optimisation potential."

Until now, the necessary analyses and reports were carried out on the basis of Excel - accompanied by some shortcomings, as Heinz Hosp, Head of IT, Pantec Engineering AG, explains: "We lacked the permanent and consistent availability of the information. Furthermore, the manual ETL process was too time-consuming and the comparability of figures from different source systems was very limited."

As an alternative, a dedicated, user-friendly business intelligence software was to be used, which enables the automated analysis of daily updated data from any source system.

Solution

Pantec found the right solution virtually "next door" - at ppmc AG, also based in Ruggell. The IT service provider, which specialises in customised business intelligence solutions for medium-sized companies, recommended the data discovery platform QlikView - and was spot on with the recommendation, as Schwarzmann confirms: "The simple connectivity of various data sources and the uncomplicated possibility of adapting or creating new applications completely convinced us, as did the intuitive on-demand filterability of the results."

QlikView's patented software engine generates new data views ad hoc and on the fly. The data is compressed and available in memory for immediate analysis by different users. For data sources that do not fit in memory because of their size, QlikView connects directly to the source system. Users can examine all data with complete flexibility.

"In addition, there is a flexible licensing model with which we keep the costs manageable," adds Hosp.

ppmc AG was also convincing - with know-how, service orientation and speed. "The cooperation went very well," says Schwarzmann. "I liked how interactive and pragmatic the step-by-step development of the evaluations was. We brought the ideas of what should be mapped and how, and ppmc took care of the data preparation and presentation," says the CFO. After only two days, the first, productively usable evaluations were available. Further applications were then developed with ppmc in weekly meetings on site at Pantec.

Areas of application and benefits

Currently, QlikView processes about 20 GB of data from Microsoft Dynamics NAV, from the time recording system TimeAS, from MS Excel and from SQL Server.

17 employees from almost every division of the company use more than 20 different QlikView evaluations. The focus is on quality and project management as well as purchasing. An authorisation system regulates which persons have access to which analyses.

For example, turnover and contribution margins per business unit, the productivity of engineering services and the project portfolio are displayed.

Another example is warehouse evaluations - for example, to identify fast and slow movers.

Furthermore, error messages in the area of quality management as well as open/overdue items per business area and per customer are evaluated. Furthermore, analyses of the framework contracts and the development of the purchase prices per article/supplier are available. Target/actual comparisons of production times are also available. IT uses QlikView to inventory hardware.

"Today we have a much higher transparency of our data," says Schwarzmann. "Error messages can now be broken down quite easily by the quality management staff themselves down to the individual part level. That used to take a lot of time."

In addition, Pantec benefits from significantly faster data availability: the technology supplier experienced an "aha" moment, for example, in an appointment with its insurance agent: He had calculated two hours for data acquisition for the re-tendering of the entire insurance contracts. "After 15 minutes, he had no more questions because we were able to make all relevant data visible online across the group via QlikView and filter it in the form the insurance company wanted," explains the CFO. "If a question comes up during a meeting, we can answer it immediately and reliably, which in the past would only have been possible as a follow-up and with more time expenditure," Schwarzmann continues.

Future

The QlikView environment is constantly being adapted to the needs of the company. "There are actually constantly new ideas and suggestions from the specialist departments as to which evaluations we can still map with QlikView," confirms the CFO. In addition, Pantec is currently examining the possibility of developing QlikView add-ons in the area of control technology for industrial machines, which would enable customers to visualise machine performance.