One software company for everything
Since its establishment in 1920 the Riebel company has developed from a rail producing firm to a group of versatile and successful enterprises that are active in all important construction sectors. Today in the group 850 employees work in structural and industrial engineering, road works, civil engineering, rail construction, in producing and recycling construction materials and project development. Its excellent market position asserts the enterprise not only in southern Germany area, but in the whole bordering area too like Austria and France, where the brand Riebel is byword for quality. Despite low market prices, last year a turnover of 170 million Euro was reached, this year a further concentration of core competencies is expected with returns from a turnover of the same magnitude.
Friedrich Riebel, partner and manager of Xaver Riebel (a holding of the Riebel Group) says: “Our services, products and reliability are very sought after, and they are the result of successful improvement, rearrangements and innovation. The fact that our executives have access (in good and bad times) to important numbers and data was and is an indispensable prerequisite of our success. With Nemetschek Bausoftware we have a reliable EDP system that is fast and can process and display information in the required way, this is something we need to work on the market successfully. A small, but important tessera to secure survival and move to the top.”
“Constructing a better life” with the support of an efficient EDP
Continuity in all sectors: the Riebel-motto is over 15 years old, but its committed crew relies on computer support since before. Nevertheless 1997 saw an EDP reorientation as necessary. Wolfgang Berkmüller, DP/IT executive and controller of the group says: “We needed a progressive Windows based solution. To us it was important to have one software company for everything and no isolated solutions. There were only few offers for such sector solutions. We checked the matter carefully, invited selected specialists to workshops and had a look at different versions.”
“At the time Bau financials from Henke & Partner, today Nemetschek Bausoftware, was the most developed solution on the market” that is how Kurt Handfest, calculations chief, judges the result. Gunter Trunzer, commercial executive explains: “Of course at the time not every detail was like it is today. In our opinion this solution was the one with the brightest future, and we were right. Nemetschek’s specialists who presented us the product were speaking our same language. We were on the same wavelength immediately, Nemetschek’s people were very engaged and had specific knowledge. The reliable neutral data base Navision was another strong point in favour of Bau financials.” A committee of almost 10 people surveyed every sector. The decision was made fast and unanimously. In August ’98 trainings were started, master data were processed, adapted, collected…
Clear competitive advantage through Bau financials
1.1.99 the first clients started. “Three months later we transferred all data to the new system” says the IT-chief. “It was a short but nevertheless very intense time with a lot of action besides the normal working routine. Everybody were highly motivated and made their contribution. Since the beginning we were aware that the real rationalization effects would become evident not immediately, but some time later. It can take up to two years until you get to know such an extensive and flexible system, and until you really get to make use of all finesses. The early choice of Bau financials brought us evident advantages. Competitors with different software systems reached this stage only one year later.” The commercial executive adds: “We use all modules, from finance to business, plant and wage bookkeeping, even for the management of material tools and securities. The incoming invoice book and the deposit accounting disclosed new opportunities in the financial bookkeeping. The former 1 to 1 relation between material and cost type accounts has become a 1 to n relation. Few material accounts from the EA but many detailed cost types. This allows better evaluation variables. In this way once one material account (“material”) is in the business settlement it can be split up -with their relative calculation- into concrete, structured steel, bricks etc..
The overtime hours used to be calculated manually, now this is done fully automatically. All business special agreements are reflected in the work accounts. In fact each employee could even decide for a different savings model.”
“Everything that has to do with brick, sand, recycling, and mixed products like asphalt or concrete is settled with Trab.” In this way Mr. Berkmüller draws the attention to another Bau financials family’s product: “In only three days - and without any test running – a Nemetschek application consultant made it work, with all adaptations and interfaces for the non central mixing towers and scales. In this there are plenty of peculiarities because we want to keep our settlement forms with the concrete producing companies. Trab runs outstandingly well and is stable.
We have also started a system integrated document management with Trab invoices. Today we save all incoming invoices only electronically. The originals don’t have to be archived, DocuWare provides a certificate of authenticity. Even the firms scan all documents right there. Then they are archived on the central server. The software is indexing everything automatically. Besides saving 15-20% of work the greatest advantage is that the document searching is over. Whether you are on a controlling meeting in the office, or with a construction executive on the building site, with one click on the corresponding Bau financials booking you get the document displayed.”
The controller observes: “The software’s flexibility requires a lot of self discipline from the user. The result has to stay the same even if the way to get there is open. At any time it is possible to change the financial accountancy column plan, during a mass search it is possible to move important columns at the beginning and move others away, even in the middle of o processing”. The technician adds: “The advantage is that I can increase the level of detail and therefore undertake evaluations that use to be unthinkable like direct time modelling and tool calculations with mean salaries.
…more freedom in all business important aspects.
The software turned out to be very good, until today it is capable of dealing with all offering calculations, AAS (Announcement Allocation Settlement), mass searching, settlements, and building site controlling. The fact that we still prefer to undertake data comparisons manually depends on the way we think of project controlling. But the EDP is providing us with the control basis.”
The EDP chief sums up: “ The software system is organised as a central ASP (Application Service Providing) for all group’s enterprises. Enterprises locations, major building sites, and if necessary employees’ home PCs get access, use programs, database and processing of the central server, the access is made possible by VPN (Virtual Private Network). The advantages are:
All data are centralised, and data saving is possible on an daily basis with no problem. Updates interfere with work very seldom. Most of the times the users are not even aware of them.
Better organization, faster analysis and evaluations for strategic decision making, accelerated report making – reports can be made one week in advance – and even saving of work force in the mass data processing department.
We reached all that with Bau financials and are proud of it. We are pleased to recommend our software partners, their products and services.”