Tawesco s.r.o. is engaged in the development and production of press tools, a wide range of jigs and tools, production of cold stampings and welded parts for customers mainly from the automotive industry, but also agriculture and forestry. Tawesco s.r.o. was established in 1995 by spinning off the plant from Tatra a.s. Gradually, the company grew in 1997 with a press shop and in 2005 with a welding shop. Today it is a leading supplier of press tools, sheet metal stampings and weldments to the automotive industry. Long-standing customers include Skoda Auto, John Deere, Magna, Daimler, IVECO and others.
Tawesco was in a situation where it had to replace its Infor MAX+ ERP system, which was no longer up to the demands placed on it. Some areas were not supported by the system at all and the user interface was also gradually becoming outdated. In addition, its manufacturer stopped investing in further development, so the company decided to replace it. Before that, however, Tawesco implemented a new APS system, which improved planning and, as a result, cleaned up the data still stored in MAX+.
In parallel with the APS deployment project, a tender for a new ERP system and a management information system was launched. Within this tender, the ERP system QAD and the management system from Inekon Systems were selected. The aim of the whole project was to provide a full replacement for the original ERP system, to increase decision support and to optimize production and logistics processes. Subsequently, a PLM system from Dassualt Systems was then selected and implemented for product lifecycle management, which is used for the design and technological preparation of production and also for the management of custom production. The system integration of all products was carried out by Minerva.
While Tawesco has deployed the APS planning system on its own, it has already invited Zdeněk Špelina, a consultant from Applicon IT, to select the ERP system. The consultant created the tender documentation for the selection of the ERP, management system and PLM system, became an advisory member of the selection team and prepared the contract documentation after the tender process. He also negotiated price and functionality and assisted in the start of implementation work.
For ERP system deployment projects, AppliCon IT uses its proprietary MAPIC methodology, which generally focuses on three areas: ERP system implementation, process analysis, and process optimization of selected processes. The stages of cooperation with the customer on the project include project preparation (including defining the team, goals, schedule, process map, etc.), system selection (RFI, RFQ), contracting model (including implementation, licensing, maintenance, and purchase agreements), and actual implementation.
The actual implementation project contains the following four blueprints:
The systems were successfully deployed and integrated, the ERP with APS system went into productive operation at the beginning of 2017, the PLM system was launched in September 2017 and the management system will be fully operational during 2018. One of AppliCon IT’s key contributions to the success of the project was the quality of the tender documentation, which truly encompassed all aspects. During the tender process, Zdeněk Špelina interviewed suppliers, pointed out the weak points of individual systems and was also active in price negotiations. The required high level of contractual documentation was also maintained.
Tawesco took away a number of valuable lessons from the complex systems deployment project in the areas of motivating staff to take responsibility, parallel projects, and process analysis and modelling, which will be used in future projects. Another task for the future is to optimize the functioning of the deployed information systems and to expand the deployed modules; for example, the plan is to roll out the workflow functionality, the quality module or the purchasing functionality.
“Our expectations from AppliCon IT have been met, we rate Mr. Špelina’s contribution in the project of deployment of ERP, management and PLM systems very positively. We greatly appreciate his professional approach, he brought expertise and quality to the project and contributed to the reduction of the overall project cost. Thanks to him, we have the information system that best suits our type of production and business.”
Jaroslav Šafrata, ICT manažer, Tawesco s.r.o.
