Successful from the start
Almost everybody has been in touch with products of the Anton Debatin GmbH from Baden, Germany, but only a few really know about the company itself. In 1923 they started with the production of paperbags, and continuously extended their product range. In 1953 the company switched to polyethylene to meet the changing market requirements. As of today, Debatin represents a modern and flexible enterprise that successfully combines innovation, technology, quality and market-orientation. The Baden based company is a company with a long tradition. Their products such as the Debasafe-Safety-envelopes, the self-adhesive Debapac-envelopes for documents and the standard Unipost-envelopes are well known and established. Because of their success, Debatin is among the top providers in Europe.
Facing the competition
“If you could act on assumption, that the commodity prices are the same in Asia and Germany“, states Jürgen Wilhelm, Commercial Executive of the Anton Debatin GmbH, “the grade of production automation wouldn‘t be so significant for our competitiveness.“ The processing of raw materials costs less in Asia, but if you factor transport, quality, flexibility and the time advantage for European delivery in the whole production process, the Germany based production site is more beneficial. „We are Europe‘s biggest manufacturer of self-adhesive envelopes and tamper-proof safety-bags. Our market share is around 80% in Germany“, says Jürgen Wilhelm.
To maintain and extend the high quality standard Debatin uses the standardized abas ERP Business Software since 2001. „We chose a disadvantageous point in time to introduce the new software to our enterprise“, remembers Jürgen Wilhelm. „In 2001, we produced the envelopes for the introduction of the EURO and the return of the Deutsche Mark. Basically, we had limited capacity for a software introduction.“
Create growth – the software will follow
The positive development Debatin experienced ever since the new ERP Software went live, shows that it did work out. Beforehand, the company was looking for a flexible solution with a great performance. Jürgen Wilhelm states, “Our business changes. Sometimes, it is inevitable to configure a new line of production. This has to be implemented in the ERP System as well. A good example are the transparent safety bags in air traffic. The new software should not only be able to meet the requirements of today, but as of tomorrow as well. This should work out in a convenient way. Regarding that, the abas Business Software excites over and over again. We do customizations on our own and they are not affected after future updates.“ This is realized by a special architecture within the abas Business Software. It is structured with three basic layers. The core contains the abas-owned database and functionality. It is solely programmed by the ABAS Software AG. The second layer can be adjusted accordingly and the third layer contains the interfaces for integrating additional features such as barcode-scanners in the warehouse for example.
Connected through abas eB and EDI
In- and outward goods movement are reported to the abas ERP System via the EDI-barcode-scanner (EDI = Electronic Data Interchange). Debatin follows a chaotic warehouse strategy. The system assigns storage space based on availability and abas ERP considers the Debatin production logistic. Salesforce now benefits from a „wireless“ access to the system. Via abas eB, a browser-based connection has been realized. The sales force is able to check a product‘s availability, provide information on order status and take orders right on the doorstep of the customer. Debatin really extended their service quality with the use of the abas Business Software.
Independence for your system
“The abas Business Software has remarkable advantages in comparison to our previous software solution. After multiple modifications and adjustments, the old software turned into an individual system. We were dependent on our assisting system house. Every small modification had to be paid for, which cost us a lot of money“, the commercial executive compares the systems.
„There was no further development, so we ended up having many isolated applications. The data transfer took place via interfaces or manual transfer. This was very time consuming and error-prone. Double and triple entries now are a thing of the past and we reduced the errors. The error ratio is basically zero. With the new system, we wanted to keep the know how internal, to support our continuous improvement in our administrative processes promptly and efficiently“, remembers Jürgen Wilhelm.
A good example is Debatin‘s finished goods warehouse which has been outsourced a while ago. The warehouse has been connected to the ERP System via an EDI-Interface. The shipping order is placed from Debatin and is commissioned by the outsourced warehouse service provider. The delivery notes are given to the carrier in PDF-format, and are printed out on original Debatin business documents. The deliveries are reported back to the abas ERP System, which processes the next steps such as recording the delivery notes or invoicing the bills. “With the abas Business Software, we are capable of growing healthy without having to increase the staff‘s capacities“, mentions the Commercial Executive full of joy. “Doing so, we are increasing our competitiveness.“
With a smile on the face he adds: „We want to administrate our data in house. Due to its software-architecture, the abas Business Software can be used on a low level of resources needed. With other systems we would have to run multiple servers to get a similar performance. We don‘t need no external service providers anymore, whether it is for our server administrators or business related modifications on our ER -Software. This affects the costs positively.“
Double up the turnover without increasing human resources
Ever since the introduction of the abas Business Software in 2001, the company doubled up their turnover from 20 to 40 million EURO. The outgoing invoices increased from 8.500 to 15.300 per year. Human resources increased by 6.5% in production and 4.3% in administration.
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