Every solution has a story - kameon ERP

Interview with Udo Berg. Managing Director of Catnic.

"A very meaningful learning process"

Easier work, easier work and easier work. For Udo Berg, these are the 3 biggest advantages of kameon. Catnic GmbH Sinsheim, part of the global steel group Tata Steel, was one of the first companies to introduce the kameon ERP ® software in 2010. In the interview, the managing director talks about time pressure, the advantages of a motivated team and the meaning of learning processes.

What can you tell us about Catnic? What does your company produce?

Catnic manufactures edge protection profiles and exterior plaster. We produce our products ourselves and distribute them to business partners in the entire German-speaking area, in Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and the Baltic States.

Sounds like a huge logistics job. What is important in everyday business?

The largest breaking point is the order intake. We have a lot of incoming orders every day. Of course they have to be processed. Which is where we have a bottleneck.

Sometimes in a very concrete way. What can go wrong and what would be the consequences?

Well, the orders come in by fax, EDI or by e-mail. Coping with the sheer mass is a daunting task. Not so much that things are lost, but everything has to be recorded in a timely manner. Because we promise our customers: Everything received by 12 o'clock is shipped on the same day. There really is a lot to do, because the customers have their completion dates. If there is a hitch it can quickly result in penalties.

How did you find out about kameon?

We already had contact with the bitbase group, which is where kameon came from. And we really liked working with them. The team was motivated and we just realised that kameon is more helpful than the system we used before.

In which areas do you use kameon?

Generally speaking, in inventory management. But in the end, in addition to payroll and financial accounting, we do everything in the EDP area via the kameon software. The order processing, merchandise management or inventory management.

Our field workers have a kameon CRM where route plans can be created or customer information can be stored. The field workers can thus also create price lists and graphics, which they can then bring directly to the customer.

How does working with kameon everyday make itself felt?

The workflows are simpler or more simplified and for us that means: The processes are faster. The EDI interface connection is direct, we don’t need converters to read the data from the programs. That has helped us a lot.

And kameon’s support is significantly better than that of Microsoft Navision, our old provider. Now, you call and get an answer immediately. Or another case: We said that we need special features - as far as I can remember, simplified evaluation interfaces. kameon then adapted and integrated them for our system within a very short time so that we could get to work with them.

In addition to your opinion as managing director - are your employees also as enthusiastic about kameon?

Well, in the beginning it meant a change for us all. For the first few years, we were a bit of a guinea pig. I had some battles to fight. With the people at kameon and with our employees. But ultimately, it was a very meaningful learning process for both sides. Our people have accepted it and have become more relaxed. And since then I've only heard positive things. What you hear most is: It's faster and easier.

What are the next steps in the collaboration? Is something being planned?

Yes, certainly. We have recently integrated an OLAP system in kameon, a system we used for evaluation. In the course of 2017, we will launch a PIM system that will help us to manage our master data and product data better.