Chiller Oy has increased its productivity and profitability in a shrinking market by developing its business processes with the aid of Manu Online.
Managing Director Heikki Lahdenperä:
"Previously we considered oursselves a typical metal-industry subcontractor. We made individual products to customer's specification. In 1999 we started to develop products based on a modular design so that we could offer our customers exactly the product that they wanted, but at the same time achieve competitive production costs by using standard modular subassemblies.
"Currently we produce more than 10.000 casette fan coil units a year. These are the units installed in the ceiling of commercial offices to cool the air. Each of these products is configured in cooperation with the customer because of the extremely large number of different variations. We produce some tens of subassemblies from which the final product is assembled. The configured order is transfered in real time from our sales offices at home and abroad. Assembly is made rather quickly. Our choice of production strategy and has significantly reduced the delivery time to our customers.
"Because of the current decline in the building industry, our market situation has been extremely challenging. We are also competing with extremely low cost imported products. However our customers have been ready to pay for our products because we are able to delivery in a short time exactly the product that they require. Despite the difficuld market we have managed to significantly increase our market share in the last four years, and to nearly double our turnover to 12 million €.
"When we started to develop this business process we made two significant decisions: one was to change to using 3D Cad for the design of the modules and the the other was to choose Manu Online for the business control (ERP) system.
"We have worked in close cooperation with our system supplier. The consultants have been able to work at both a strategic level and to solve the detailed day-to-day challenges that are involved with this kind of project."