Fast, faster Korch – Part 1

In just one year, the winweb-food ERP system was introduced at Fleisch- und Wurstwaren Korch in Radeberg.

Radeberger Fleisch- und Wurstwaren Korch and the software company Winweb have shown how quickly a complete system change can take place – naturally during ongoing operations. The kick-off meeting on site in Radeberg was on January 14, 2019, live operation started on January 6, 2020. “Not a small matter for a company of this size with around 400 employees who process around 65 tons of meat every week”, says Winweb managing director Willi von Berg. Time for a review after a good year with the new ERP system winweb-food. Felix Alber still remembers his early days as the new managing director at Radeberger Fleisch- und Wurstwaren Korch very well: “I started here in September 2018 and by December I was already totally annoyed by the existing ERP system: no consistency, atypical in operation, various modules, extremely slow and lousy support”, Alber lists.

Boss matter ERP system

And numbers that reflect profits or losses at the push of a button are the be-all and end-all of business management for the former management consultant: “Today, nothing works on gut feeling anymore, it works on numbers. You need transparency for sound decisions in order to be able to answer questions like: Where do we make money and where don’t we?”, Alber sums up his attitude. And so his decision was quickly made: “We urgently needed a new ERP system.” After several conversations with potential software companies, it was clear: “The conversations with Winweb were really good, you could tell right away they know what they are doing and also have a great deal of experience in our industry”, says Alber. Of course, there was skepticism among the workforce at first, but Alber made the issue an absolute top priority: “Just saying, you all take care of it, that doesn’t work; everyone has to participate, a change like that is a team effort”, explains the 47-year-old.

He also made it clear that he needs a management tool with good,reliable data need: “Otherwise it is like driving without lights: In the next bend you fly off the road.”

A project team around chief controller Dirk Oswald was quickly assembled: “I fully supported the changeover right from the start, even if it was a tough time in terms of workload.” Also involved was master butcher Frank Schönfeld with his good rapport with colleagues in production. “From an IT perspective”, says Alber, “the changeover was rather trivial. The crucial and time-consuming question was how we wanted to represent our processes – we thought about that for months.” Support came from Pascal Eckerscham, senior consultant and project manager at Winweb, who was able to contribute his many years of experience: How do you map the production process so that it comes as close to reality as possible? How is what posted? How are recipes created and how can the Batch traceability be documented seamlessly? How does an order run from start to finish? “At the beginning, it was like dry practice”, Alber recalls.

Data revised

Next, the data from the old system was not simply transferred, but revised in detail, cleaned up, and only then imported into winweb-food. “Cleaning up the master data and categorizing all information was particularly important,” says Alber. Controller Oswald remembers that time well: “While operations still had to run with the old system, we set up winweb- food at the same time.” Thanks to the good preparatory work, everything could then be switched over from the old system to winweb-food in one go in January 2020. “That was the special thing about this project for us,” says Pascal Eckerscham. “Since all areas interlock, all processes also had to function across the board from day one of the changeover.” The fact that this worked well was certainly also due to the introduction at Winweb being efficiently coordinated through a mix of online and on-site appointments.

Since then, in goods receipt, the ordered quantities are compared with the delivered actual quantities and at the same time QA inspection plans are queried. Subsequently, the invoices for the received goods are checked in the system, in the integrated Document management system assigned and transmitted to financial accounting.

(Part 2 follows)

Radeberger Fleisch- und Wurstwaren Korch GmbH, founded in 1991 and originating from a butcher's shop in Silesia, processes and sells 140 tons of ham and sausage products per week with around 400 employees. Annual turnover amounts to around 50 million euros. The products are offered nationwide under the brand “Original Radeberger” in self-service refrigerated shelves, but are also sold at fresh food counters in regional retail and in the company's own branch network. “Original Radeberger” has a high level of brand awareness of up to 90 percent in the eastern federal states.

www.korch.de
www.winweb.de