Hagebau Connect, based in Hamburg, is the digital commerce company of the Hagebau Group, a consortium company in the building materials, wood, and DIY trade. As the operator of the Hagebau online shop, the company aims to drive the group's digital development and continuously expand its product range.
From manual to automated
With growth, the demands on disposition also increased. It became increasingly challenging to maintain the right balance between product availability and cost-effectiveness. The previous processes, such as quantity planning, were based on manual sales analyses in Excel, and order placement was also done manually in the ERP system. This was time-consuming and offered no possibility for prioritization or optimization. To make disposition more efficient and future-ready, Hagebau Connect decided to introduce the AI-supported business software "ADD*ONE" from the Aachen-based IT company Inform. This is according
to a press release from the provider.
The main goal of the optimization project was to increase efficiency through automation. The software was to support the dispatchers at Hagebau Connect through automated order suggestions and orders and relieve them of the high time expenditure.
"We achieved this goal immediately after the introduction," says Daniela Schlichting, process manager in the "Procurement and Direct Shipping" team at Hagebau Connect. "Another major positive effect for us is that our way of working has fundamentally changed. Before the introduction of the software, we scheduled once or twice a week, and now we are able to plan daily because entire manual work steps are no longer necessary."
As a result, the flexibility of the dispatchers also increased, as they could now carry out the process automatically and in much less time. Currently,
a total of six dispatchers and two process managers manage around 3,500 active warehouse items with the intelligent solution. This is connected to the ERP system "Microsoft BC" of Hagebau Connect via an interface and transfers all relevant data to the software. Based on this, ADD*ONE calculates a suitable combination of forecasting methods and parameters for each item and thus recognizes the respective demand behavior.
The entire disposition process is controlled via the web-based interface of the solution. According to Inform, the newly designed workflow ensures that only the relevant information for each specific task is displayed. This makes it easier to assess order suggestions and speeds up decision-making. Supplementary functions such as range graphics, delivery quality indicators, and rule-based calendars, as well as browser-based access, support an efficient and location-independent working method in the nationally networked
team.
Another project goal was the reduction of inventory levels through targeted procurement.
"In the first six months after the introduction of ADD*ONE, we were able to reduce inventory by 30 percent along with other measures for inventory reduction," says Schlichting.
At the same time, transparency over the items to be procured improved, not least due to the clear presentation and graphical processing of the data in the software.
"Before the software was implemented, we had all the important data only represented in tables in Excel," says Schlichting. "ADD*ONE, on the other hand, presents the data, such as the sales history of each item, as well as the forecasted demand and existing orders, in an optimally graphic form. This allows us to understand much faster and better how the data is developing overall," concludes the project manager.
