To remain competitive, your resource management processes are undoubtedly being continually adapted and improved. But many organisations are still using spreadsheets and other disparate software to track and plan tasks and workflows, and often these aren’t easily integrated into your SAP system.
Resource management workflows change as events happen, so planning needs to be dynamic and responsive. And without full visibility of your workforce, machinery and material resources, time and money can easily be wasted.
We want to share a use case on how our SAP-integrated Ready4 Advancing Scheduling tool is deployed at BIA, a leader in the sale and maintenance of machinery for mining, civil engineering, recycling, handling, and power.
Ready4 Advanced Scheduling provides full planning and tracking capability for the 600 technicians working on the service, repair and maintenance of BIA’s mining and civil engineering equipment.
Frederik Verstraeten, Business Process Manager at BIA Group, explains, “adopting and using a powerful graphical planning resource tool that’s added to SAP Work Manager integrates perfectly with the SAP ERP of the company and enables us to optimise resources.”
The planning tool works with SAP Work Manager to give BIA’s planners a dynamic and robust dashboard that supports the daily workload activities of the technicians. The planners use it to view and track all repairs and maintenance and manage all the daily co-ordination including when and where a technician is required to be, what tools and spare parts they will need. The tool also lets the planners oversee all the associated costs.
BIA has solved a lot of its resource management challenges with the implementation of Ready4 Advanced Scheduling. Productivity has increased and planners are making significant time savings because they have 360-degree visibility of all information relating to planning activities in Belgium and African subsidiaries.
“Before our resource planning was not integrated with the company’s SAP ERP and caused delays and additional administrative tasks for planners to manage the workload. Ready4 Advanced Scheduling helps us keep track of the workload of our technicians, minimising downtime and saving costs,” clarified Frederik.
With working schedules synchronised directly on SAP with other associated software, BIA planners can optimise all resources across the business.