The growth of enforcement technology provider Redflex Traffic Systems also brought disparate IT systems, reporting by spreadsheet and other inefficiencies. Seeking to achieve greater control, Redflex chose to deploy SAP Business ByDesign, cutting data errors and costs at the pilot branch in just 12 weeks.
Background
Listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1997, Redflex Traffic Systems develops and manufactures a wide range of digital photo enforcement solutions including red light camera, speed camera and school bus stop arm camera systems all utilising the most advanced sensor and image capture technologies. Based in South Melbourne, the company runs its own systems engineering operations, system integration technologies and Innovation Centre for research and development.
Despite this sophisticated technology base, the company’s growth had resulted in its own internal systems fragmenting over time. While Redflex had previously used a variety of IT systems to manage its finance, human resources (HR), manufacturing and reporting processes, an increasing number of employees and customers, as well as a broader geographic spread, prompted the business to seek an integrated platform to cater to its changing needs.
Ricardo Fiusco, CEO, Redflex Traffic Systems, says, “We needed a comprehensive solution which was not only fit for purpose today, but was going to future proof our organisation as we move through further growth and expansion.”
As well as seeking to unify its disparate IT systems, which were creating inefficiency in consolidated reporting and operations, Redflex also wanted to eliminate the use of spreadsheets for managing daily activities and reporting, and improve project management by centralising data from multiple sources.
Implementation
Fiusco says SAP Business ByDesign and implementation partner Artis Group offered “a demonstrable and customisable platform and service which addressed our unique business requirements”.
Among the advantages of ByDesign for Redflex were that it was a comprehensive cloud-based offering to support integrated business operations and intelligence. As a cost-effective scalable solution, it could provide executive oversight over financial, project, HR, customer relationship and supplier relationship management functions, and it met business requirements for multilanguage and multiregional capabilities.
This implementation of Business ByDesign was actually Artis Group’s first, though the company has an existing ERP practice in the Microsoft Dynamics arena.
The rollout of SAP Business ByDesign for financial and project management at Redflex’s pilot branch was achieved in just 12 weeks, with the project broken down so that organisational learning was achieved along the way.
This was another benefit of how ByDesign was structured. Artis Group CEO Chris Greatrex says the solution is not just an ERP system pushed into the cloud, but is conceptually quite a different product, and Fiusco understood its uniqueness straight away.
“What’s different about ByDesign is that because it was built as a cloud product from day one, they’ve thought a lot more about how to deploy it, so all the project plans are automated and all the training is automated as you check the different boxes about which functionality you require,” Greatrex says.
“That not only helped Redflex make the decision to move ahead with it, but also critically, helped [Fiusco] drive the internal support for the rollout from day one,” says Greatrex, adding that Artis’ relative unfamiliarity with SAP ERP probably gave them the edge in delivering what is quite a different product. “We don’t have any of any of the hang-ups about how it ‘should’ work in the SAP world.”
Business benefits
The project went live in early 2014 and Troy Gay, Redflex operations manager, says with project management, HR and financials fully implemented, the company is already seeing the benefits of integrated, end-to-end processes and management reporting, in terms of elimination of duplicated and inconsistent data.“Project management issues associated with multiple forms of the truth are now non-existent, and with the on-boarding of stage two and three imminent, and the subsequent retirement of the existing systems, efficiencies and savings are virtually guaranteed,” Gay says.
With Redflex now planning to roll out ByDesign Australia-wide to its inventory, logistics, and manufacturing operations, as well as complete a roll-out and localisation in Malaysia, the company expects operational costs to drop again.
The success of the project is also testament to the value a product like Business ByDesign, engineered specifically to run in the cloud, has for particular customers.
“When you start to see it being deployed in an operation and how it fits certain customers, it all starts to make sense,” says Greatrex.
This article first appeared in the Autumn 2014 edition of Inside SAP.
