Direct increase in efficiency in terms of time and costs through data and spend transparency
published on
17.4.2024
🏗 Industry: Diaphragm valve technologies
🗺 Company headquarters: Bad Rappenau (Baden Württemberg)
🧍 Employees: ~ 120
💶 Turnover ~ € 16 million per year
SED Flow Control is a subsidiary of Samson AG and is one of the leading manufacturers in the field of diaphragm valve technologies. These high-quality diaphragm valves are manufactured at the company's own production facility in Bad Rappenau, from where they are supplied to customers worldwide. In particular, SED Flow Control supplies the pharmaceutical and food industries. Its customers include, for example, well-known vaccine manufacturers worldwide, who experienced an enormous economic upswing during the time of the COVID crisis.
"With Tacto, about 20% of the time previously spent preparing for supplier meetings is saved. Sales and price developments can be viewed at the push of a button. Tacto also maps general supplier performance and development at the push of a button, thus immediately revealing risks here that can be addressed directly in discussions with the supplier." - Patrick Leyhr, Head of Operational Procurement
In the procurement department at SED Flow Control, one of the biggest challenges was the lack of transparency regarding supplier data and the procurement volume. There was no option to evaluate suppliers in the ERP system, nor was there a supplier information tool or cockpit through which data about suppliers could be obtained.
The data export was carried out via a central point in the company and could not be carried out independently by the procurement department as required. As a result, only a specific data extract (small intersection of information on a supplier) could be requested at a fixed point in time, which could not be used flexibly. Due to the necessity of always processing the data export via a third party, there was already a considerable time expenditure when exporting the data.
In order to use the exported data effectively, it had to be subsequently prepared manually via Excel tables. This time-consuming process made it considerably more difficult to actively track sales, categories and individual articles. As a result, tracking supplier sales and price trends was also extremely challenging.
In addition, the sales figures of the suppliers were reported once a year by the invoice center to the procurement department. However, the evaluation of these figures proved to be difficult, since the pure turnover did not provide any information about price developments or the breakdown of sales. For each upcoming supplier meeting, therefore, a time allocation of about three hours had to be planned for preparation. In addition, internal arrangements in the run-up to the talks continued to take up a considerable amount of time. In addition, there was the waiting time for the data export before each supplier meeting.
Based on this initial situation, Patrick Leyhr asked himself two central questions: How do we position ourselves for the future? And how do we master the existing challenges in procurement through digitalization and automation?
Flexible and time-independent use of supplier data as well as breakdown of sales and prices to suppliers
Overview of price potentials and price outliers at suppliers as well as overview and subsequent mitigation of existing risks and/or dependencies in the supply chain
Create free capacity in procurement to focus on strategic projects
He got the answer to these two central questions with Tacto. After intensive market research, Patrick Leyhr decided on Tacto as the procurement software and driver for digitalization at SED Flow Control in procurement. With Tacto, holistic transparency of all supplier data can be created in the first step. At the push of a button, all information on suppliers, categories and articles can be viewed and compared with each other. In addition, Tacto enables flexible retrieval and exportability of data at any time.
In addition, the preparation for supplier meetings at SED Flow Control has been greatly simplified with Tacto and is now more efficient and productive. With Tacto, about 20% of the time previously spent on preparation is now saved. Sales and price developments, which serve as the basis for supplier discussions, can be viewed at the touch of a button. Tacto also maps the general supplier performance and development at the push of a button, thus immediately revealing risks that can be addressed directly in discussions with the supplier. During the discussions themselves, Tacto can be used to flexibly retrieve all relevant information on the respective supplier.
"With Tacto, we were able to see exactly how our suppliers are developing and whether, for example, supplier performance has deteriorated. We can therefore act directly and take countermeasures. In addition, I can directly check whether a supplier's statement is true or not.
In addition to increasing efficiency in supplier discussions, SED Flow Control also aims to achieve significant cost savings by using Tacto. Depending on the component or material, the individual categories and supplier volumes can be viewed specifically. This information makes it possible to approach suppliers directly and conduct price negotiations if necessary. In addition, Tacto allows price developments to be compared with raw material costs, opening up additional opportunities for price negotiations. This provides further leverage to negotiate in a cost effective manner. SED Flow Control anticipates cost savings in the six-figure range here in the future.
Holistic data transparency about suppliers and their procurement volumes and price developments
80% time savings in preparation for supplier negotiations and 50% time savings in internal discussions on supplier developments
Direct cost savings by leveraging price potentials, which are identified at the push of a button by Tacto
The whole process around the introduction of Tacto was very well prepared.
"We had the appropriate tables where we imported the data. The implementation went very transparently and quickly - little could have gone better from Tacto's side. The procurement team at SED Flow Control also perceives Tacto as very intuitive. Tacto is built according to the credo 'Keep it short and simple'. Super simple, intuitive and not too complex."
What Patrick Leyhr really appreciates about Tacto is the close cooperation. In particular, the support and the handling of questions is very open, honest and goal-oriented. In addition to the Analytics and RFQ module, SED Flow Control is currently working with Tacto to set up the supplier portal in the form of certificate management and conformities, and has already made the first queries here. Here, too, Patrick Leyhr expects to save a lot of time by automating manual activities in his procurement department.
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Many thanks to Patrick Leyhr and the whole team of SED Flow Control for our partnership and trustworthy cooperation.
Thanks to partners and customers like you, it is possible to further develop our product in close exchange and close to daily events, as well as to talk in joint webinars about the topics that concern the procurement of industrial medium-sized companies today.
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