Perkins' engine configurator pays back in 15 months

We’re very pleased with the results of the implementation so far,” says Geoff Hurst, product manager for UK-based diesel engine manufacturer Perkins Engines. “Since the CRM [customer relationship management] system went live in the summer of 2000, we’ve started to see an ROI as early as September [2001].” Perkins manufactures 300,000 engines a year (that’s around one per minute!) at its Peterborough HQ. There are 21,000 different engine specifications to design and build for more than 1,000 global OEMs in the construction, power generation, agricultural, materials handling and defence industries. Perkins also has a global network of 4,000 distributors and service centres supplying 35,000 spare parts to clients each year. So it’s big business. Back in June 2000, as part of a drive for operational excellence, Perkins’ management decided it was time to overhaul the existing ERP system. Part of the strategy called for full integration between ERP and other ‘business-critical’ applications – in this case, CRM and an engine specification configurator. Responsible for the project, Hurst’s task was to, “Introduce new software to better manage the specification configuration to order placement process.” He cites four main drivers for the project: “Major investment in new ERP (Mfg/Pro from QAD); full integration with ERP; replacing the existing home-grown configurator; and improving functionality and flexibility.” Perkins had been using a home-grown configurator which could not cope with the complexity of its engines. “Our engines are highly sophisticated so being able to accurately configure the best package for each client is crucial. Some have very peculiar installations that require special configurations of engine and auxiliaries. An order specification has about 30 different selection criteria.” And due to a global tightening of engine emissions laws, Hurst says Perkins’ customers now want, “Smaller, greener engines, which further adds to the configuration problems for sales and application engineers. After a detailed evaluation process, we found Cameleon was unique as it gave us full integration to ERP and included all the functionality and flexibility we required.” Time savings now Hurst describes the achievements so far: “We’re managing product variety better now and we’ve cut the time it takes from specification configuration to customer order. It now takes only 30 minutes [it took hours before] to create a new, full client engine specification.” 30 assistant business managers and applications engineers now use Cameleon. Hurst: “We’ve got more accurate and consistent specs now; rapid update and expansion capability; it’s easy to maintain and use; and implementing it hasn’t meant drastically altering our sales approach, just a slight re-focus of effort. “It wasn’t expensive either. About £100k for the lot [software, training and integration]. Cameleon now powers the configuration process in our ERP system, enabling us to deliver an accurate, efficient and cost-effective product to our customers, on budget and on schedule. We expect to increase our sales and order efficiency whilst simultaneously cutting costs.”