REFERENCE

“We wanted our sales tool to generate valid selections. With the old configuration tool, we had too many cases where combinations were selected which could not be built. This is now a thing of the past, while maintaining the flexibility to handle ‘non-standard’ requirements.”

Daniele Nardin, Head of Marketing and After-Sales-Services, CCO

CP Pumpen

CP Pumpen AG (CP Pump Systems) is an independent Swiss pump manufacturer with international scope and a focus on technology. Their history is proudly marked by events, such as “Installation of a modern ERP system…” in 1999, and “Increase in production capacity by installing 5-axis CNC machines” in 2001. Adoption of technology is one of the markers CP Pumpen uses to recognize progress. But the most recent configurator upgrade had not gone to plan…

They had deployed D365 AX 2012 R3 in 2016. Along with that change they developed an external pump configuration tool. But users were not happy with the application. Performance was sub-par. Administration was difficult, primarily because the tool could not deliver valid technical documents. Many users actually preferred to bypass the system altogether, resorting to tried-and-true Excel programs they had developed in-house.

Undeterred by Technical Challenge

Two years in they re-launched the configuration project with clarified goals. Technical document generation was identified as the critical gap in the previous configurator. Inaccurate pump data sheets, pricing information, and Bill of Materials made it onerous to work with. They needed a tool that could handle these tasks with speed, precision, and accuracy.

Immediately they thought of e-Con. Back in 2016 they had contacted us when evaluating their configurator. Head of Marketing Daniele Nardin remarked, “e-Con had gained a lot of interest back then but did not win the race. After our experience with the choice made, the new project team was more than happy to get back to e-Con for a re-evaluation.”

Since technical documentation was a key driver, e-Con’s bid was an offer they could not refuse. Full integration with AX simplified the documentation aspect, while the easy configuration modeling interface appealed to their team’s technical proficiency.

Incremental Implementation

With their unused configurator experience in recent memory, CP Pumpen took a page from the Agile playbook. They opted to develop a barebones configuration tool with need-to-have items only. This meant BOM generation. At the same time, they wanted to know e-Con CPQ could handle their most complex products. Not to be deterred, we started with their most complex pump model. Here’s the result:

Scaling e-Con CPQ

With initial success behind them, CP Pumpen is continuing with plans for full scale deployment. The first milestone is to complete all product models. By then they will have determined what to do about CRM, as well as determine a roadmap for further feature development. Once the organization fully utilizes e-Con, they will also have the opportunity to roll-out the configurator to their entire network of agents, resellers, potentially even their clients. e-Con CPQ’s full integration with D365 would make any of these channels easy to reach.