Our new management software: transparent, safe, reliable

We were in the midst of the pandemic, when Pipex Italia decided to take advantage of the lockdown by transforming itself internally: welcoming a new management software to optimize accounting, warehouse, active and passive billing, management of sales and of all suppliers other than the parent company Železiarne Podbrezová.

A major project, which has completely revolutionized the way each department works.

We asked our Product Manager Andrea Faraci to tell us about this modernization process completed in December 2021. He, as a computer engineer, has followed the project since its creation,

Why the decision to change?

The company was struggling to grow further because there were too many manually handled activities.

The communication between the offices in Arona (NO) and Bagnatica (BG) involved problems due to the multi-location access. We felt the need for a third geographical point to convey accesses; thus allowing the use of a shared database that would simplify and speed up the work.

How was the new management software or ERP chosen?

We turned to a consulting company with which we performed an internal analysis. We interviewed employees, collecting their opinions on the main obstacles, points where there was room for improvement and possible solutions.

There was a strong planning activity at the beginning, we worked to implement what we needed looking for a software that did not require excessive customization. Because, if it brings immediate tangible results, it risks being difficult to maintain in the long term. We looked for a tradeoff, implementing customizations only where strictly necessary for the improvement of the internal work process.

In addition to reflecting all the technical needs we needed, we looked for a partner who was as localized as possible, so as to guarantee maximum support for Italian legislation.

I must say that due to the experience in this year and a half of application, we have always had a constant updating activity to reflect the legislation changes. The dedicated assistance has allowed us to respect the deadlines for sending official documents and to guarantee their integrity.

A second reason behind the choice was the orientation towards a monolithic software. We needed complete management of the whole process, which starts from placing the order and goes up to electronic invoicing. A significant advantage for employees who interact with the same interface during the various work steps.

What were the other internal benefits?

At the level of administrative, accounting and warehouse management, there was a complete modernization of the process and a review of internal procedures with a consequent simplification. The more modern system containing a greater number of data, automatically takes care of the checks during data entry; this process allows to have a guarantee of the result, reducing the revision afterwards.

From a technological point of view, we made the choice to migrate the entire management system to the cloud; so as not to take care of the installation and maintenance of dedicated servers internally. In this way, we have exploited the potential of the cloud, which guarantees high levels of reliability, reducing the management time of our data center and allowing us to focus on other modernization activities.

But above all, what are the benefits for customers in detail?

With the new ERP, the order is no longer handled by anyone but it passes a series of checks and approvals until it reaches the production systems directly. Any transcription errors, including linguistic errors, are in this manner canceled, guaranteeing the customer that the data contained in his sales confirmation are the same as those sent to production.

In addition, the customer may notice an increase in the level of detail of the data reported in the sales confirmation he receives. This serves both as a guarantee but also to give customers feedback on what are the standards, prescriptions, procedures and tests that we will carry out in the steel mill according to the relevant international standards. It is a transparency operation that goes from the sales confirmation, to the production certificate obtained when the goods arrive.

But have we arrived?

Clearly not. We know that the digital world runs at an incredible speed, keeping up with the times means benefit from it.

When you start a development path a continuous cycle of improvement begins. What has been started evolves over time, new possibilities are discovered thanks to the results obtained in the previous steps and, consequently, the evolution continues. The idea is that progress will continue with an effort proportionate to evolutionary steps and not complete revolutions.

We are now ready to grow further.

For more information, details or requests, don’t hesitate to contact us at marketing@pipex.it.

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