RENOLIT

The Company: About RENOLIT

The RENOLIT Group stands for partnership-based service, an international focus and innovative, high-quality, reliable products. With more than thirty production sites and sales units in over twenty countries, they are one of the world’s leading plastic products manufacturers. Founded in 1946 with seven employees in Worms (Germany), where the headquarters are still today, the company now employs over 4,800 people. Their know-how and commitment make this family-owned business a sought after specialist for high-quality films, sheets and other plastic products.

RENOLIT products create the ideal conditions for innovative solutions in many industries and are used for a broad range of applications – from everyday consumer goods to the latest developments in science and technology. Their remarkable versatility also enables high-resolution signage, for example in illuminated advertising and graphic wrapping for vehicles. 

Their products facilitate new and exciting concepts in the furniture industry and interior design. In the construction sector they give creative freedom to architects and developers in designing outdoor installations, roofs, canopies, window frames, façades and swimming pools. They are equally important where reliability is essential – in dam construction and in civil engineering as well as in medical and pharmaceutical applications, such as blood bags and infusion systems. 

Automotive manufacturers value RENOLIT products for their light weight, high rigidity, easy processing and complete recyclability. In sailing, boating and shipping, they protect and enhance the hulls of all types of vessels and ships. They provide passengers with anti-slip surfaces and protection from the elements. These are just a few of the countless customized applications for customers in many other industries.

The Situation: Improve IT Security

With production and sales locations throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas, RENOLIT is the epitome of a diverse, multinational business. The main challenge the company faced as it looked to the future was to standardize its IT solutions across the entire business, aligning with its ​“One RENOLIT 2025” strategy. 

With a smart business policy of keeping its technology updated, RENOLIT’s management team looked to gain more adaptability and faster project execution. The company also wanted to devote IT resources to other projects, including digitalization and harmonization projects, rather than system upgrades and maintenance. At the same time, RENOLIT was looking to improve its IT security and reduce risks in infrastructure.

“It’s easier for RENOLIT to work on a centralized platform managed by QAD professionals,” explained RENOLIT General Manager Corporate Information Technology Martin Klinkert.

RENOLIT has utilized QAD ERP since 2006. The company decided that now was a good time to standardize and harmonize all market units and locations using QAD throughout Europe and the US on QAD Adaptive ERP in the cloud. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic brought cost pressures and disruptions resulting in delays in upgrade activities.

The QAD team worked closely with RENOLIT via workshops and presentations to provide an analysis of the cost of delay if the company postponed its upgrade to the cloud. As a result of this data, management at RENOLIT was convinced QAD Cloud was the appropriate solution – it was then only a matter of ​“when” they would upgrade.

“We knew that we would have limited possibilities in the future if we stayed with an on-premise or hosted solution. We had the insight that it was much better to go with QAD Adaptive ERP in the cloud, that it would bring us more possibilities,” confirmed Martin. 

“It was the right time to move to the cloud. We see the possibility of growing with QAD to help us face local and governmental requirements, as well as align with RENOLIT’s corporate process digitalization strategy.” 

The Solution: QAD Adaptive ERP

RENOLIT elected to proceed with the project in two phases: the first was to move all seven sites to the QAD Cloud. The second phase will be an upgrade to the latest version of QAD Adaptive ERP with QAD’s Adaptive UX features and functionality. 

QAD’s Adaptive UX provides manufacturers an adaptable and device-independent user experience that supports personalization for each role, activity and user. Users of QAD Adaptive ERP and other QAD Cloud apps use the Adaptive UX to simplify and speed-up task completion and to ensure decision-makers have access to analytics-based insight to make smarter decisions.

Also included in the future plan is an implementation of QAD Automation Solutions. QAD Automation Solutions improves operational visibility, control and accuracy across the internal supply chain, spanning inbound, production and outbound processes. It ties Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), shop floor data and processes in real time to improve material handling speed, accuracy and inventory management.

During the first phase, seven manufacturing locations in Europe and the U.S., some of which operate ²⁴⁄₇, were moved to the QAD Cloud. By moving to the cloud, the company sets the stage to leverage the QAD Enterprise Platform, which will give it even greater flexibility, reduce the number of customizations and facilitate modular upgrades. Similarly, QAD Adaptive ERP frees up the company’s IT resources to work on business process improvements rather than system maintenance.

“We chose to go with QAD Adaptive ERP, which for us is more like ​‘application as a service.’ Cloud is a much better solution for us from a technical point of view and gives us more possibilities,” commented Martin.

“I’m not just thinking about next week or next month, I’m thinking about the next ten years. We need the applications that will fulfill future requirements and that’s why we’re moving to QAD ERP in the cloud. We’re better equipped than before.”

The Results: QAD Adaptive Implementation Benefits

The most significant benefit from the upgrade to the cloud across the entire business is the assignment of RENOLIT’s IT resources to business continuous improvement projects and away from system maintenance activities. For example, the IT group can now focus on digitalization, reporting and business intelligence (BI) projects to meet demands for improved analysis from different market units. The cloud solution has embedded analytics benefits built in. Moreover, it contains standard functionality that replaces multiple customizations.

The upgrade process is greatly simplified in the cloud. System administration tasks are reduced dramatically allowing the RENOLIT IT team to focus on more value-add responsibilities. Because it is in the QAD Cloud, the system is easier to maintain and support, regardless of increasing complexity. It is the foundation for future solutions and functionality improvements.

Additional cloud-based benefits RENOLIT has experienced include:

• Built-in disaster recovery based on separate geographical locations
• Improved workflows and functionality
• Fewer customizations and third-party applications
• Streamlined processes related to approval flows, maintenance, warehouse operations and data capture
• Improved security
• ²⁴⁄₇ system availability
• System change/release management is structured and accountable

“QAD has a lot of functionality we can share with suppliers and customers and staff in our production sites that is good for our business and positions us for growth,” commented RENOLIT Head of Corporate QAD Applications Agustín Alcalde.

By standardizing its ERP solution across the entire business, RENOLIT meets its goals of using the most up-to-date technology and taking advantage of a larger suite of features and modules.

“We’re talking about trust, responsibility and possibilities. We felt that it was much better to go with QAD Adaptive ERP in the cloud, because it would give us more possibilities as an application,” commented Martin.

By moving to the QAD Cloud, RENOLIT has set the stage for its future project standardizations with a focus on quality and greater product traceability, as well as serialization. With cloud accessibility ²⁴⁄₇, the company will gain greater product and item tracking information for customers.

“We knew that serialization requires a team commitment of ²⁴⁄₇ availability and that was difficult with an on-premise solution. In the cloud, we feel stronger and are working on the serialization project to give our customers more traceability information,” explained Agustín.

RENOLIT is planning its next steps with QAD to include adding Adaptive UX and more analytics and reporting options, implementing QAD Automation Solutions, adding invoicing functionality and implementing QAD EQMS (Enterprise Quality Management System) across more divisions of the company – at the moment only the medical sites are using EQMS.