NEW YORK, NY --(Marketwired - September 17, 2014) - Infor , a leading provider of business application software serving more than 73,000 customers, today announced the winners of the 2014 Infor Excellence in Action Awards at the company's annual user conference, Inforum 2014 , in New Orleans. These awards honor organizations that have successfully deployed Infor technology to drive business value, reduce complexity, and improve overall performance in four distinct categories - Financial Excellence, Operational Excellence, Employee Excellence and Customer Excellence, and an overall Customer of the Year.
A panel of Infor industry and product experts evaluated each applicant's nomination based on their ability to demonstrate new processes and tactics, which were deployed in the last year using Infor technology. The 2014 winners were chosen based on the scope of performance improvement, quantifiable business benefits, customer focus and satisfaction, and technology use and innovation.
"Infor's industry-specific applications positively impact more than 73,000 customers around the globe, and these awards serve as an opportunity for us to formally recognize their innovative use of technology to do business better," said Stephan Scholl, president of Infor. "We are excited to honor these companies and their ability to set strategic goals and achieve outstanding results that directly impact their customers, operations, finances, and employees."
The winners of the 2014 Infor Excellence in Action Awards are:
Customer of the Year - CERN CERN , the world's largest research organization for particle physics, is currently using Infor Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) to operate and maintain its flagship accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), one of the largest and most complex machines in the world. In addition to this, CERN is operating and maintaining the site on the French-Suisse border, comprising over 700 surface building and work facilities for some 12,000 scientists. Due to the large scale and wide range of supporting activities required to operate CERN, a significant amount of the maintenance work is outsourced and Infor EAM helps manage and coordinate the third party activities through kiosks, mobile applications and intuitive interfaces to ensure required information is properly captured. The Infor EAM system at CERN holds information on more than 1.5 million pieces of equipment, and through a set of simplified and mobile user interfaces, the organization has managed to gain significant operational efficiency and speed.
Since project inception, some 750 different users have registered more than 72,000 movements of assets via the self-service kiosks, which resulted in increased accuracy in the traceability of asset locations. In addition, delays in providing feedback for a completed maintenance intervention; something that previously could take up to a week, have been completely eliminated. By facilitating access to asset data and providing a means for updating via multiple tailored interfaces, the organization has seen an overall increase of usage and frequency of information updates in the system. The improved tools enabling quicker and more detailed traceability of assets from Infor EAM have been paramount to the organization's overall effort to comply with national legislation in the two countries where CERN operates the LHC.
Customer Excellence - VV-Auto Group VV-Auto Group is committed to providing the best customer service and experience possible across all contact points at the organization, and wanted to differentiate marketing from the competition in the Finnish automotive market. Working with the Infor Integrated Marketing and CRM Suite , including Infor Outbound Marketing and Infor Sales and Service, the company was able to introduce entirely new processes where none previously existed. VV-Auto has sustained net positive increases in sales and loyalty, in part attributed to these technologies and processes. The company now has live, detailed insight into what happens to all prospect and customer interactions, and the data quality has improved, with VV-Auto reviewing customer data and permissions on a weekly basis. This has improved the quality of the campaigns substantially, and this continues to improve year on year. VV-Auto has also been able to segment and target customers, and automate marketing outreach to different groups so that targeted offerings can be executed appropriately and cost effectively. The team can track how many campaign recipients responded or reacted; whether this translated into a lead or test drive; and finally, whether it resulted in an order. The approach works across all channels so, whether a customer walks into a dealership, looks online or phones VV-Auto's call center, they are recognized and receive a relevant, personalized service. The solution also allows VV-Auto to see the overall impact of each campaign so that they can undertake a thorough evaluation and feed insight back into future campaigns, offering a 360-degree view of the customer they did not previously have. Finally, VV-Auto processing time for campaigns has been cut significantly which meant that the organization was able to launch more than 550 campaigns last year.
Employee Excellence - Memorial Healthcare System and Transplace Memorial Healthcare System (MHS), the third-largest public health care system in the United States, with more than 10,000 benefits-eligible employees, began working with Infor to create more efficient, effective and transparent HR processes. Infor Human Resources Management and Payroll applications have helped reduce the time required to acclimate new hires or remove terminated employees from systems, along with streamlining open enrollment and online performance reviews. This has allowed MHS to reallocate their resources to focus on more value-added activities. Through this automation, MHS has significantly reduced paperwork, centralized HR activities, and maintained service levels with its workforce. The organization estimates that 97 percent of paperwork associated with termination now happens automatically in the system, with a 24-hour turnaround of access right denial, significantly boosting HR security. In addition, the organization was able to save an estimated 5,000 man hours during 2012 open enrollment when more than 10,000 employees completed the open enrollment process, and roughly 585 hours during 2013 open enrollment when about 1,200 employees made changes to their selections. Now, new hires enroll in benefits via the online process saving the HR department approximately 30 minutes per employee to process their paper enrollment forms. With Infor HR solutions, MHS is able to implement industry-specific best practices and continue its compliance with government and MHS internal regulations.
Transplace , a Leading provider of transportation management services (TMS) and logistics technology solutions, was looking for a way to increase employee retention through a more robust and versatile learning management system. Operating with a very lean training department, Transplace knew they needed to leverage technology to help conduct orientation sessions in more than 10 locations across North America. After implementing Infor Learning Management , the company has received extremely positive feedback from new hires on the revamped 90-day orientation experience. The orientation and training content is accessible online by any employee, in any location, and helps to set new hires up for success from day one as he/she learns about the company, its culture and its processes. Since going live on Infor Learning Management, new hire turnover decreased by over 40 percent from 2012 to 2013, and has declined by nearly 65 percent as of the second quarter of 2014. In addition, the organization has seen financial savings of 21.5 percent due to this new training program. The company has added over a dozen customized online courses and is in the process of creating even more - ensuring employees know that Transplace is focused on and committed to their development.
Financial Excellence - Metcam Metcam , a leading fabricator of precision sheet metal components and assemblies for a variety of industries including telecommunications, HVAC, fire and security, office furniture and alternative energy, wanted to enhance the company's overall material planning and control activities through improved material flow, improved operational efficiencies, and reduced inventory levels. Success in these competitive markets means providing the highest quality products, delivered on time at a competitive price. To meet these goals, Metcam utilized Infor Syteline for their Materials Planning and Inventory Control project. The financial and performance impacts of Metcam's project have already proven to be substantial. The organization was able to reduce man hours to execute and manage scheduling and planning, overtime required to meet sales order activity, raw material dollars required to support business activities, and costs for expedited activity of all types (purchasing, manufacturing and customer order fulfillment). In addition, Metcam increased visibility to enterprise-wide business practices, streamlined and refined processes throughout the organization (administrative, production, sales, financial and quality), and improved the overall corporate culture through better visibility and collaboration. The company conservatively estimates that they will have more than recovered the investment made over the past two years within the next twelve months, yielding a positive financial return as early as 2015.
Operational Excellence - Coca-Cola Enterprises Norway and Dematic Working with industrial IT company Prevas , and following a deployment of Infor EAM , Coca Cola Enterprises Norway adopted a preventative maintenance strategy throughout its production processes in order to achieve world class maintenance standards. This new technology has led to higher productivity and lower costs across production, maintenance and energy consumption. The factory now achieves 93 percent of production efficiency (overall equipment effectiveness) as compared to 46 percent in 2009. In addition, Coca-Cola Enterprises Norway has managed to reduce energy consumption by 43 percent since 2010 with the help of an energy tracking project implemented with the support of Prevas and use of Infor EAM applications. The organization reached production efficiency levels that resulted in them becoming one of Coca Cola's best production facilities in Europe, while still achieving lower production, maintenance and energy costs.
Dematic , a global leader providing a comprehensive range of logistics automation solutions, has been using a successful global project delivery method for years, but was in need of a solution that would remove inefficiencies and allow a small project team to handle multiple projects simultaneously in the Real Time Logistics division. Using Infor SyteLine and Infor ION , Dematic was able to automate key processes and remove bottlenecks by automating manual processes. Since going live, the organization has reduced project management man hours by 32 weeks per year, reduced order processing times from seven days to less than two hours, realized five hours per day of labor savings in the Project Office due to automated project creation, reduced paper use by 28 reams per year, and improved visibility of project schedules to all project managers across all divisions. Within one month of implementing the solution, Dematic had 78 percent of projects automated using Infor ION, allowing staff to focus on more critical job tasks.
About Infor Infor is fundamentally changing the way information is published and consumed in the enterprise, helping 73,000 customers in more than 200 countries and territories improve operations, drive growth, and quickly adapt to changes in business demands. Infor offers deep industry-specific applications and suites, engineered for speed, and with an innovative user experience design that is simple, transparent, and elegant. Infor provides flexible deployment options that give customers a choice to run their businesses in the cloud, on-premises, or both. To learn more about Infor, please visit www.infor.com .
Infor customers include:
- 19 of the top 20 aerospace companies
- 10 of the top 10 high tech companies
- 10 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies
- 22 of the 25 largest U.S. healthcare delivery networks
- 16 of the 20 largest US cities
- 20 of the top 20 automotive suppliers
- 17 of the top 20 industrial distributors
- 16 of the top 20 global retailers
- 4 of the top 5 brewers
For more information: Dan Barnhardt Infor 646-336-1731 dan.barnhardt@infor.com
