Brigitte-Küchen rely on the latest information technology

Originating as a traditional artisanal furniture manufacturer in 1922, Brigitte-Küchen from Hiddenhausen in Eastern Westphalia has developed into a high performance manufacturing company. The business is well established in the market with a high level of quality awareness and consistent consideration of customer specific requirements. Around 250 staff produce high quality kitchens in production facilities covering an area of more than 20,000 m². The broad range and depth of production gives rise to widely varied planning and design options. In order to leave nothing to chance in the planning process – one of the most important areas in kitchen manufacture – Brigitte-Küchen relies on TCP graphical planning software, which, in combination with their SAP R/3 resource planning software package, provides for an efficient IT infrastructure.

Returns in some areas reduced to zero

Because of the ever more individual and thus complex nature of the kitchen planning process, the decision was made to introduce TCP graphical planning software from TCP GmbH, Mülheim an der Ruhr, which has a highly efficient bidirectional interface to the SAP R/3 resource planning software package used within the company. Before the introduction of TCP, when planning kitchens staff had to plot units and draw worktops with a ruler. This inevitably led to inaccuracies and transcription errors. The way staff employ their time has been fundamentally transformed by the utilisation of a graphical planning software package. Where previously 25 percent of working time was taken up producing drawings and monitoring order confirmation, this work has now been rendered redundant. The time saved can be used directly for advising customers and for detailed elucidation of orders. Changes to orders have also been significantly reduced, because customers can see the planned layout immediately and staff can make any corrections required straight away on the monitor screen.

Head of IT Rainer Neumann is thus more than satisfied with the graphical planning software package, “Over the six months following the introduction of TCP, we were able to reduce returns of long parts down to zero. TCP offers very flexible configuration options. Just a single day with an advisor is all that’s required to configure the graphics program for the new Xenia-Line kitchen range (handle-free kitchen).”   Faster project progressio

The graphical planning software application was introduced in multiple project stages. Firstly, order entry in SAP R/3 was functionally adapted. The industry standard “SAP for Mill Products” had to be implemented and functionally adapted over a period of around six months, so that the graphical planning software package could be optimally docked via an interface. TCP was thus able to present the entire product listing. An ever increasing, clearly visible reduction in returns and corrections quickly became apparent. “Brigitte-Küchen’s USP compared to larger suppliers, who are able to produce large areas, is its proximity to customers and customer loyalty. TCP offers us optimal support for this, because our IT service provider has excellent knowledge of the industry,” states Neumann. The project team were speaking the same language right from the off, on top of which TCP made suggestions to optimise various operational processes.

Service provider with high flexibility

Brigitte-Küchen's customers are traditional small and medium sized furniture retailers. The East Westphalia based company sees itself not just as a manufacturer, but also as a service provider, which enters into the detail of customer requirements, thereby offering a high degree of flexibility. Brigitte-Küchen staff don’t just blindly enter individual customer requirements into the system, they discuss them with the customer and identify possible problems. With the assistance of the graphical planning software, this results in improvements to order quality, especially of long parts such as worktops and cornices. This means that orders can be finished such that they are ready for production immediately. Customer orders are generated to a single standard and have the same appearance whichever staff member produces them. In addition to order confirmation, Brigitte-Küchen is now able to send its customers a layout plan and various views of the kitchen quickly and easily. The clearly laid out graphical representation makes a substantial contribution to achieving high customer loyalty and customer satisfaction.

Additional advantages offered by the use of TCP include automatic generation of production sketches and faster order processing as a whole. This results from factors such as being able to do away with the old paper filing system. Filing is now performed automatically and forwarded to an “optical archive”. Staff, and in particular customer service staff, have direct access to this archive and can thus deal with all procedures with considerably more efficiency and more quickly. “The support offered by TCP GmbH is unusual and particularly gratifying, including and especially practical support. We are still receiving excellent support even after the implementation phase. The quality of the proposed solutions prepared by the TCP support team and the quick response times are of particular note,” reports Neumann.

Outlook
Brigitte-Küchen is planning to implement a custom construction module, which is currently being developed by TCP and will shortly be completed. This module will contribute to ensuring that all eventualities in a kitchen range, such as non-catalogue items (custom units), can be generated directly within the planning flow. In addition, further highly modern CNC machines on the Brigitte-Küchen production line will be provided directly with graphical data or production bills of materials.