4-page Case Study - Posted 6/27/2007

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Grupo Calider

Grupo Calider achieved stability and operational control

Grupo Calider is a company engaged in manufacturing lime and dolomite products. Raw material extracting, calcinations, hydration and packaging are its main processes. As a company, the Group has always been known for its advanced machinery which has turned it into a market leader that can guarantee higher quality and consistent products. Paradoxically, the Group’s internal operations were fragmented due to the lack of information control and little communication among the areas, both internally and with those companies recently acquired. Therefore, the executives made the decision to purchase a system that would allow timely, quick and, above all, simple access to data.

The productivity obtained with Microsoft Dynamics GP has been an important factor. However, the most valuable aspect for the Group was the money we saved. We also consider it a fair proposal Edgar Saenz Systems Manager Grupo Calider

Company Profile

Grupo Calider is a company engaged in the production of lime. It started operating in 1994 as a result of Cal Roma’s merger with Fábrica Nacional de Cal, aiming at industrializing all its processes and increasing lime production in many regions in the country. In 1997 the Group became a world leader in lime production equipment by setting up three vertical stoves and diversifying its product line by producing “dolomite”.

Grupo Calider’s consolidated position as one of the most important lime producers in the country was reflected by its strategic alliance with Lhoist Group, thus gaining presence not only on the local market but on the US and the Caribbean markets as well. In 2000 the company Grupo Perla de Occidente, located in Jalisco, joined the group; Grupo Calteco did the same in 2002 turning Grupo Calider into the second most important lime group in the country. Currently, its corporate center is located in Monterrey and has an office in Guadalajara and many distribution or hydration centers in Santa Cruz, Zamora and SLP. They also have three mines, two in Jalisco – Tecolotlan and Huescalapa- and another one in Nuevo León in Villa de García. With more than 400 employees, Grupo Calider equals absolute quality and market leadership.

Business Challenge

Grupo Calider’s challenge was to gather the information from all its companies into a single platform. To do so Grupo Calider needed a solution that could integrate and consolidate data from the companies recently acquired by the Group and the ones that were already in it. Its challenge was to fully join its databases and strengthen its administrative and accounting areas so as to have real-time access to data enabling timely decision making, as well as reducing the Group’s operating processes time.

Solution

For Grupo Calider it was important to implement a solution that could support all its needs and, above all, that could grow along with the Group as it expanded its business. The Group faced a critical issue; its data was not consolidated on a single platform: data came from tailor-made systems and management solutions that were not integrated to other tools used by the Company on a daily basis; consequently data completeness could not be guaranteed and this led to difficulties in keeping processes in order since they were not aligned or standardized. Part of these limitations had already been identified by the Company. However, a critical factor for the Group’s management was to implement an ERP solution that could support the Y2K changes, including a significant cost-benefit ratio, efficiency, productivity and functionality of all its operations. The Group’s assessment process was lengthy; the decision was made after four months and after analyzing other solutions such as SAP (which had a strong position on the European market but was discarded due to its high costs) Solomon, JD Edwards, Macola and SAE, among others. Once each of the competitors’ proposals had been analyzed, the Group decided that Microsoft Dynamics GP was the ideal tool for the Company. One of the key factors when choosing Dynamics GP was the total cost of the implementation, surprisingly the most reasonable and fair because, apart from meeting the Company’s budgetary expectations, it allowed defining policies and standardizing procedures to speed up sales and administrative processes.

Benefits

For Grupo Calider, Fillgap is a Company with wide experience and a very good service. Edgar Saenz Systems Manager Grupo Calider

The Company has a significant competitive advantage as it has reduced man hours, increased the Group’s productivity, and most importantly, obtained real-time data control through the cubes as they can now create dynamic Excel sheets to analyze sales statistics from different perspectives almost on line. These cubes, aimed at data storage, extract data directly from the sales charts, supported by the SWL server tool (OLAP Services) Dataware House, thus resulting in better data exploitation. Finally, one the main improvements resulting from the implementation of Dynamics GP is the limited time needed to obtain financial statements and the access to information enabling to plan sales better and to improve communication across the company’s areas.

Infrastructure details: number of servers, desktops and mobile devices.
• 3 Servers
• 70 Desktops
• 15 Latops
• 32 Users