Automated procurement process at Frutiger makes employees happy

Mountains of paper become a lean Digital Process Factory

The family-owned company from Thun in the canton of Bern is one of the leading construction and real estate service providers in Switzerland with 2,700 employees and 22 subsidiaries. On its digital journey, Frutiger AG has also analyzed its ordering processes and automated them with the help of mesoneer.

Ordering construction materials in the past involved a lot of work, took a long time and produced vast amounts of paper. Employees had to intervene manually at every stage of the ordering process. This was time-consuming and error-prone. Short-notice orders from construction sites further disrupted the process and led to stress and errors. The solution: a fully automated and thus lightning-fast ordering process with an online shop, so that orders can be placed on the construction site at any time.

Modeling and automating with Camunda BPM and container technologies

The ordering process for the web store was modeled and automated based on Camunda BPM. This requires not only a lot of experience with BPM software, but also a great understanding of the ordering processes within a company in the construction industry. Christian Squaratti, Head of Department Frutiger Betriebe, comments: «mesoneer understands our business and has built an absolutely professional BPM platform as a Digital Process Factory.»

DevOps supports flexible software development. In addition, automated processes and modern container technologies are used. mesoneer has rolled out the ordering process with these methods and tools in the flexible and highly scalable cloud and is now responsible for operation and support.

Highly automated process creates time and minimizes errors

Today, orders at Frutiger AG are received via the web store, the ERP receives and processes the order data automatically and also handles prioritization. At the same time, warehouse employees are informed in real time about new orders, which can thus be processed quickly and reliably. The process consequently provides enormous relief for the warehouse as well. On the construction sites, people are pleased that orders can be placed at any time and tools and machines are on site the very next day.