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VCX & Horsch – CoCs for Agricultural Machinery and Vehicles
Horsch – a manufacturer of towed agricultural machinery based in Germany - was challenged by the introduction of EU Regulation (EU) 167/2013 governing the approval and market surveillance of agricultural and forestry vehicles to completely overhaul their existing systems and processes in order to smoothly apply for EU type approvals and create flawless data sets and Certificates of Conformity (CoC) for each of their products in the future.
The Road to Success.
With the Vehicle Compliance Xpert (VCX) developed by WTG innovation, Horsch discovered a solution that was perfectly tailored to their individual needs. The process of implementing the VCX API into the existing SAP systems could therefore begin immediately.
Decisive VCX Benefits for Horsch.
- Full support of the automated creation of CoCs.
- The VCX system and its UI automatically adapt to changes of applicable regulations.
- The subscription model is flexible and can be fitted to the current order situation at any given time.
- As a “living” software, VCX is being continuously process-optimized.
- Close cooperation in projects promotes a customer-focused development of VCX.
Two further objectives were pursued and successfully implemented while designing the SAP implementation:
- The VCX API is to be called up whenever a product is initially ordered and the associated order subsequently opened or modified. This ensures the availability of a updated CoC data set for each product before, during and after production. It also grants the opportunity to perform a data-check at an early stage to make sure the order complies with existing type approvals. The risk of producing unapproved vehicles is therefore significantly diminished.
- All relevant documents are to be generated and printed directly out of the corresponding order in the SAP system - with a single click. Manual selection of data or templates is no longer necessary.
The solution has been in use at Horsch since 2018. Changes are implemented quickly and efficiently as required, and comprehensive VCX support is always available.
Horsch Company Profile
Name
Horsch
Size
mid-size, 750.000.000€ per year
Industrie
Mechanical engineering, agricultural equipment and technology, towed machinery
Applied Product
VCX Premium Type Approval
Product Focus
Automated generation of registration-relevant documents for vehicle manufacturers
Primary Project Goals
- Introduction of an automated process for managing and creating EU certificates of conformity.
- Elimination of the manual management of documents after creation.
Secondary Project Goals
- Reduction of the massive administrative workload.
- Support of uninterrupted focus time for employees in the specialist department.
- Scalability of workload and -force as the company grows.
Positive Sideeffects
- Early check of data availability during production.
- Early data comparison of the conformity of the ordered vehicle with a type approval to optimize response times in order to correct data before delivery if necessary.
The Starting Point
What triggered the project?
The main motivation for Horsch to digitally overhaul our processes was the introduction of Regulation (EU) 167/2013 - a law making it mandatory for us to equip all vehicles with new EU certificates of conformity.
There are many possibilities, including low-effort in-house solutions. Why VCX?
The decision in favor of VCX was based on several advantages:
- VCX offers complete automation of CoC creation processes.
- VCX handles both high and fluctuating order volumes without placing additional strain on employees.
- All VCX versions are automatically updated after each change in the regulations to suit the new requirements.
- Adaptable pricing conditions additionally support the growth and pace of the company.
- VCX is constantly evolving to meet the needs of its users. Long-term development goals such as the complete automation of the entire type approval cycle offer additional incentives when looking for a future-proof solution.
The Challenge
What were the biggest challenges during the process?
We had to find a way to realize a large number of variants in a comprehensive manner. In particular, the large variants with high gross vehicle weights required a better system. This was solved by weighing the vehicle and transferring the result via an assignment table to a characteristic value in SAP, which is then interpreted by VCX.
How can characteristic values be transferred to VCX to ensure uniqueness?
We decided to always transfer a combined tuple of feature and feature value as an inseparable set.
The Implementation Process
- Installation of test and production instances “on premise”, on-site on Horsch servers.
- One-day workshop to refine the requirements for the integration of the VCX API into the sales process in SAP.
- Implementation of the VCX API into the Horsch SAP system.
- Parallel maintenance of the CoC data in VCX.
- Extensive testing of the integration on the test instance.
- Launch of the productive instance, which has been in continuous operation ever since.
The Solution – Dates and Facts
Original CoC Generation
With VCX, Horsch effortlessly produces an average of 50 unique CoCs per week.
- At peak times, significantly more can be produced very flexibly in no time at all.
The total effort required to complete this number of CoCs per week has been reduced to one click of a button.
- As a direct result, the overall stability of product delivery has been significantly improved.
Duplikate Generation
Originally, Horsch had to deal with very high volumes of requests for duplicates of documents that had already been delivered. To minimize unnecessary work in this area, a method to track documents was created and a fee of €150 per duplicate was introduced in the VCX system.
- Since then, there have been virtually no duplicate requests at Horsch.
- This has given the VCX team the impetus to develop a function that enables duplicates to be retrieved directly via a customer portal for a fee.
Lessons Learned and Takeaways
The project has made me even less afraid of digitization projects. The cost-benefit factor is difficult to grasp at first. But the implementation has confirmed that it was the right step. That's why we will continue to proceed in exactly the same way for similar projects in the future, e.g. the declaration of conformity."
Taking this step six years ago has brought great added value. If we had only done this three or four years ago, we would have encountered considerable difficulties given the pace of growth in recent years."
Manuel Krones
Homologation & Product Safety
Achieving our Goals – Together!
Do you have any questions or would you like to know more about VCX? I would be happy to advise you on how we can develop a customized VCX solution together.
Jens Cram
Product Manager VCX