THE SITUATION

Westland Milk Products is an independent New Zealand co-operative dairy company producing a diverse range of products for nutritional, food and beverage applications, including milk powders, milk fats and milk protein products.

Their 70-year history stood them in good stead when the dairy industry was deregulated. This saw the subsequent amalgamation of most of this country’s dairy companies into a large entity, Fonterra. However Westland Milk Products remained independent, determined to go it alone, with a vision to deliver better value to local farm supplier shareholders.

Westland Milk Products possessed the vision to stand on their own two feet – somewhat a David and Goliath situation – and undertook a mandate to develop a range of quality milk related products and to create a successful market for those products. They had an excellent reputation in the industry but had to develop their marketing, corporate and IT areas from scratch. Westland needed systems that would give them a competitive advantage to perform successfully in the New Zealand and global markets.

Their business model changed from being a producer only to a full value chain model capable of supporting the business. The value chain would include synergies and performance across a range of business activities, including milk collection, manufacturing, research and development, transport, export shipping, in-market and international markets, sales and logistics.

THE PAIN

Westland Milk Products needed a cohesive IT strategy that would deliver integrated business systems capable of supporting their whole value chain.

The starting point

Westland Milk Products had a range of disjointed business processes that operated across a number of disparate systems and didn’t support or add any meaningful value to their new business model. They ran Navision, an early version of
Microsoft Dynamics NAV, for financials and the rest of their business processes and information were fairly silo-based, and held in disparate sources. Acknowledging the limitations of where they stood with their business systems, Westland embarked on developing an IS strategy that would support their wider value chain. They searched for an IS/IT Manager to lead that vision.

Enter Darren Wilson into the equation

“We wanted to OWN and DRIVE our own Integrated IS Strategy.”

Darren comments on the foundation of their strategy. "Westland is somewhat of a niche player in the market, and we like to think we’re innovative and agile. We wanted to be responsive to our customers, and we didn’t have the processes in place to support our business vision. We had some tools and systems but nothing was integrated. To get to where we wanted to be, we needed systems to support our wider value chain. When I joined 12 months ago, the systems were disparate and as a consequence business processes were disjointed. Before my arrival, the company had begun to embark on a very market focused strategy which had a strong CRM and ERP focus as the starting point of taking an integrated approach to the business. I established an IS strategy that would support the whole value chain. Integrated systems were needed to provide efficient business processes, knowledge to make decisions and support the supply chain planning process.”

Enter Intergen...

Darren Wilson engaged Intergen and together the teams ratified the strategic goals and broke the vision down into a number of strategic steps, embarking on a progamme of work to establish a solid foundation of systems.

He comments on why their partnering decision was as critical as the technology selection itself. “I undertook a rigorous search for the right partner who could demonstrate proven competencies with Microsoft technologies. In particular I was looking for a depth of knowledge in Dynamics NAV. We needed a partner to support our vision and it was clear that Intergen with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status in six areas stood apart as the only company who had the ability to integrate all the components into a cohesive whole. Intergen’s John Murdoch had significant experience in manufacturing related industries and this was a good synergy. I believe Intergen offers a unique proposition and that is they understand how to apply technology to business processes and business processes to technology.”

Leveraging exceptional business value from the Microsoft technology stack

The clear mandate was to achieve totally integrated business systems that would support Westland’s value chain from planning to delivery.

The decision was made to standardise on an integrated Microsoft technology base using:

• Microsoft Dynamics NAV for MRP and Supply Chain • planning
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM to support customers, • suppliers and employees
• WhereScape RED to create a SQL Server Analysis • Services data warehouse for Business Intelligence
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to provide a • common knowledge management framework and an intranet
• Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Exchange 2003 • for desktop productivity

A core element in the strategy - Navision upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics NAV

The upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics NAV was all about instituting a solid platform that would turn Westland’s existing financial systems from sales order-led tasks into a full enterprise resource planning system that would provide tools for invoicing, management, procurement, production, and business processes, right through to inventory management.

Richard Malloch, Intergen’s Account Manager, describes why the upgrade to Dynamics NAV was a critical milestone to achieve. “Dynamics NAV provides an excellent foundation to support the core business processes. Dynamics NAV manages the unique supply chain planning requirements of the dairy industry. It has been integrated with export documentation, treasury management, pallet tracking, Dynamics CRM and Business Intelligence systems to provide fully integrated business processes. Dynamics CRM is the foundation to support their customers, suppliers and employees.”

Clear business outcomes delivered in a concise time frame

The foundations of Westland’s IS project were executed in an extremely short time frame, as the first steps towards a comprehensive three-year plan were rolled out. Intergen’s Richard Malloch insists the credit rest squarely on the shoulders of Darren Wilson for his leadership and the way he has driven the strategy since day one.

Wayne Leach, CFO for Westland Milk Products comments on how successfully the project has achieved its early foundations. “Our Business Intelligence environment is outstanding. Intergen used the WhereScape RED tool to rapidly build SQL Server Analysis Services cubes over our Dynamics NAV, plant control, milk collection and CRM systems. This is presented through Excel 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to our users, providing them with the information they need to make decisions to improve the performance of our organisation. They committed an excellent flow of resources across all projects, and demonstrated an exceptional understanding of our business processes.”

A Real World Difference

Westland Milk Products is committed to delivering the highest value to their farmer stakeholders, and their IT programme is an important driver in their performance. Last year Westland Milk Products performed better than their big brother counterparts and provided the highest milk payout in the country to their farmer shareholders.

Intergen didn’t go unrecognised either. Microsoft awarded Intergen membership to their Dynamics Presidents Club, an honour reserved for the top 5% of their partners worldwide.

THE GAIN

By leveraging the Microsoft stack of technologies, Westland Milk Products now has the foundations for a series of integrated business systems that deliver new efficiencies, knowledge and the end-to-end visibility needed to support their total value chain.