With more than €400 million (U.S.$600 million) annual revenue, Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift Europe (MCFE) manufactures, sells, and distributes forklifts and related spare parts in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa through its network of approximately 100 distributors. MCFE was founded in 1992 as part of a joint venture between forklift manufacturers Mitsubishi and Caterpillar.
The head office is located in Almere, a city outside of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where it produces approximately 18,000 forklifts a year at its 66.000m2 (16.3 acres) manufacturing plant.
MCFE’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, built on a MAPICS AS/400 platform, handled all primary functions but lacked several elements needed to meet new requirements. “Our business requirements have changed the last five years,” says Robert Vleeschhouwer, General Manager of MCFE’s Information Systems Department. “Service towards our dealer channel has become more important to us. We wanted to be able to manage the communication with our dealers. We used to manage these communications in several locations using a great number of small databases. Because of that, it was hardly possible to collect management information concerning contact-related processes. It was also difficult to enter standard work instructions.”
MCFE also had a dealer-facing configuration system, but found it unstable and difficult to manage. “If the system failed, we couldn’t find out why,” explains Vleeschhouwer. Dealers couldn’t tell if shipments were on schedule, and if the wrong part was received, MCFE had a hard time tracking down the source of the error, causing delays in correcting the situation. After a careful technical review, MCFE determined that expanding the existing system would not serve its need to manage these additional functionalities.
Vleeschhouwer notes, “We were looking for one additional solution which could manage the communication with our dealers and services organization, and automate more processes.” Key needs for this system included contact management, a dealer information sheet, and tracking of service and sales calls. The company researched which solution would fit its requirements and selected Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM business software.