Up There

Can a implementation of a social technology platform such as SharePoint make a significant Return on Investment (ROI) for a company, or is the Dilbert cartoon a more realistic reflection of what occurs?

Street Crane are a UK company that manufacture industrial cranes, crane kits and hoists. In 2007 they were producing 60 cranes a month.

So how can a company that makes cranes possibly benefit from introducing Enterprise 2.0 technologies?

Given the additional details that the customers for their sophisticated electrical overhead travelling cranes are companies from across the globe, and that each crane delivered is a unique combination of components, you have some insight into where efficiencies may be gained.

The business case for the project identified that, "The company wanted to improve collaboration among the company’s teams and outside organizations that all have to deal with large volumes of design data and move away from sending CDs back and forth. The challenge was to manage our data in a much more sophisticated and effective way given the huge number of configuration combinations of our products.”

Street Crane chose to implement Solid Edge® software for 3D product design together with Insight™ for design data management. The YouTube video steps through how this product based on Microsoft SharePoint provides a collaborative design platform, with documents easily shared and updated with relevant people, regardless of their location, or time zone.

The Return on Investment (ROI) for this project is impressive.

Pique Solutions, sponsored by Microsoft, in a white paper titled "Connected Value: The ROI Benefits of Business-Critical SharePoint" (February 2013 ), use Street Crane as one of their case studies, and summarise the ROI as follows:

• "99% reduction in shop floor order-processing time (1.5 days to 30 seconds)
• 20% to 40% manufacturing growth over the past six years with minimal staffing increase; a more than sixfold increase in output from 30 cranes per month to more than 200
• 50% increase in user productivity and efficiency
• Suppliers and Customers get secure access to business processes around the clock"

Chris Russell, Street Crane Director of Development, describes the change for his company as follows:

"Our BCSP solution certainly provided ROI in the first year, but the impact to our business has been transformational. We have created a 24/7 window into our business, enabling suppliers and customers to participate directly in our business processes. Our rapid cycle times have allowed us to enter entirely new markets based on a ‘design-to-order’ process enabled by SharePoint."  

 The tangible benefits of this project were significant, and include:

• increased business availability, to 24/7 rather than UK business hours
• decreased cycle times for processing of orders
• increased number of new customers because of the new "design-to-order" service
• faster exchange of designs with customer, replacing the slow, insecure method of physically sending designs on CD increased output
• increased production (Six fold increase in production with the same number of staff)
• decreased number of errors and amount of rework required
• decreased cost of training, due to simpler processes and the familiar intuitive interface.

The intangible benefits included:

• increased efficiency by better document control
• increased collaboration by providing the ability to share selected data securely  with suppliers and customers  across the world
• reduced business risk of losing data, of losing customers
• increased security by provision of levels of access so people can see "the right data at the right time"
• increased customer satisfaction
• increased employee engagement at work
• faster and better decision making

 In reflecting on the impact of this project I can see only strengths. Admittedly the case studies are sponsored by Microsoft, but the success story is supported by the significant growth of the company through a period of recession, and by the industry accolades Street Crane has received, and is continuing to receive, evidenced by the  Street Crane Facebook page.

• July21st 2014  "The Sunday Times have ranked us as one of “Britain’s Fastest Growing Exporters” in their International Track 200"

 

• January 9th 2014, "We’re really proud to announce Street Crane has selected as one of “The UK’s 1,000 most Exciting and Inspirational Companies” in a league table drawn up by the London Stock Exchange."

 

Street Crane's company motto is "Up There".

I can only agree.