In the interview with Henning Bitter, Managing Director of ACATEC Software GmbH
A quick and qualified submission of offers in mechanical engineering, particularly for tailor-made products, has always been a major challenge for many companies worldwide. Products that require explanation must be fully understood by customers before an order is placed and are also subject to constant technical change. For more than 15 years, ACATEC Software GmbH, based in Gehrden, has been addressing this very challenge. As the manufacturer of the product configurator speedmaxx – also known as CPQ software (Configure-Price-Quote) – the company quickly recognized the benefits of 3D visualization of products in the offer process.
Over the years, a software solution has been developed that takes care of the full data continuity from the point of sale to order processing, including configuration. Customers and companies can then work highly automated and are able to quickly offer customized products and product variants, even for "batch size one", and subsequently produce them faster.
ACATEC Software GmbH is a company of the PROCAD Group. The company serves customers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland via its headquarters in Gehrden near Hanover and its branch office in Bruchköbel near Frankfurt/Main. In an interview with Henning Bitter, Managing Director of ACATEC Software GmbH, we talk today about the shortage of skilled workers in the engineering sector, the optimization of business processes from a sales perspective, and exciting references.
DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Mr. Bitter, finding good engineers has never been more difficult. Do you yourself feel the shortage of skilled workers in your company, and is this also a topic in sales negotiations when it comes to your software?
Henning Bitter: Both, yes. Unfortunately, it has become common knowledge that for years there has been an increasing demand for workers with advanced training or university degrees. Above all, this applies not only to the healthcare professions but also to the so-called STEM professions (mathematics, engineering, natural sciences and technology) – which, of course, directly affects the core competence of our company. However, the dimensions of this issue are far-reaching, as it is not only about skills that are important in industrial production, but also about key qualifications for the entire economy. On the one hand, this poses a major challenge for us as well as our competitors in the market to be perceived and attractive as employers. On the other hand, it is also the qualified personnel on the customer side that determines the success of our joint projects – and, of course, this is always a critical topic in preliminary discussions.
DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Why is the creation of offers and the processes behind them so important for companies operating in the Industry 4.0 sector after an order has been placed?
Henning Bitter: Creating professional offers is the ultimate challenge for custom manufacturers, especially. This means documenting products that are precisely tailored to individual customer requirements at an economically optimized price within an attractive, binding framework. The internal processes involved require high levels of expertise from the creators—here, immense technical and business management knowledge come together. In companies, the sequence of creating offers often involves a team of technicians, designers, purchasers, and salespeople who all bring data and documents into an appropriate graphical format. Doing this manually often takes many days.
Successful automation of these complex processes delivers error-free designs, optimal margins, and time-minimized offers available 24/7 in real time. Investing in the implementation of this vision is worthwhile, not least because time and quality often determine whether customers award the contract. And once the order has been placed, customers naturally expect to receive exactly the right product—here, too, clear, error-free data transfers between different software systems are crucial to ensure that the order is produced and delivered cleanly and with minimal effort in the shortest possible time. For private customers ordering mass-produced products online, this is already standard reality: when we click on Amazon, we expect perfectly developed products delivered within a short, binding timeframe at the agreed price. At ACATEC, we work with our industrial customers to make this vision a reality even for complex one-off products.
DIGITAL FUTUREmag: For many manufacturers, your product promise is still a vision of the future. Where do European machinery manufacturers stand today in terms of digitalization, and how do you assess the relevance and timeliness of this topic for your potential customers?
Henning Bitter: It has to be said that we often encounter incredulous looks during initial contacts in person when we outline the performance portfolio of our speedmaxx software. While the buzzword “digital transformation” has been a hype topic in industry for years, in reality, it requires major efforts from especially long-established global market leaders in their respective niche markets to implement concrete projects. Introducing such new, leading software systems in companies requires collaboration in agile, interdisciplinary teams to create the necessary prerequisites, such as complete transparency for ideal operational processes, data structures in engineering, and sometimes even the standardization of individual parts, assemblies, or product variants. The topic is more relevant and timely than ever today, as intensifying competition and a rampant shortage of skilled workers are limiting or even jeopardizing the economic success of machinery manufacturers—basically, everyone understands that “something needs to be done.” However, implementation requires major efforts, and the individual steps take a very long time for many companies, as they have to run parallel to normal business operations.
DIGITAL FUTUREmag: The buzzwords "Industry 4.0" and "digitalisation" describe a very large, almost overwhelming field of different measures for companies. Which priorities should companies set for the various approaches?
Henning Bitter: Fundamentally, of course, companies’ IT environments are set up very differently, so it’s hard to reduce the challenge to a one-size-fits-all solution. We recommend evaluating the ROI and benefit of every new piece of software or project for the company and prioritising quick wins. Configurators, by the way, usually deliver a very good ROI for variant manufacturers, because they have an immediately noticeable impact at every process stage. This can also be individually simulated using the amortisation calculator from ACATEC, which is available for download on our website www.acatec.de.
When assessing the benefits of a configurator, it’s important to look at the complexity of the products and the structure of staffing levels at each stage of the value chain. You compare the value added by human work with the performance of automation in product consulting, CAD design, price calculation and quotation, production control and invoicing – in other words, from the point of sale to delivery. Companies with a high engineering content obviously benefit the most. On average, they can accelerate the entire end-to-end process by a factor of five! That means if a process previously took five weeks from design to invoicing, with automation it now takes just one.
DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Your list of references includes impressive names such as Bosch Rexroth, KRONE, IVECO, MTU, Würth, ZARGES and ZF Friedrichshafen. What do these companies have in common?
Henning Bitter: All of them sell customer-specific products in their markets and have very similar business processes. They use the same IT systems, such as ERP, CRM, CAD and PDM, albeit from different vendors. These customers recognised very early on the opportunities offered by seamless processes with automation of the aforementioned IT systems – and that this would enable them to significantly expand their competitive edge. Ultimately, however, it was always individual, visionary people within these companies who drove these projects forward, convinced stakeholders, inspired their teams and made the whole thing a success. Because while all the know-how is important, it’s always the people and their unconditional enthusiasm for innovation that turn such future scenarios into reality in companies.
DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Depending on the industry, manufacturers use very different types of production approaches. Which of these are suitable for configurator software and which are not?