ICE, when every drop counts
ICE Water Management is a company based in Chavanod, in Grand Annecy, whose mission is to propose different solutions to manage and process water. It primarily addresses a clientele of bottlers. Sodas and mineral water bottlers to be precise. «We guarantee them quality and volume of water that they require to be able to ensure production and their brand reputation in their market», explains Damien Jac.
This thirty-year-old company was established in 1987 by André Margara, an industrialist keen to work in the field of export. In collaboration with their French company Sidel, specialized in manufacturing bottling lines, ICE obtained its first water processing contract, the following year, in Iraq. This explains why the company has a significant presence in the Middle East.
A promising future for an ambitious company
Since 1998, ICE has been catering to large groups such as Nestle, Pepsi, and then Evian, which accounts for 50% of its turnover. "We are now trying to go back to Coca Cola so as to cater to the four large players in the water and soft drinks sector.
As of today, ICE has 56 collaborators. Project managers, sales and design engineers, among others, are spread across an engineering office and an equipment production workshop. "We design machines, and then we export them to countries where we assemble them for implementation. "Overseas, two technical sales representatives work within small branches located in Ivory Coast and Vietnam. The Savoyard company manages close to 25 projects every year, ranging from 50,000 to 5 million Euros. Thanks to its excellent customer service, it records between 200 and 300 orders per year. Its annual turnover is around 25 million Euros.
ProConcept, a complete renewal
From the time of obtaining its first contract in 1988, ICE has completed over hundreds of projects. So many projects based on water processing, but each unprecedented, unequalled, and requiring a specific material. This clearly equates to unique parts becoming numerous and important year after year. The ERP designed within company is no longer ideal to track the global management of significantly complex projects that require an increasing level of uniformity between every module. «There was an in-house solution in MS Access that we had launched in 2001 with the help of our IT technician», specifies Damien Jacquet. «It contained only Purchase processes and Product management». The new IT solution, implemented from 2016 by a French small and medium business, was unsuccessful. Damien Jacquet describes an "unfinished" tool, incomplete and inefficient, «Instead of encompassing all the processes, we ended up at the same point as before, with only the ones for Purchases, Weights and Bill of Materials. It was not even possible for us to proceed to invoicing.»
Following a chaotic period, and a new call for tenders in 2017, the ICE Management team selected ProConcept to deploy a new reliable and efficient ERP. Under the leadership of a third-party service provider, it took an entire year to install the complete system. Before ProConcept intervention, there was a considerable amount of upstream activity for each one of the 10 departments managers at ICE. Workshop and Production manager, Christophe Dutour reports enormous work in processing raw data. «To integrate the data in the new software, we needed to rework on a certain number of parameters, including the relevance of the items to be retrieved or not and the standardization of their description.»
After the implementation of the CRM on 1st October 2018, the tool could be finalized as required in December, following the transfer of financial data. A huge challenge in terms of deadlines, with an acceptable budget slippage of around 8%. «This included shadow areas not discussed during the call for tender», notes Damien Jacquet. With the exception of two Human Resource employees, 54 ICE employees currently use the ProConcept ERP. According to Human Resources, the returns are excellent. «It includes all the modules and is very powerful, like obtaining any reports in an Excel file. This lets us rework on them later». Considering the high level of flexibility specific to the tool, the autonomy that its provides is highly appreciated. «The manner in which it is structured is perfect. It can be adapted to the customer requirements, and there is always a solution with respect to specific process requests. Even if is creation may require some time.»
Every went quickly from the start between the ICE and ProConcept teams. Each one was willing to listen to the other, generating mutual encouragement and a healthy competition. In order to cover all the modules in the future, the Chief Executive hopes to integrate the Human Resources management into the ERP. Graphical planning as well. «Knowing that ProConcept has launched it at the start of the year, we will try to implement it". »
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