Solid Foundation for Groan through JD Edwards, Tableau, and Arantys Implementation

The Dutch company Groan has specialized in supplying animal feed ingredients across Western Europe since 1979. Because the existing ERP system was no longer supported and the organization aimed for better data accessibility, Groan chose JD Edwards. Cadran’s own Arantys was also added for specific commodity trade activities, along with Tableau for business intelligence and data analysis.

Logistics, Trade, and Finance

“In our decision, the connection with the supplier and the functionalities of the packages each weighed fifty percent,” says Jaco Voorwinden, financial director at Groan. He continues, “The consultants from Cadran were very driven and quickly understood the direction we wanted to take. Arantys was also an important factor, as there are several features in that package that really help us.” The animal feed ingredients that Groan supplies typically come from North and South America, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Black Sea region, and Europe. The fluctuating prices of these various products are closely monitored by trade employees daily. Arantys aligns well with this because all departments work together in one system through standard workflows. Logistics, trade, and finance: everyone knows what is expected of them at any given time, which contributes to maximizing profits.

Getting started

“The fact that Cadran had already unlocked several data points in Tableau beforehand and that it was easy to create dashboards was also a big plus,” Jaco adds. With Tableau, Groan can create its own JD Edwards reports, dashboards, and ad-hoc queries. The project began with a series of workshops. Depending on the subject, the appropriate key users were involved in the different workshops. “Partly during and partly after this knowledge transfer, decisions also had to be made. How should the processes flow? Which functionalities did we want in the system, and which didn’t we? We chose a Minimum Viable Product (‘MVP’) to keep the project manageable and to quickly get the basic processes up and running,” Jaco explains.

Implementation

The next phase of the project began with implementation. “That initially went smoothly,” says Arno Boersma, logistics planner at Groan. “We started with purchase and sales contracts. The lines of communication with the consultants were short, allowing us to test intensively and make adjustments where needed. In this phase, we concluded that the MVP approach didn’t fully suit Groan. The business expected too significant an increase in workload. Therefore, we decided to work with Cadran to see how we could support our core processes with configuration adjustments, which allowed us to secure our processes efficiently.”

Working as one team

“Once the go-live date of January 1 was set, we all worked hard to make it happen. We turn over three million euros a day, so if we can’t invoice for a week, that has a significant impact. It was tense and intense, but we managed to do it together. The people at Cadran are down-to-earth and enthusiastic, which fits well with our company culture,” says Arno. “It felt like they were just our colleagues.”

Solid Foundation

JD Edwards, Tableau, and Arantys have now been in use for nearly two years. As a result, Groan has a solid foundation in terms of processes, data, and automation capabilities. The new way of working that has emerged and the use of Tableau have provided much better insight into logistics and contract positions. In the past, purchasing and sales were only linked afterward in the ERP system, whereas in Arantys, this happens when the insight arises. If those insights change, a different link can easily be made. Furthermore, information used to float around in Excel files, whereas now everything is in JD Edwards. This has led to greater integration between trade and logistics. Arantys provides more insight into purchasing, sales, and trading positions. Jaco says: “One of the advantages of JD Edwards and Tableau is that together they form a proactive system that helps detect errors. Are there invoices booked with incorrect VAT? With Tableau, we immediately catch it, and I am very pleased with that.”

insight into trends

Jaco continues: “We have established a very good foundation and can build on our ambitions.” In the future, we want to share data with customers as well. This will even become mandatory. With this platform, we are ready for it. As Groan grows, working efficiently with the same team becomes increasingly important. Therefore, active consideration is being given to which processes within JD Edwards can be further automated. Dashboards will also be further expanded to provide traders on the floor with insights into trends. For example, it will become apparent if certain customers suddenly buy more or less, and logistics will see at a glance which carrier is the cheapest.

Towards data-driven and sustainable

Jaco: “We already know better than before where goods are located, but we are going to manage our goods flow even better with Cadran’s solutions. We have taken the first steps towards becoming a data-driven organization, which also helps meet sustainability criteria. For instance, we are now better able to meet various ESG standards, although that remains a challenge.”