Case Kymijoen Ravintolapalvelut

Before deploying the ERP system in cooperation with Digia, Kymijoen Ravintopalvelut relied on a system dating back to the 90s. Kymijoen Ravintopalvelut became a limited company in 2004, which marked a new need for a system that genuinely managed business processes. The procurement process started in 2008, and after a tendering process that scored proposals according to a set of categories (price, project, support, maintenance, life span and key functionalities), Kymijoen Ravintopalvelut made the decision to partner with Digia in 2010.

The goal was to boost working efficiency by replacing manual work with automation facilitated by the system. Transitioning from one system to another was also significant from the perspective of the company’s central kitchen, Keskuskeittiö Kapyysi, which combined several kitchens into a single food preparation plant and was set to open in Kotka in 2010.

Cooperation started with a specification stage and the deployment of Digia Enterprise 4.2 and an integrated web customer portal. More milestones were reached in 2018 with the implementation of the 8.0 version of Digia Enterprise and 2019 with a modernised order portal solution based on the new version’s browser technology. The company has now reached a satisfactory level of systems utilisation and technology.

All ingredients, known as items, and versions were entered into the ERP system, along with their prices and nutritional information. From there, they are added to recipe preparation, and the recipes are added to the menus. Together, this effectively constitutes production, stock orders and dispatches, along with pricing and nutritional calculations. Customers place sales orders using online menus. Finally, all the above information goes to reporting. The system’s reporting functions are performed by Qlik Sense. “We are extremely pleased with the reporting functions. They give us the exact reports our company needs,” says Kymijoen Ravintopalvelut Oy's IT Manager Virpi Niveri.

With the new ERP system, the company has been able to say goodbye to many manual tasks, such as typing documents and entering calculations by hand. The information entered into the system is used to automatically populate labels and printouts, which results in significant time savings and reduces the chance of human error. Automation increases working efficiency by transferring data quickly from one system to another.

One of the many significant and tangible production advantages of a well-functioning ERP system is the ability to automatically print labels according to the customer’s order. Approximately 15,000 servings are dispatched from the central kitchen each day, the labels for which were previously written by hand. Another advantage is traceability in various situations – the system remembers which pot each serving comes from. Additionally, at the central kitchen, the ERP system has been adapted for use on a set of three touchscreens, allowing production staff to update job queues quickly and easily as they work, which makes their jobs significantly easier.

When it comes to sales invoicing, all invoices are dispatched electronically by the ERP system to accounting and customers. Additionally, orders and purchases of predetermined ingredients and other goods from suppliers are handled electronically by the ERP system where previously they would have been placed manually by phone or email. This allows production to know exactly how much of a given product has come in and gone out, as well as the cost of that product. The end result is a significant improvement: everything is more controlled, more efficient and more transparent.

The ERP system also improves the predictability of business operations. With the benefit of reporting, operations can be monitored on a regular basis. Information about what has been done and what tasks have been completed is taken straight from the system instead of being collected manually, which once again saves time.