Fortum’s Recycling and Waste Solutions Business Unit (RWS) partnered with Solita to carry out an information management project based on the Semarchy xDM platform. As a result, Fortum’s information management took a quantum leap to an agile new era. “Solita’s solution-oriented approach was apparent every step of the way. The outcome meets our business needs, and the system will be used even more widely in future,“ says Jani Peltoniemi, Head of Supply Chain at Fortum RWS.
Does the development of information management bring visible results? What about master data – does it play any role in modern waste management and recycling? The answer to both questions is a resounding yes.
Waste handling and recycling is a booming business on a global scale. Three years ago, Fortum’s RWS business unit realised that information management needed a lot of development at Fortum: business operations in the different countries lacked common master data, which in turn prevented transparency between them. Furthermore, Fortum wanted to digitalise its business operations, but this required high-quality data and information management processes.
Fortum RWS and Solita carried out a joint project on the Semarchy xDM platform, which gave Fortum RWS an entirely new information management capacity. The lessons learned in the project highlight the importance of transparent and high-quality data in Fortum’s business operations and information management processes.
The implementation brought all the essential business data in our global corporation into the same framework. This created a common set of data for business operations, which is a good foundation for digitalisation. The agile foundation developed in Sweden enables the solution to be expanded to other countries while keeping costs in check.
The implementation brought all the essential business data in our global corporation into the same framework. This created a common set of data for business operations, which is a good foundation for digitalisation.
Semarchy xDM was the best match to RWS’s needs. Particularly important were the Semarchy features that support agile development and its very comprehensive set of information management operations. Agility enabled the project to respond to changing needs and requirements quickly and efficiently while the project was still in progress. The project started with a POC (Proof of Concept), built with minimal effort in two weeks. This enabled the demonstration of the business benefits of the tool right from the beginning of the development process.
“Master data was centralised during the ERP project. The goal was to ensure comprehensive support for business operations in the future as well by making it easy to share master data with different applications. In future, the data model can be modified quickly due to the solution’s flexibility.”
The project enabled RWS to centralise master data, which will eventually result in transparency between business operations in different countries. The unit also uses the solution to create a management model for basic data.
The outcome meets business needs superbly. Fortum is currently considering introducing Semarchy xDM to other business units as well. The product’s licensing model enables Fortum to build several different environments without extra cost or the risk of centralisation.
End users have praised the solution’s intuitive user interface. In practice, this means xDM is not just a tool for information management professionals or the IT department, but can be directly introduced to business operation users as well.
Solita’s solution-oriented approach was apparent every step of the way. The system serves the information management needs at Fortum RWS on a wide scale, from establishing customers and products to managing agreements and reporting hierarchies.