Kalmar Asia Pacific Ltd      
Selecting an effective ERP system to maintain excellent service and inventory management

• Rich connectivity and integration capabilities provide a centralized system to support the operation of individual subsidiaries including Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and elsewhere.
• The pre-packaged platform enables collaborative working and fully-integrated connectivity solutions to handle large volume of customers' enquiries and shorten service response time.
• The inventory management function provides instant view of inventory level which enhance the logistics' management.
• The comprehensive financial management function helps maintain a good standard of cashflow and financial management.

Kalmar, a global company owned by the publicly quoted Partek Group with headquarters in Sweden, is the world leading provider of heavy duty material, handling equipment and services to ports, intermodal traffic, terminals and industrial customers. The global corporation Kalmar, with an operating profit amount of over 48 million Euros, subsidiaries located in over 140 countries and over 100 years of experience in lifting and moving heavy objects all over the world, focuses on supplying handling solutions that enables customers to operate with a high level of efficiency and reliability.

Kalmar also provides a large range of value-added services such as maintenance contracts and fleet management. Manufacturing plants are situated in Sweden, Finland, The Netherlands, Estonia and the USA.

Kalmar Pacific Ltd was formed in 1991 to support the China and Hong Kong markets, while Kalmar LMV East Asia in Singapore continued to focus on the South-east Asian market. Over the years, various support centres were set up in China at the following locations: Shanghai, Beijing, Xiamen, Zhongshan, Dalian, Qingdao and Shenzhen.

In July 2000, to cope with the increasing demand for the development in the Asian market, Kalmar Pacific and Kalmar South East Asia merged to form Kalmar Asia Pacific Ltd. (KAPL). Although the economic environment was poor last year, the Asian market still performed well. Kalmar Asia Pacific Ltd. has a turnover of HK$675 million for its Asian markets.

Kalmar is a global corporation with subsidiaries all over the world. To cope with the group's global needs for an advanced e-supply chain management system, Kalmar has made a group decision to have all subsidiaries use Scala Business Solutions.

In 1998, Kalmar Asia Pacific started to implement Scala in its Hong Kong head office. This total solution assists in handling large volume of customers' enquiries and service requests, Kalmar depends heavily on Scala's powerful service and inventory management functions.

To centralize decision making and to integrate all the international business operations in these subsidiaries, it is imperative for Kalmar to have an advanced, reliable ERP solution that can provide a global platform to centralize and standardize all subsidiaries business management processes, and extend to its partner, suppliers and customers.

The Scala software enables genuine collaboration between a company's different operations, wherever they're located, whether they are subsidiaries or divisions of the same company; or with the company's customers, partners and suppliers. This e-supply chain management software integrates Internet technology and traditional ERP functionality that makes global business and internal communication simpler and faster.

Also, the Scala e-supply chain management solutions allows Kalmar to centralize its Shanghai and Singapore subsidiaries data at Hong Kong head office system, therefore users in different subsidiaries can access whatever information they want to improve operational efficiency.

For Kalmar, the challenge is to serve new and changing needs, therefore in addition to the supply of handling equipment, Kalmar is now providing a large range of value-added services including maintenance, repair and overhaul to its demanding customers. The service management functions of Scala have provided Kalmar with sufficient support.

The advanced service management functions allow Kalmar to handle a large volume of customers' enquiries and service requests simultaneously, shorten service request time and provide them with instant information to understand what contracts apply to what customers, which products have been returned, whether those products correspond to a maintenance agreement or warranty support.

In an interview with Mr. Robert Nilsson, the Financial Controller of Kalmar Asia Pacific Ltd., he stated that, "Kalmar is a Swedish company which usually needs to measure 4 to 5 different accounting dimensions for the company's financial evaluation. In the early 90's, many similar software products on the market could only measure 2 to 3 accounting dimensions, therefore with the capability to measure up to 9 different accounting dimensions, Scala was chosen as our group's worldwide ERP system."

For Kalmar, Scala's financial management function provides it with efficiency in creating and issuing purchase orders, handling invoices, building and managing a budget, and knowing what and where the company's assets are. All these help Kalmar maintain a good standard of cashflow with its financial management capability.