Peppermint candy rolled in a green and white wrapper was made famous by VIVIL. This traditional company, founded in 1903, now has a versatile and innovative product offering: sugar-free cough lozenges, peppermint, herb flavored as well as fruit candies belong in their product range along with candy chews, fruit and peppermint pastels made from sugar, sugar substitutes and glucose. VIVIL A. Müller GmbH & Co. KG manufactures 15 tons of confectionery daily in their factory in Offenburg. The quality requirements are high for the confectionery specialist, which employs around 220 personnel, as they use only natural raw materials. VIVIL markets their products in over 30 countries worldwide but Europe is still their main market.

VIVIL’s aim was to be able to react flexibly to future market trends and even with the more complex business processes they wanted to keep their clear structures and this is why they decided to replace their individual software with the ERP solution from GUS Group. "We were quite satisfied with our "home made" software solution but it offered no perspective for the future", stated Georg Heigrodt who is in charge of Sales at VIVIL.

The new software had to be future oriented, offer have sector expertise and a high degree of integration ability. "We had no time to experiment. We were looking for a solution that had been successfully deployed in the food and delicatessen industry for many years. It had to be powerful but also flexible", expanded Klaus Donner who is Head of the Computer Department at VIVIL. "The package from the GUS Group satisfied all our requirements." At VIVIL the ERP system controls purchase, item management, sales, logistics and increasingly, also the production. "It is usually in sales that most companies tend to differ", emphasized Georg Heigrodt. "Most companies are structured differently in this area. This is where a solution shows how flexible it is." Because of the diverse range of articles, sales at VIVIL are very complex. Although the standard in GUS software covered the more important functions some customization had to be carried out and this was programmed mainly by VIVIL themselves. "The features from our old solution were tailor made for our sales department and could never be offered by a standard solution", confirmed Klaus Donner.

VIVIL processes all the order management with the GUS solution. Sales representatives generate nearly all the orders for the confectionery specialist. The salesman takes the order from the customer then enters it on his PC. The data is automatically sent to the ERP sytem through an communications interface where it links up with the order processing: The system then automatically passes on the information to purchase and production, carries out billing and creates delivery papers which are then sent electronically to the company’s carrier. At the same time the service order is created. There are 700 merchandisers in Germany to ensure the proper product presentation at retailers. They are also informed automatically regarding incoming orders for their region. The data exchange for the group is carried out via SINFOS. The ERP system carries out the data transfer to financial accounting and payroll automatically through an interface. "This fully automatic order development shortens operations and ensures quick deliveries", stated Klaus Donner. In purchasing the software does the purchase management and controls incoming goods and invoices. Before the goods enter the warehouse, they are first checked for quality and the results are entered into the system. Most of the orders from wholesalers are sent by EDIFACT and can thus be used directly in the GUS solution. Comparisons between purchases and delivery papers are carried out automatically. The standard software also manages the stock control of the central warehouse where raw materials, packaging and finished goods are stored as well as the stock control for the 30 staging depots.

VIVIL finishes anonymously – i.e. not order related. Nevertheless VIVIL often have to take appropriate action in the production planning. "In principle we produce everything that we have in stock but we still have to be very flexible with the planning", stated Klaus Donner. "We are continually adjusting our planning to developments taking place in the market. To add to this we are always holding special marketing actions. Also we make up customer specific orders, for example export orders with special packing or special product ranges, that are only manufactured for certain retailing groups." This type of short notice intervention in the original planning involves a lot of reorganization and operation expense as the individual products are made up from many different ingredients.

Food regulations for different countries also have to be taken into consideration for export goods as well as descriptions on the packaging. "Because of this demanding organization we have very high expectations for the production planning system. In this area the GUS solution has very good functionality. We have still not tapped the full potential of the solution but are slowly building up the application usage step by step", explained Klaus Donner. "The software also has a comfortable bill of materials management and this is very important for us because our products are made up of many different ingredients", emphasized Georg Heigrodt. Before production is started they have to check that they have enough on the many different ingredients stored in the warehouse – not only raw materials but also the suitable packing material for the finished product. "With the ERP system from GUS Group we can find out if we have the necessary material for the order by just pressing a key. If this is not the case, then the system automatically creates a purchase proposal." VIVIL offers 50 items which, with different packaging and flavors, results in over 300 different variations. Together with the raw materials and packaging, this gives a total of 2,000 articles that the business solution manages and by just touching a key combines to make finished products.