CASE STUDY

MetalorWWW.METALOR.COM

Location: Switzerland

Industry: Mining and Metals

Integrations: Microsoft SharePoint, SAP

Software: K2 blackpearl

SOLUTIONS BUILT WITH K2

CAPEX

Employee self-service

Health and Safety Processes

COMPANY PROFILE

Metalor refines precious metals including Gold, Platinum, Palladium and Silver and provides products and services for organisations in the many industries that depend on these high-value materials. The company has subsidiaries in 17 countries and employs 1,800 people.

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PROBLEMLike the precious metals that it works with, Metalor itself has been reshaped many times in its 160 year history. The company initially melted gold for the manufacture of watch cases and bank ingots; today it refines seven of the world’s most valuable metals for use in products as diverse as jewellery, semiconductors and dental implants. Over the years, Metalor’s core processes have evolved alongside the changing size and scope of the business, but they remained dependent on the use of paper, email and fax.

One struggle was the bureaucracy of the company’s capital expenditure process. Employees had to complete lots of different paper forms that were then passed

from person to person. Depending on the value of the proposed purchase, up to fourteen different approval stages were necessary, which inevitably took many weeks to complete. Then, when Metalor underwent financial audits, it took an enormous amount of time and effort to compile all of the paperwork to prove that the company’s expenditures were rigorously controlled.

The nature of Metalor’s business means that health and safety is a critical concern for the company. Whether employees are working with extremely hot molten metals and complex machinery in manufacturing plants or travelling abroad to high-risk countries, Metalor needs to take every possible precaution to ensure their security and well-being.

SOLUTION

Metalor decided to automate key business processes to help improve its efficiency and financial control and, at the same, reinforce health and safety procedures. After evaluating K2’s business process software against three other comparable solutions, K2 was chosen as the clear winner and employees within the business reacted very positively to the new systems.

“User acceptance was very good,” said Jean Phillippe Steullet, senior IT developer at Metalor. “Before, our processes were very complicated; employees didn’t always know what to do and there were often lots of different ways of doing the same

thing. K2 gives everyone clarity and a single, easy-to-follow process for specific tasks.”

Using K2, Metalor has succeeded in fully automating its capital expenditure process and dramatically simplifying what was a highly complex and time-consuming procedure. Whereas it used to take up to three months for expenditure on a new capital item to be approved, this can now often be accomplished in a week.

“There is a standard process for capital expenditure now,” said Jean-Philippe. “And, if we have a financial audit, all of the information is in one place, so we can easily demonstrate good financial control.”

He added: “Managers particularly like the fact that they can use K2 to give authorisations remotely, using their mobile devices. In the past, the process slowed down when people were away from the office. With K2, anyone anywhere can approve requests, which is a real benefit for our organisation.”

A second K2-based workflow has since been created to automate and standardise travel requests. This process is fully integrated with 3rd party organisations, so when business travel is approved, information is automatically sent to the travel agencies so that they can purchase tickets and prepare route maps and travel packs to assist employees. If travel is planned to a high-risk country, details are automatically sent via the K2 process to Metalor’s security manager, so that any extra arrangements (such as a local security escort) can be arranged to protect employees.

In the rare event of an employee having an accident while at work, managers can also use another K2-based process to report it and file information about the cause, location and circumstances of the incident. This process replaces many emails and forms and provides a single conduit for all accident reports across the whole company. As all injury-related information is now stored in one place, in a consistent format, it is now much easier for senior managers to see patterns and put in place new measures to protect employees and prevent further similar injuries in the future.

“There is a standard process for capital expenditure now. And, if we have a financial audit, all of the information is in one

place, so we can easily demonstrate good financial control.”

– JEAN PHILLIPPE STEULLET, SENIOR IT DEVELOPER AT METALOR