Responding quickly to change in your business and in your market is something every company wants to achieve, and is often regarded as a hallmark of being agile.
The ability to be truly agile, though, requires a combination of vision, knowledge and flexibility that embraces sound business leadership, clear business processes and an effective technical infrastructure working in harmony to enable you to manage the change, confidently and seamlessly.
It’s a description that fits Imerys Minerals and its success in embracing the challenges of dynamic growth without disrupting its business. Paris-based Imerys is the world leader in mineral-based specialty solutions for industry and employs 16,000 people in nearly 50 countries.
In an IFS video presentation, David Osborne, European IT Manager at Imerys Minerals, speaks of the relationship between Imerys and IFS that, over the past 15 years, has evolved in its scope and scale to become a key foundation that underpins Imerys’ global growth in markets around the world. He says:
Imerys is constantly expanding, organically and through acquisition. IFS facilitates change and in a recent acquisition, as a business imperative the new company needed to be bought into IFS in the shortest possible time. This was achieved in six weeks due to the efficient on-boarding of IFS and the hard work and dedication of the team.
Osborne also notes:
We needed a fully-integrated ERP system without the cost or complexity of other Tier 1 offerings. Ultimately, we found no other application which met the width and breadth of our needs, or which was as well aligned to meet those needs.
In the mining industry, optimized asset management is fundamental to the continued production of the minerals being transformed. Downtime needs to be minimized, jobs needs to executed in a safe, efficient manner ensuring that any spare parts needed for the job are available when needed.
An accompanying case study to the video describes the measurable benefits Imerys has enjoyed resulting from its decision to broaden its use of IFS Applications as the foundation of its agility platform, including:
- Single data repository.
- High visibility on production and logistics costs.
- Reduction in annual maintenance costs.
- Preventative maintenance to reduce production downtimes.
- Increased use of mobile applications to access business data wherever employees are.
Watch David Osborne’s story and see how the phrase “truly agile” does indeed characterize Imerys Minerals.
- Get the complete story: download the Imerys Minerals case study (PDF).
