An IFS partner for 15 years, RutterKey Solutions is a Platinum Sponsor of IFS Unleashed this October.
Bruce Mortimer, CEO and MD, explains his team’s role as part of the IFS ecosystem, and why the company is looking forward to sharing the first releases of its value-generating new technical products at the event.
What’s your relationship with IFS?
I joined the IFS community as an IFS customer in 2003, going on to found RutterKey Solutions and becoming an IFS Partner in 2007. We have grown to over 50 employees working out of offices across the USA, anchored by our Head Office in Collinsville, Connecticut.
We were very excited to expand into the UK, with the opening of our first office in Manchester, England in 2019 under the leadership of Alex Sharp.
RutterKey offers the full range of implementation, management, functional consulting, and technical services required to successfully put IFS into operation. Our approach is founded on a commitment to bring continual improvement to our clients through the innovative application of technology with IFS solutions at its core. My team accomplishes this goal by applying creativity, a focus on value for the customer, and a firm belief in integrity in all that we do. I have no doubt that the 82% growth we’ve experienced in the last 12 months alone is, in large part, due to the collaborative way we work.
Our skills support organizations seeking to implement ERP, and effective business transformation and digitalization, across several industry sectors, in particular those operating in Engineering & Construction, Aerospace & Defense, Oil & Gas, and Shipping. We work with customers in North America, including the US, Canada, and Mexico, and are also growing our base with projects in the UK, EU, the Middle East, and Australia.
Unleashed this year looks at how IFS can accelerate business value. How does RutterKey help to enable this?
Any ERP implementation takes careful planning. Our role as a partner allows us to bridge the gap between technical software functionality and the communication and deployment needs of a large or complicated organization.
Wherever possible we try to use automation to further improve efficiency, track key performance indicators, provide real-time data reporting, and increase the utility of the IFS toolbox. We believe that the best solution can be derived from examining and understanding the function level, considering all possible angles at the project level, and fully controlling the implementation level.
When I formed the business, I centered it around the idea of leveraging industry experience with a deep knowledge of IFS. I think the value proposition we bring to our clients is an ability to find creative ways to use and apply IFS to improve their specific business requirements. Essentially, we’re about improving access to quality decision making information whilst also optimizing the efficiency and effectiveness of how an organization operates.
If we look at the construction sector, for instance, it has traditionally been slow to adopt technology; yet, by introducing IFS, we can deliver significant and rapid gains. Similarly, in the Aerospace and Defense market, the tools and capabilities available within IFS mean that we can rapidly improve the efficiency of many administrative front office functions necessary, for example, when dealing with the US government. This compliments past focus on continual improvement in the areas of touch labor.
What can attendees expect to hear from you at Unleashed?
Unleashed will see us delivering live, on-stand demonstrations of the first releases of three new RutterKey Product Enhancement Packages, which are designed to enhance IFS capabilities and accelerate the transformation needed to put innovative ideas into practice.
When I was a customer using IFS, one of the things that originally attracted me to the product was the commitment IFS had to advance the utility of the software year-on-year. Later, as a partner, I could see that since the capability and functionality continued to advance, we could grow with them.
IFS is a fantastic engine and we have found ways that we can enhance it. Using the extensibility layer that IFS has created to add capability, we’ve been able to address some specific needs in industry that have come up repeatedly during implementations.
The first, our Advanced Project Reporting tool, targets companies that are looking to advance the use of Earned Value Management. It provides Project Managers with automated real time estimates to complete which can be categorized by Activity and Project Cost Element, allowing for effective visualization of the forecasted trajectory of the project and take any required proactive action.
The second, Master Supply Schedule, is a supply chain management tool for same day schedule optimization by matching immediate supply with demand. It provides the visibility needed to maximize the day’s operational plan against supply and demand.
Lastly, Solution Accelerator is our composable application development, hyperautomation, and advanced extensibility suite. It allows companies to accelerate their ability to tailor IFS and cost-effectively build automated workflows within IFS without carrying out any Core Code Modifications. At our booth #200, we will also be showing a scanning utility that can be added to any screen in Aurena.
What aspect of Unleashed are you most looking forward to?
I think it will be great to reconnect with customers and peers face-to-face at Unleashed as we’ve all definitely missed events, such as the IFS World Conferences, during the pandemic. We will have eight staff from our UK and US operations on-hand from technical, marketing, functional, and executive leadership roles to explain our capabilities and answer questions.
What makes RutterKey unique in the partner ecosystem?
I think we have built a team that’s rooted in creativity. We deliver to the client the collective strength of our team to achieve the best outcome of every project or task. When you work with one from RutterKey, you gain the creative expertise of all of RutterKey.
Our other differentiator is that we are truly vested in our clients’ best interests. Quite often we’ll take risk-sharing on as part of the project because we recognize that our value rests, not only in the quality of what we deliver, but also in sharing the commitment of being successful in the delivery.
Join us at IFS Unleashed www.ifsunleashed.com
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