The Sulzer Corporation, operated since 1834, is the parent of several worldwide companies including Sulzer Pumps, Sulzer Metco, Sulzer Chemtech, Sulzer Turbo Services, and Sulzer Innotec. With revenues of over $3 billion, the corporation specializes in pumping solutions and services, surface technology, separation columns, repair of thermal turbo machinery and contract research on a large scale basis. Sulzer Pumps, part of the Sulzer Corporation, has locations worldwide but is domestically located in Portland, Oregon. It is one of the world leaders in the manufacturing of industrial machinery, and the leader in pump manufacturing as well as agitators and mining equipment. Working on a global level requires the compnay to have broad efficiency across all of its service lines, and technology and innovation are key components to its success.
Initially, Sulzer Pumps chose to work with Amadeus Consulting because of our reputation for successfully handling large scale and complex software development. Sulzer Pumps decided to work with Amadeus Consulting on this additional project after our first successful project produced an estimation and work order tool that would help Sulzer Pumps create fast and accurate estimates, and optimize work order processes.
Sulzer Pumps asked Amadeus Consulting to design and build custom software that would address efficiency and higher turnaround for their business, effectively increasing the bottom line. The company wanted software that would add consistency to quotes generated for its clients, increase the number of quotes it could create and decrease the turnaround time to complete the quotes and work time.
Presenting a unique challenge, this project would require handling an immense amount of data including pricing across different currencies, languages, kinds of pumps, and different services, as well as importing data from an existing system. While there are tools like this in other industries, Amadeus Consulting was charged with the task of creating the first one in the pump industry.
To address the sizeable data, Amadeus Consulting utilized advanced indexing techniques in SQL Server including indexed views to increase performance from the users end. SSIS was used to create efficient and scalable import processes for data. These technologies, while difficult on the development end, create and ease-of-use for users and make it simpler to handle large amounts of information, saving them time and money.
Amadeus Consulting took a Microsoft Excel-based process and made it scalable and repeatable which helped Sulzer Pumps to reduce overall costs and over-runs by standard operations. We created a tool that featured multiple language support and a wizard step, giving users the ability to easily build quotes without significant experience. This quote tool additionally allows Sulzer's headquarters the capacity to view quotes across all 53 service centers, giving them a better scope of the quote turnaround and process.