Effec­ti­ve quo­ta­ti­on pro­cess thanks to CREALIS® CPQ and 3D visua­li­sa­ti­on

Sun­pa­ra­di­se AG uses the con­fi­gu­ra­tor as a dea­ler plat­form cal­led ‘con­nect’ with a com­pre­hen­si­ve sales net­work, pro­duct cata­lo­gue and infor­ma­ti­on por­tal for the sale of cus­to­mi­sed con­ser­va­to­ries, glass roofs, sli­ding sys­tems and much more.

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Sun­pa­ra­di­se AG

Sun­pa­ra­di­se AG is a lea­ding inter­na­tio­nal com­pa­ny for patio roofs, con­ser­va­to­ries and bal­c­o­ny gla­zing. Sun­pa­ra­di­se designs, manu­fac­tures and mar­kets the­se cus­to­mi­sed aluminium/glass sys­tems for spe­cia­list retail part­ners, metal fabri­ca­tors and instal­la­ti­on com­pa­nies. A total of 35 pro­duct sys­tems are offe­red through a glo­bal dea­ler net­work of 1,500 spe­cia­list retail­ers. To impro­ve and stream­li­ne the quo­ta­ti­on pro­cess, Sun­pa­ra­di­se reli­es on CREALIS® CPQ with 3D visua­li­sa­ti­on.

THE TASK

Sun­pa­ra­di­se AG deci­ded to intro­du­ce a pro­duct con­fi­gu­ra­tor to over­co­me seve­ral chal­lenges and impro­ve cus­to­mer ser­vice. One of the main reasons was the incre­asing com­ple­xi­ty of tra­di­tio­nal pri­ce lists. The pre­vious manu­al quo­ta­ti­on pro­cess was not only time-con­sum­ing but also pro­ne to errors.

A pro­duct con­fi­gu­ra­tor would enable dea­lers to con­fi­gu­re their desi­red pro­ducts inde­pendent­ly and in real time and to view the cor­re­spon­ding pri­ces imme­dia­te­ly. This not only makes it easier to sel­ect opti­ons, but also ensu­res that all sel­ec­ted items are com­pa­ti­ble and that no incor­rect orders are pla­ced. The aim was to stand out from the com­pe­ti­ti­on and offer cus­to­mers sta­te-of-the-art tech­no­lo­gies that would make the orde­ring pro­cess signi­fi­cant­ly more effi­ci­ent and trans­pa­rent.

THE PROCESS

The pro­ject was imple­men­ted using the ORISA con­fi­gu­ra­tor CREALIS®. This con­ta­ins know­ledge-based soft­ware tools for mana­ging pro­duct data and a con­fi­gu­ra­tor for con­fi­gu­ring pro­ducts with many vari­ants.

In a pilot work­shop, Sun­pa­ra­di­se employees were able to get a first impres­si­on based on a repre­sen­ta­ti­ve pro­to­ty­pe. The demo pro­cess cle­ar­ly show­ed that CREALIS® not only pro­vi­des opti­mal sup­port for sales, but also ser­ves as a cen­tral plat­form for streng­thening the sales net­work, inte­gra­ting the pro­duct cata­lo­gue and acting as an infor­ma­ti­on por­tal for all rele­vant data. It also offe­red a visu­al expe­ri­ence for end cus­to­mers, which made it easier to sel­ect and con­fi­gu­re pro­ducts. At the same time, it beca­me clear that ‘con­nect’ could be used smooth­ly as a direct cont­act inter­face bet­ween head­quar­ters and the various sales chan­nels. After the pilot work­shop was suc­cessful­ly com­ple­ted, the pro­ject was laun­ched at the end of the same year. The CPQ solu­ti­on has been available to dea­lers sin­ce 2019.

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THE OUTCOME

Access to the CPQ solu­ti­on is pro­vi­ded via the CREALIS® dash­board. This is tail­o­red to the requi­re­ments of dea­lers and, as a por­tal, offers an over­view of all pro­jects and news. When a new pro­ject is star­ted, the dea­ler data is auto­ma­ti­cal­ly trans­fer­red from the ERP sys­tem and the pro­duct cata­lo­gue takes you direct­ly to the pro­duct to be con­fi­gu­red. The pro­duct con­fi­gu­ra­tor is adapt­ed to the cor­po­ra­te design of the com­pa­ny. It is very easy and con­ve­ni­ent to use on a PC, tablet, pho­ne or direct­ly at the end cus­to­mer’s pre­mi­ses. Par­al­lel to the con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on, the 3D visua­li­sa­ti­on, inclu­ding dimen­si­ons, is built up in real time and pres­ents the pro­duct rea­li­sti­cal­ly and always with valid pri­ce infor­ma­ti­on.

All con­fi­gu­red pro­ducts can be added to the shop­ping bas­ket and, once the pro­ject has been com­pi­led, the quo­ta­ti­on is gene­ra­ted at the touch of a but­ton. The models requi­red for con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on are main­tai­ned in CREALIS® PDM. Thanks to the easy-to-use inter­face and trai­ning at the start of the pro­ject, Sun­pa­ra­di­se employees can hand­le the model­ling and data main­ten­an­ce of the con­fi­gu­ra­tor on their own. This approach offers com­ple­te fle­xi­bi­li­ty, as models can be main­tai­ned in quick, inter­nal pro­ces­ses. This way, pro­duct manage­ment can easi­ly respond to urgent chan­ges, such as coun­try-spe­ci­fic pro­duct requi­re­ments.

THE OUTLOOK

ORISA works con­ti­nuous­ly with Sun­pa­ra­di­se to adapt and impro­ve the pro­duct con­fi­gu­ra­tor in order to rea­li­se the wis­hes and visi­ons of spe­cia­list dea­lers. For exam­p­le, even more intui­ti­ve user gui­dance is inten­ded to make pro­duct con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on more ergo­no­mic and offer the opti­on of pro­ces­sing non-stan­dard orders more easi­ly. In addi­ti­on, it should be pos­si­ble to upload sket­ches for spe­cial solu­ti­ons cen­tral­ly. Fle­xi­ble adapt­a­ti­on to spe­cial cus­to­mer requi­re­ments calls for cor­re­spon­ding func­tion­a­li­ty in the con­fi­gu­ra­tor, which is pro­vi­ded by ORISA and can be ful­ly imple­men­ted. Future plans also include expan­ding the visua­li­sa­ti­on func­tions and using aug­men­ted rea­li­ty (AR) to pre­sent pro­ducts in a rea­li­stic way. A sim­pli­fied ver­si­on of the con­fi­gu­ra­tor will enable end cus­to­mers to make initi­al con­fi­gu­ra­ti­ons them­sel­ves befo­re con­sul­ting a spe­cia­list dea­ler.

With CREALIS CPQ, our spe­cia­list retail­ers can con­fi­gu­re pro­ducts quick­ly, accu­ra­te­ly and with 3D visua­li­sa­ti­on – direct­ly in Sun­pa­ra­di­se’s cor­po­ra­te design.

- Man­dy Schulz / Busi­ness Pro­cess Con­sult, Sun­pa­ra­di­se AG

The pro­ject in num­bers

6.400

Sales items in the con­fi­gu­ra­tor

2.500

Pro­jects com­ple­ted in 2024

14

Count­ries whe­re the con­fi­gu­ra­tor is in use

30

Pro­duct cate­go­ries

4

Lan­guages

THE CUSTOMER BENEFITS AT A GLANCE

  • Acce­le­ra­ti­on of the orde­ring pro­cess and reduc­tion of the error rate for orders

  • Opti­mal sales tool through pro­duct visua­li­sa­ti­on

  • Cost reduc­tion and increased effi­ci­en­cy through an opti­mi­sed sales pro­cess

  • Cus­to­mi­sed adjus­t­ments regar­ding cor­po­ra­te design

  • Intui­ti­ve ope­ra­ti­on of the con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on tool

  • Reduc­tion in order error rate, shor­tening of order pro­ces­sing time

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