Digital order processing
AVA Abfallverwertung Augsburg KU
About the customer
With around 180 employees, AVA Abfallverwertung Augsburg KU operates a waste-to-energy plant with integrated hospital waste incineration, flue gas cleaning, slag processing and a biowaste fermentation plant. State-of-the-art firing technology and elaborate filter systems ensure that emissions in all parts of the plant are far below the levels prescribed by law. The Augsburg waste-to-energy plant was commissioned in 1994 and is used to dispose of municipal and commercial waste from the Augsburg urban area and the districts of Augsburg, Aichach-Friedberg, Dillingen, Donau-Ries, Landsberg am Lech and Starnberg.
Around 250,000 tons of municipal and commercial waste are thermally treated in the waste-to-energy plant every year. In addition, around 3,800 tons of hospital waste are incinerated each year. After deducting the plant’s own requirements, 57 million kWh of electricity and 196 million kWh of district heating could be fed into public networks from the incinerated waste in 2020. The biowaste incineration plant also generates 43 million kWh of natural gas-quality biogas from the input of just under 90,000 metric tons.
Challenge
In purchasing, all procurement processes are handled at AVA. In 2020, for example, around 3,800 requisitions and 2,100 purchase orders were processed. In this process, inquiries have to be made to suppliers, the offers have to be viewed and then evaluated. Then the purchase orders for the required supplies or services are entered in SAP. The processing, monitoring and legally compliant documentation used to be done in paper form.
The process of requisitioning with integrated release procedure and budget control has been running for many years via a workflow in the openIPS system. In order to further optimize the ordering process, the “digital order processing” project has now been planned and successfully implemented in the period from July to November 2020.
Complete transparency at every stage of the ordering process and at the touch of a button
Solution
RODIAS played a leading role in the implementation of the project. The project “digital order processing” was implemented as follows: The purchase order is still generated in SAP and transferred to openIPS as an order folder. The order, supplier and material master data are automatically transferred from SAP via an interface. All information and documents of the referenced requisitions are also automatically transferred to the order folder. All documents that belong to the purchasing process, such as quotations, order confirmations, calculations and other correspondence can be attached to the process. This means that the entire purchasing process is documented centrally in the electronic order folder.
Additional texts and documents can be added by the purchasing department. The purchase order is automatically sent by e-mail after the AVA approval process. The e-mail is also attached as a document to the order folder.
An inquiry is now also processed digitally via openIPS in the same way as the order folder. The order folders and inquiries are archived directly in the Easy Archiv document management system in an audit-proof manner. There is no need for paper archiving.
Benefit
The “digital order processing” project saves the AVA a lot of paper as well as postage costs. It also saves around 50 folders a year, as well as storage space for the 10-year obligation to keep order documents. Of course, the environment is also pleased about these savings.
The electronic purchase order file provides a full overview of the current status of purchase orders/inquiries. The user can access the entire purchasing process at any time, from requisition to invoicing. Lead times in the ordering process are significantly shorter. The lead times in the ordering process are significantly shorter.