When Fitesa needed to implement a global business system in 2019 for its 23 factories in South America, the US, Europe and Asia, they once again chose an IT solution from CANEA. It was just as flexible, scalable and process-oriented as they wanted.
Since its founding in 1973, the Brazilian company Fitesa has grown to become a worldwide manufacturer of nonwoven solutions, which it sells to companies mainly in the hygiene and healthcare sectors. The production process is very similar to that of the paper industry, in that the material is produced on rolls in capital-intensive production lines. The main difference is that the raw material is plastic rather than cellulose.
Why CANEA was chosen again
The factory in Norrköping bought its first IT solution for its operations management system from CANEA – then based on Lotus Notes – just after the turn of the millennium, because of its interactive user-interface, clickable tools and the fact that it was built with a process-oriented mind-set. It was the combination of image, text and the ability to build up the desired structure of the system that determined the decision at the time. And it was essentially the same deciding factors the second time around too. Fitesa wanted to roll out a global system based on the process-oriented mindset that had been developed for the old system in Norrköping.
– We looked at a couple of solutions, but fell back on CANEA again because of its extreme flexibility and scalability, like a box of Lego pieces. CANEA also understood the importance of having a process-based system, which we knew because we had used their Lotus Notes solution. A process-based mindset is very important. You might think it's self-evident, but strangely that doesn't seem to be the case, even though it's so central to all standards,", says Anders Fogelberg, with the long title of Global Director of QA, HS&E, MS and Process Improvement, i.e. responsible for quality, environment, work environment and business systems.
From pilot test to roll-out in 5 months
After a couple of training days on-site in Norrköping, CANEA's consultants configured a handful of document and case types in the system, plus helped migrate the information from the old system.
– Overall, it went very smoothly. The CANEA staff was good, and it was fun to work together. But as a layman, I had underestimated the difficulties of data migration. We have done a total of two migrations now, and it has turned out that it requires some hands-on work; otherwise, it can easily turn into a "shit-in-shit-out" situation.
Easier and more efficient
Fitesa chose a complete solution that is hosted by CANEA, but otherwise very autonomous. Employees appreciate the flexibility and configure all document and case types, including the display settings for the user interface, themselves.
– Document management was a known "big thing", but we have still been able to conquer new areas, such as legal documents that we previously had in another system but now have in CANEA ONE. But when it comes to workflow management, it is just the opposite – the sky is the limit. You almost have to be careful not to create too many workflow types," says Anders Fogelberg and continues:
– Different departments are keen to have their own systems, and no one wants anyone else's, while everyone want as few systems as possible. There is a conflict here.
– I am very pleased that CANEA ONE covers all these areas well. We now have occupational health and safety, i.e. all accidents, incidents and risk management; quality, i.e. complaints concerning both customers and suppliers; as well as internal and external audits and supplier evaluations in the same system.
– In other words, we handle a lot of things in a good and connected way in CANEA ONE. Being able to create modular cases that connect to each other has been a very fun journey.
"I have defined about 20 workflow types and about 10 document types and I must say that the toolbox in CANEA ONE is extremely powerful. I am very satisfied – the only limit to what you can do is your own imagination."
Anders Fogelberg Global Director of QA, HS&E, MS and Process Improvement Fitesa
Different countries and languages
The corporate language is English but the CANEA ONE user interface is available for all Fitesa languages except Hungarian and Dutch. The factories supplement the system languages with the technical terms they use and enter them via translation files into the system.
– The language support works well, I must say. I don't see a better solution. It is quite easy to work with, but you have to enter all the technical terms yourself. When I develop things, I do it in English, which the factories don't always appreciate because the previous translations may no longer be valid. But this is not CANEA's fault, it's an inevitable consequence of the development in the business.
– We have two administrators of the system, myself included, and then we have superusers at each factory. One of the real key solutions was that CANEA did a small customization that allowed us to define a role called "superuser", which means that the superusers can issue permissions to local users to create certain case types and approve certain document types. Thus, we only need two administrators for the 23 factories plus one to three superusers at each site.
”We got great support when we installed and configured the system, definitely a score of five points out of five possible points."
Anders Fogelberg Global Director of QA, HS&E, MS and Process Improvement Fitesa
