SICK insight: Mr Nimwegen, in early October Seli celebrates 15 years’ existence with an Open Day in Neuenkirchen. Could you take us through the company history in slow motion?

Frank Nimwegen: In 1990 Seli began as a service-providing distributor and right from the start offered independent automation technology solutions, in terms of both the technology itself and its producer. So we were never really just a distributor of sensors, but really understood the applications and were therefore competent suppliers of suitable products and system solutions. Our success proved that we were on the right track. With sales of about EUR 5.5 m., 30 employees at the headquarters and 30 personnel in the attached Production Department we have developed into one of the largest system suppliers for automation technology – with our own development and production facilities as well as our own laboratory for calibrating testing equipment.

SICK insight: Which sectors and companies automate with Seli?

SICK insight: Surely technological competence cannot be the only reason why the customers keep coming to Seli?

Frank Nimwegen: That’s true. Basically there are two aspects to our success. Firstly, as a system-oriented company we can offer almost everything involved in automation, i.e. products, systems, measurement, control and regulatory equipment; plant technology, our own products, engineering, commissioning, maintenance, spare part storage or services such as the re-calibration of testing equipment in our own laboratory. Secondly, as a result of our intensive contact with our customers in many sectors we have built up comprehensive expertise, which allows us to implement process concepts in solution-oriented automation technology. Thus our approximately 2,500 customers not only accept us as business partners in sensors or control systems, but also with regard to process technology.

SICK insight: Is this all enough for the future, or must the service-providing distributor or the systems company find new ways to gain customers?

Frank Nimwegen: That’s the critical point. Specialist expertise, process-oriented thinking and a product range will not be the necessary prerequisites in future. Whether money can be earned with these basically depends on the reorganisation of customer relations using current communication technologies. It is now the case that margins are falling in both the distribution business and in the area of application solutions and software. At the same time, direct and personal customer relationships cannot be neglected because time after time they result in new business opportunities, technical trends and developments. Furthermore, while correspondence and orders are on the increase, the unit numbers per order are falling. The administrative workload is thus constantly rising. We therefore believe that automation of the administrative workflow of customer relations offers us a decisive opportunity to remain successful in the future given the prerequisites I mentioned earlier. For this reason we are working intensively on and with ERP-to-ERP communication – regardless of the system used.

SICK insight: You are proud of both your direct customer contact and your automation of customer relations. Aren’t the two somehow mutually exclusive?

Frank Nimwegen: No. The two aspects are not contradictory, but complement one another. Neither Seli nor the customers gain anything from a high administrative workload that slows us down and puts pressure on our personnel resources. If, however, we can succeed in getting our ERP system to communicate with that of the customers we will be quicker and free up valuable manpower for technical consultancy. The ERPs should process the relevant procedures (e.g. availability checks, queries about delivery times, checking and exchanging order, delivery and invoice data) online and direct via the Internet, for example. Over 98% of orders can be processed in this way without administration at a reasonable cost, e.g. for spare parts and familiar or uncritical applications. Our staff in internal and external technical services would then be even more pleased about the remaining 2%, which require critical examination or advice. The automation of administration, i.e. ordering, thus leads to an optimisation of services for the customers.

SICK insight: That sounds great, but what are the prerequisites for this?

Frank Nimwegen: This is not possible without a certain basic technical competence on the part of the orderer so that mistakes are not made when ordering. We have assigned personalised access rights to those customers with whom we have been practising ERP-to-ERP communication since early 2005: so we know who is ordering and that the orderer knows, in system terms, what they are ordering. Complete data consistency from the initial enquiry to payment is a further prerequisite. This is guaranteed by our comprehensive solution. A beautifully designed user interface at a workplace is of no use whatsoever if the ordering procedure requires manual intervention elsewhere. It is also important for us, as a distribution partner for numerous companies, that the order received from one customer is automatically split into individual order items per producer. At the same time all our customers’ individual order items that involve the same product or the same producer must be automatically combined and ordered from them. Then there is the automated production control for the individual products. Our ERP system meets both requirements.

SICK insight: At the start of our talk you looked back 15 years. Would you care to risk a prediction for the next 15 years?

SICK insight: Then we wish you fair weather. Thank you very much for this conversation.