Gate and door manufacturer TBS equips itself with VlexPlus ERP for the future

Since its founding more than 30 years ago, Torbau Schwaben GmbH (www.torbau-schwaben.de) headquartered in Eberhardzell-Oberessendorf, Baden-Wuerttemberg, satisfies top demands in terms of safety, service, quality, technology and design of garage doors which certainly earn their "Made in Germany" seal of quality. More than 90 members of staff supply large renowned manufacturers of prefabricated garages and private households and resellers with up to 50 gates daily. More than 110 000 customers throughout Europe rely on the quality and reliability of TBS garage doors. The product portfolio comprises, among other, garage swing doors, garage double wing doors, front and side doors, basement garage door systems, facade doors and yard sliding and revolving gates. TBS has long since achieved hallmark status in the entire gate and door sector.

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Initial situation

ERP system with isolated solutions was outdated

TBS installed the ERP all-in-one solution VlexPlus, developed especially for variant manufacturers, to replace its outdated and by now inadequate ERP industry solution when it became clear that growing demand and changed legal requirements increasingly pushed its existing solution to the limit.

New types of taxes promulgated in the course of “Europeanisation” were not supported, for instance. A special interface was developed back then for its DOS-based database. This interface could not, or only with extreme effort, be adapted, gradually relegating the system to outdated.

Decision-making process

Future-proof and sector competency tipped the scales

Since the previous ERP system with the connected isolated applications hardly managed to incorporate the constantly growing demands, management decided in 2011 to replace the old system with a future-proof, state-of-the-art and consistent all-in-one solution. In the selection process, VLEXsoftware+consulting gmbh offered TBS not only convincing sector competency and sustainable future capacity, but also an impressive overall package compared to the competition. VlexPlus could offer functionalities which other solutions lacked in its standard configuration already – be it in respect of consistent variant configurators, smooth linking of TBS field service staff via the Web, browser-based printing functionality or analyses in support of corporate management via flexibly configurable cockpits.

Application advantages

Trend-setting technology and convenient configurator

The underlying browser technology renders linking of field service staff very convenient and offers TBS highly efficient control of printing with no VPN access, terminal server or supplementary applications. The configurator simplifies internal procurement, distribution and manufacturing and also implements visually very attractive configuration. 3D drawings may be automatically created directly following configuration, via an own interface to the CAD system.

TBS today receives job confirmations, delivery notes and invoices of major suppliers in digital form to be read fully automatically into the VlexPlus system. In the face of material items amounting to several million Euros, scrapping of manual data capturing equates to significant simplification and cost savings.

What the customer says

Torbau Schwaben GmbH

“Using the consistent VlexPlus configurator, we can today configure our doors and gates with a few mouse clicks to suit the needs of individual customers. Quotations may on this basis be drawn up very quickly without searching for article numbers and may furthermore be conveniently adapted using the configurator. Not only does this facilitate the entire configuration process making it extremely efficient, but also very easy to handle.”

Roland Kaiser

Commercial Director