Time tracking as the basis for data-driven project costing
Success story from Alfha GmbH & Co. KG
With Projektron BCS, we have found a central platform that maps our complex project business in a structured way and is flexible enough to meet our individual requirements. The collaboration with the Projektron team is professional, cooperative and always solution-oriented. The decision to go with BCS was a milestone in our digital development – it still feels absolutely right today.
Alfha – 40 years as an industry specialist for the wood industry
Our company Alfha was founded in 1985 by master electrician Alfons Habbel and was primarily active in the areas of electrical installations, switch cabinet construction and control technology in its early years. Our first customers included several sawmills and wood processing companies, and we have specialised in this industry ever since. Achim Habbel joined the company in 1998, representing the second generation, and has been running the family business alongside his father since 2005. With almost 60 employees and over 300 customers, we are now one of the leading companies for automation and information technology for the wood and sawmill industry in Central Europe.
In our electrical workshop, we design and manufacture switch cabinets and control panels and equip entire control stations with the necessary equipment. Our electricians wire the production systems, some of which are over 100 metres long, thus laying the foundation for the control engineers. They develop PLC sequence programs for automated production and commission them at our customers' sites. The software department develops systems for work preparation and production control systems that supply the sometimes very complex systems with the necessary data and take over material flow control.
In order to offer as much as possible from a single source, we also offer measurement technology, e.g. dimensional measurements for boards, but also 3D scanner systems for tree trunks or those that can detect bark content in boards. With our automation systems and software products, we can control production in sawmills from the tree trunk to the finished board package.
Another focus is the production of glued wood building materials, including laminated timber and cross-laminated timber, which are used in the construction of buildings. Automated systems are also used to produce finished wall and ceiling elements for buildings, among other things. In 2024, we used such elements for an extension to our company building, produced on a system controlled by us at one of our regular customers.
In addition to supplying systems for new plants, often as a partner or subcontractor to machine manufacturers in the wood industry, the modernisation of existing plants is one of our specialities. This often not only restores operational reliability and brings a plant up to the state of the art, but the use of new measurement technology or improved optimisation systems can also lead to increases in output or improvements in product quality. We take pride in manufacturing drive systems and developing software that can be used to produce renewable and climate-friendly wood-based building materials in a resource-efficient and effective manner.
Customer projects with complex requirements
The majority of our orders and thus our sales are generated by project business involving the automation and IT systems described above. The systems to be controlled are usually planned and supplied by the respective mechanical engineering companies on a customer-specific basis. Even if systems are similar and often contain similar machines and components, hardly any two systems are alike. In this respect, the power electronics are also designed specifically for each system and electrical production is essentially customised. The development of PLC sequence programs and production control systems also tends to be classified as individual programming. Over the years, projects have become increasingly complex and project teams larger. This has created a need for software to cover project management.
The path to the right software solution
We first came into contact with Projektron GmbH in the mid-2010s, when we were evaluating the introduction of a new ERP system. We were very impressed by the structure and functionality of Projektron BCS, as well as the range of project management and ticket system functions. However, at that time, we were looking for a comprehensive ERP system that could also handle material management with wholesaler connections, parts lists in quotation calculations and similar topics for the electrical manufacturing sector. In the following years, we therefore decided on a different ERP system.
The ERP system covered all areas and could be comprehensively customised. However, we were dissatisfied with the support provided by the vendor and, as a result of the lack of support, were much too slow in introducing additional modules. The lack of further development of the system architecture, a classic MS Windows application designed for operation in a LAN, also caused us headaches. In 2023, we therefore decided to make a clean break and replace the ERP system.
Successful restart with Projektron BCS
We have now opted for a two-part solution: one system covers quotation calculation, materials management and commercial processing, while Projektron BCS now handles project management, time recording, the ticket system, scheduling and internal organisation.
Projektron BCS was the clear favourite in our new selection process for the areas mentioned above. We felt very well looked after right from the start by our sales contact at the time, who is now our account manager: our list of requirements and questions was answered very conscientiously and in detail, quotations were prepared at short notice and any questions that arose were answered reliably. This gave us a positive impression that has continued throughout our collaboration: there is clearly a very good team spirit and good cooperation at Projektron. If there were any specific questions or open issues during online meetings, a colleague from the relevant department was often called in directly, without prior consultation, to discuss the issues, look at functions directly in the system together or search for possible alternatives if the function we originally wanted was not available in this form in the standard version.
We always find Projektron employees friendly, collegial and relaxed in a positive sense. This is something that is also very important to us internally and was and remains another plus point for Projektron.
From requirements workshop to our own admin team
After our final confirmation, a requirements workshop was held. The meeting was well prepared and ran in a structured and effective manner, while also being pleasant on a personal level.
To document all requirements, we used a test BCS and recorded our requirements there as tickets. As a result of the workshop, it was clear which requirements would be implemented and how: Much was or is covered by the standard, some things we were able to adapt ourselves, and others were configured or implemented for us by Projektron GmbH.
We then had our own BCS admin team trained through an in-house project manager training course and the in-house administration basic training course. With the support of Projektron, we then set up our own test and production system on an in-house server and began configuration.
At the same time, Projektron began implementing some of the requirements. We opted for a model with a dedicated technical contact person in support for configurations and adjustments, and we are very satisfied with this approach. The support portal and communication with our contact person run smoothly, and the implementation meets our requirements and wishes.
Since both Projektron and we ourselves carry out configuration adjustments and enhancements, we work with the configuration versioning service and synchronise our configuration via this service. Before going live with the system, we also had the power users and the project management team trained by Projektron. Regular meetings during the implementation phase kept us on track and provided us with anchor points for mutual agreements.
Focus on time recording: Mapping complex working time models
One focus during the introduction was and remains time recording in our current use of BCS: All employees record their attendance times in the system, partly via the BCS app. We also manage all absences such as holidays, time off in lieu and sick leave in BCS.
We have many different working time models and some special regulations regarding overtime, working time accounts, remuneration for work on Sundays and public holidays, etc. We can map all these requirements using BCS. In addition, we have implemented an export interface from Projektron that prepares the data for payroll accounting.
In addition to attendance times, we use the system extensively to allocate working hours to projects and cost centres. We use numerous functions offered by BCS: projects with sub-projects and tasks for our customer projects and, in some cases, for internal projects, differentiated recurring tasks for the ongoing support of regular customers and their systems, as well as operational activities and tasks to map our cost centre structure.
We use functions and function sets to map different qualification levels and billing rates, and we also use activity types for differentiated grouping and billing, for example for development, on-site or travel times. The majority of employees record their working hours in great detail in the ‘Daily entries’ view, and we use this data for ongoing project costing and as transparent proof for our customers when billing based on time and materials has been agreed.
Project time at the touch of a button makes project costing easier
When creating projects, we adapted the wizards to our needs so that our project assistants can now create new projects in a very structured manner and guided by the software.
Thanks to the knowledge gained in the admin training, we have added some fields to the master data and adapted existing ones. One example of this is the end customer: we often work on behalf of a machine manufacturer, who is then our customer, but we carry out the installation and commissioning directly at the ‘end customer’, e.g. a sawmill or glued wood factory, so that the information is also crucial in the project master data.
In the team plan, we usually assign employees with their functions in detail at the sub-project and task level so as not to bloat their task lists.
In some cases, we also use the person group functionality. One example is the ‘Electrical Production’ person group, as we do not plan in advance at the project management level which employees will manufacture which control cabinets or control panels, but rather this work is assigned on a daily or weekly basis by the workshop manager, depending on staff availability.
Tickets instead of paperwork
Tickets are another crucial BCS issue for us. Before introducing BCS, we must admit to our shame that we did not have a uniform ticket system, but rather a colourful mix of tools.
As the company has grown in recent years, the number of tasks, requirements, support requests, etc. has also increased, all of which can now be managed via tickets in BCS. This is already well established in some areas of the company, especially in software development.
Our goal is now to implement it consistently across the entire company. In collaboration with Projektron, we have made some configuration adjustments to optimally map our processes with tickets in BCS. One example is customised statuses and role-based status transitions: Some transitions can only be made by the customer, while others can only be made by the Alpha project manager.
Because we are very impressed with the BCS support portal ourselves, we have decided to offer our customers a support portal via BCS as well. With the support of our technical advisor at Projektron, we have set up our own BCS support server that authorised customers can access. Approved projects with their tasks and external tickets are automatically synchronised between our internal production system and the support system.
BCS is the central control platform for appointments and resources
As a final example of the BCS functions we use, we would like to address the topic of appointments and scheduling. During our search for a new software solution, as described above, a surprising number of systems were unable to meet our scheduling requirements. We do not usually require a detailed project schedule, i.e. a typical Gantt chart showing the timeline and dependencies. However, an overview of all employees and their assignment to individual projects on a daily or weekly basis is a crucial control tool for our multi-project management and employee resource planning.
This is exactly what BCS offers us, with the additional advantage that, in addition to scheduled ‘plan dates’ for projects or tasks, absences or other appointments such as meetings and online meetings can also be displayed in a single view. Individually configured appointment types allow us to distinguish between planned development activities and on-site assignments at our customers' premises, for example, by using different colours.
When it comes to appointments, we also use the BCS rights system: ‘planned appointments’ are only entered by employee resource planning, illnesses by human resources, and approval workflows with stored department managers are used for holiday and time-off requests. For the structured preparation and efficient execution of appointments such as kick-offs or internal meetings, we use the BCS agenda function, in some cases the presentation mode within the appointment itself, record the results, create follow-up appointments or tickets and, if necessary, postpone agenda items to subsequent appointments.
We are so impressed with the appointment functionality that we want to establish BCS as the sole appointment system in the company and are therefore currently working with Projektron to determine how we can integrate external appointments and participants via interfaces, even though we do not use Microsoft 365.
Conclusion and outlook for further BCS functions
It has now been about six months since we went live with BCS. We remain highly satisfied with the system and the Projektron team during the selection, configuration and implementation phases. The decision to switch to Projektron BCS feels very good. The functionality and usability of BCS have led to increased acceptance among many employees for the not always popular topic of time recording and also for handling tickets.
We still see a lot of potential for Alfha in BCS. One of the next steps is to use the invoicing module. Our intention here is to prepare service-based invoice items in BCS and export them to our order processing software. We also appreciate the continuous development of the system. Some employees are already using the personal Kanban board for self-organisation, and we are looking forward to the upcoming new features for time tracking. Our strategy and corporate values include striving for long-term relationships and treating all stakeholders with respect. We believe that our collaboration with Projektron is in line with this, that we have found another long-term and reliable partner in them, and we also appreciate and like our Projektron contacts.
