Oracle Customer Success—Donaldson Company, Inc.

Donaldson Supports Global Growth, Process Standardization, and Data Visibility, and Serves Customers as “One Donaldson” with Integrated Applications

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 is the bedrock for our IT and business strategy moving forward. Standardizing on the solution across our global enterprise will streamline intra-company processes as well as yield new levels of transparency and operational efficiency that will ensure our competitive edge as we enter our second century.

— Mary Lynne Perushek, CIO, Donaldson Company, Inc.

Donaldson Company, Inc. is a leading worldwide provider of filtration systems that improve people’s lives, enhance customers’ equipment performance, and protect our environment. Founded in 1915, Donaldson is a technology-driven company committed to satisfying its customers’ needs for filtration solutions through innovative research and development, application expertise, and global presence. The approximately 12,700 employees contribute to the company’s success by supporting customers at more than 140 sales, manufacturing, and distribution locations around the world.

Collaboration and connectivity are critical to the success of companies with offices and employees worldwide. Partnering with Deloitte, Donaldson deployed Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 to automate, standardize processes, and provide visibility. The success of the project improved multiple variables and, in the process, made Donaldson one of Oracle’s most-renowned credentials.

Business Challenge

Ensure efficient and standardized business processes across the industrial manufacturing firm that has more than 100 locations and is growing its filtration systems operations organically and via acquisition
Extend enterprisewide visibility, reduce complexity and costs, and support strategic growth goals by standardizing on a single enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform

Improve operational efficiency and productivity to ensure a competitive edge in an increasingly price-sensitive manufacturing sector
Serve the customer as “One Donaldson” regardless of location or product line

Automated and standardized plan-to-manufacture, procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, and account-to-close processes throughout the enterprise and gained the ability to serve customers worldwide as “One Donaldson” with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 and Oracle’s Demantra solutions
Improved transparency, efficiency, and manufacturing productivity across the company’s diverse operations that span more than 100 sites—supporting strategic growth goals
Created a platform that will enable the company to replace seven ERP systems with a single global instance of Oracle E-Business Suite, enabling global standard data definition, improving visibility, reducing IT customizations, and decreasing cost and complexity

Gave business managers the power to run their own reports as needed, providing faster access to business information
Improved expense reporting auditability and accelerated reimbursements with Oracle Internet Expenses
Created a single source of truth across the enterprise and began eliminating information silos on individual laptops to enable a more consistent business view
Streamlined intra-company manufacturing order processing—in which one Donaldson manufacturing facility purchases from another—consolidating the process from 36 steps to five steps, eliminating duplicate work and reducing delivery delays
Gained new visibility into procurement and spend, financials, and supply chain with Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, delivering powerful drill-down capabilities to managers for more timely and informed business decisions
Centralized product information from heterogeneous systems and eliminated the challenge of fragmented product data with Oracle Product Hub
Improved production scheduling efficiency as the company seeks to optimize labor and material use in the manufacture of its filtration systems
Integrated and streamlined procurement processes and strengthened relationships with a diverse supplier base using Oracle iSupplier Portal
Benefitted from Oracle Financials sub-ledger capabilities to support multiple currencies as the company grows its global presence
Gained ability to rapidly open new locations or onboard acquired companies speeding time to value on these investments

Oracle is the market leader for enterprise applications, and we have a strong and long-standing relationship with the company. We had various versions of Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle’s JD Edwards World and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications throughout our organization, and they performed well. When it came time to build a single global instance environment, Oracle was once again the logical choice.

— Mary Lynne Perushek, CIO, Donaldson Company, Inc.

Execution

We had been using Oracle E-Business Suite in our US and Latin American operations and had added many customizations over the years. When planning the upgrade to Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1, we decided to do a re-implementation and standardize on a single global instance with minimal customizations.

Donaldson worked with the Oracle Insight team to create an application roadmap, which mapped to the company’s broader business strategy. This analysis led to adoption of a single-instance strategy for a global implementation to help Donaldson achieve its business goals. The project, known as COMPASS, started in late 2012, with global standard process and data definition. Donaldson has rolled out the new environment to 24 locations and corporate headquarters. The team will begin deployment in Europe and Asia.

About Donaldson Company, Inc.

Headquarters

Bloomington, Minnesota, United States

Employees

12,700

Donaldson Company, Inc.

Partners

Donaldson chose Deloitte, an Oracle Diamond partner, as its implementation partner for COMPASS, Donaldson’s enterprise-wide implementation of Oracle E-Business Suite.
Donaldson selected Deloitte as its partner of choice for the global program across the Americas, Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA), and Asia Pacific regions because of its ability to assist Donaldson in achieving its four key business drivers: global growth, global process standardization, global standard data definition and visibility, and serving the customer as “One Donaldson.” Deloitte also delivers coordinated worldwide capabilities and solution methodology for the manufacturing sector, which accelerates deployment while lowering costs and risk for Donaldson. The group also provides strong functional and technical consulting, project management and governance, and organizational change management and readiness capabilities.

“As a sole source system integrator, Deloitte’s scope of services runs the entire gamut, from vision and planning to development, testing, rollout, and support. The group provided critical leadership and Oracle expertise across four key functional tracks—plan-to-manufacture, procure- to-pay, order-to-cash, and account-to-close—which enabled us to get the most from our Oracle investment,” Perushek said.

Oracle Solutions Used

Supply Chain Management (SCM) Cloud

Published: Jan 15, 2015