Business Benefits Take Wing At Aer Rianta
SUMMARYAer Rianta has boosted its duty free business using a Microsoft Navision-based solutions using K3 Landsteinar.Aer Rianta International (ARI) was established in 1988 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dublin Airport Authority plc, the Irish State owned Airports Authority for Dublin Airport. The company offers both airport retailing and airport operational management consultancy expertise to the airport industry.
Business interests include shareholdings and retail management contracts, concessions, supply contracts and equity investments Europe, North America and the Middle East.ChallengeThe globalisation of the industry has meant that whereas in the past competitors focussed on their own region, frequently they now compete globally. This has meant that Aer Rianta has to be ever more economic and efficient while continuing to offer excellent quality to customers.Cormac Griffin says, “We had started operating our trading division but were finding it difficult to manage it using manual processes and unsophisticated business management software. The result was a growing backlog of administrative work generated by the business.
On top of that we had no single master product file across all of our business units, which was a major source of error.”SolutionGriffin reports, “We had a relationship with K3 Landsteinar which started with the implementation in 1997 of a system into the Bahrain Duty Free and continued with several other Microsoft Navision implementations. We were confident that K3 Landsteinar would be able to do a great job implementing the system and that Microsoft Navision has the depth, breadth of functionality and the flexibility to meet our needs.”Aer Rianta engaged K3 Landsteinar to provide it with a sophisticated Microsoft Navision supply chain and financial management system. The Microsoft Navision-based trading system was implemented for the wholesale business based in the Netherlands supplying European duty free outlets with duty free products.
"We have provided Aer Rianta International with an integrated system that allows them to manage the supply of products to their European duty frees and we are now extending it to allow electronic and automated ordering," said Mark Bryans, Director, Alpha Landsteinar IrelandThe project began in October 2004 and, after a lot of consolidation of information, went live in April 2005.BenefitsAer Rianta reports significant benefits to the new system. It used the exercise as an opportunity to consolidate all of its product information into a single product file so all staff are now singing off the same ‘hymn sheet’.The company has now cleared up the backlog of administrative work relating to the trading operation and it is operating much more smoothly.Griffin reports, “We have up to the minute information on stock levels and demand, allowing us to more effectively minimise stock days and maximise stock turnover.”K3 Landsteinar extended the price management functionality to cater for the way Aer Rianta does business which has reduced the amount of work it takes the company to set prices and the number of mistakes it was making.
Sales ; Receivables, Purchases ; Payables, Inventory and General Ledger processes are all now carried out in Microsoft Navision. General Ledger for instance is updated automatically when goods are received and accounts staff can trace back from the G/L transaction to the original receipt document without having to search through masses of lever arch files.Griffin provides advice for other potential users, “If you know that a new system will be beneficial but are concerned about the amount of work you need to do to get your house in order first, don’t be afraid to forge ahead.”FutureAer Rianta is currently in a final round of testing of the next phase, an electronic ordering layer on top of the main Microsoft Navision trading system. This will allow the distribution of product and pricing information to be automatically sent electronically over the internet to all our business units and for our business to submit requisition files electronically over the internet.
The next phase after that will be the addition of RF scanning for managing stock movements in and out of the trading warehouse.Bryans added, “We are delighted with the way the project has gone and, together with Aer Rianta, are looking at more opportunities to use our expertise and technologies to further improve their business."
