Keller

The Customer 

Specialising in geotechnical construction, Keller Foundations is the North American subsidiary of UK-based Keller Group plc. From tunnelling support to ground water control, the services of geotechnical construction companies like Keller Foundations lay the critical groundwork for major construction projects worldwide. 

Now comprising six companies and generating around US$1 billion a year in revenue, Keller Foundations, just 14 years earlier, comprised only two companies and generated around $120 million a year. 

The Challenge 

When it was a much smaller company with fewer business entities, Keller Foundations could rely on its construction accounting solution, CMS from Computer Guidance Corporation. But with much of its growth coming through acquisition, the company soon found itself with multiple accounting packages and reporting systems, requiring duplication of effort and tedious consolidation and reconciliation to analyse finances at the corporate level. Adding to the complexity, Keller had developed a number of point solutions over the years to tackle line-of-business needs such as HR, ERP and CRM that the existing system could not handle.

Following acquisitions and assimilations, we were at a point where we could not, with our existing technology, support our current organisation or any future growth. Converting one of our newest acquisitions to the system was such a challenge that we decided not to convert the next acquisition. We were heading in a direction where we were going to end up with a number of financial packages.

Outside consulting was brought in to review the IT infrastructure, which revealed that Keller needed to seriously consider an ERP system to support its growing organisation, providing tools for all of its operations rather than just a corporate accounting package. 

The Solution 

Keller Foundations evaluated leading construction-oriented ERP packages, including those from CMiC, Viewpoint Construction and Penta, as well as the latest version of CMS. These smaller, construction-focused packages posed a problem: while Keller had to meet the requirements of a construction business, its strategic goals were about meeting the needs of a complex enterprise and providing a catalyst for organisational change through standard operating procedures enabled and enforced by the ERP. As a significant part of a billion-dollar group, Keller also had concerns about placing the business in the hands of much smaller vendors, many of which offered few options to extend functionality, and it wanted tools for all of its operations, not just accounting. 

On the suggestion of its parent company, which had reported success with Microsoft Dynamics in the US and Australia, Keller looked at Microsoft Dynamics AX.

We saw Microsoft Dynamics AX as the solution that would take us to the next level as a business. It provided the range of modules we needed, so we wouldn’t have to keep building point solutions, while also offering the flexibility to meet our industry requirements.

Working with its Microsoft partner, and after developing core functional requirements across all areas and business units, Keller underwent an accelerated six-month deployment of Microsoft Dynamics AX. The team built a project management dashboard that lets project managers view all their projects and costs and then drill down to the individual invoice, brought HR and payroll into Dynamics from disparate applications to reduce redundant data entry and errors, and used the system to track as many as 18,000 pieces of equipment, which can now be paid for by associating them directly with projects. 

Why Hitachi Solutions 

Keller needed a partner that could put a billion-dollar, acquisitive business on a single enterprise platform and use that platform to instil consistent, standardised operating procedures across every business unit. The accelerated six-month initial deployment, and the ability to bring new acquisitions on quickly afterwards, gave Keller both the breadth and the discipline it was looking for. 

The Benefits 

• A single ERP replacing multiple accounting packages and point solutions, removing duplicated effort and tedious consolidation 
• Detailed project insight, with managers able to drill from a project cost down to the individual invoice 
• HR and payroll unified in one system, reducing redundant data entry and the possibility of errors 
• Resource handling that tracks up to 18,000 pieces of equipment and costs them directly to projects 
• Significant economies of scale in deployment, with new businesses configured in about a week 
• The discipline and scalability to support continued acquisitive growth

Before Microsoft Dynamics AX, project information was just numbers on a report. Now those numbers mean something. We can see in a great deal of detail what makes up a number, and now there’s no excuse for not having it.

What’s Next? 

As Keller Foundations continues to bring its subsidiaries onto Microsoft Dynamics AX, it has found significant economies of scale in deployment times. Although the initial deployment took six months to complete and then a year to tailor, the deployment time for subsequent companies has been considerably shorter once individual business units gather their requirements. 

From a purely IT perspective, it’s about a week of work to configure a new business in Microsoft Dynamics. We really want Keller Foundations to be an efficient operation that is supported for the long term, and Microsoft Dynamics AX gives us the ability to scale out, support our operations, and instill the discipline we need to do that.