Case Study: VDL Groep achieves unified, real-time ERP and streamlined operations with Thinkwise VBS

VDL Groep - Customer Case Study

VDL Groep, an international industrial family business with 93 operating companies and 16,000 employees, faced an obsolete, self-developed ERP (PBS) that no longer supported future functional expansion or fast access to data. VDL needed to preserve all existing PBS functionality, integrate peripheral apps (including the VDL Extra quality system) and a secure EDI solution while professionalizing and speeding up business processes — a challenge taken on by Thinkwise.

Thinkwise modernized PBS to the Thinkwise platform and consolidated VDL Extra and the Thinkwise EDI Engine into a single solution, VBS, replacing and extending PBS within a year. VBS is now live at 25 operating companies (expected 38 by mid‑2018), with average implementations of six weeks (twelve weeks for former SAP R/3 users), and handles over 41,000 EDI messages annually with partners like Volvo, DAF, Bosch and Schmitz. The Thinkwise implementation delivered real‑time data, eliminated double entry, integrated BI and SAP R/3 FI links, automated order processing and supplier EDI, cut manual workload that previously required a full‑time person, and kept the VDL philosophy intact.

VDL Groep

Paul Stoop

ICT Project Manager ERP