Rimses ensures transparent and efficient asset management at Galloo

A recycling company sets high standards for machine maintenance and asset management. Galloo opted to have Realdolmen's Maintenance Management system Rimses support its asset management and maintenance tracking activities at its various sites as well as stock and procurement management for its maintenance departments as part of an all-in-one package. Reporting is also extremely important, with the company keen to obtain a clear overview of costs and have access to real-time stock monitoring. "We were looking for a package that could do just about anything, and Rimses fit the bill," states Group Technical Manager Kevin Casier. 

Ever purer end products

With 43 locations in Belgium, the Netherlands and France and approximately 720 employees, Galloo is one of the largest metal recycling groups in Western Europe. Its headquarters is located in Menen in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The company recycles end-of-life metals from products such as electronics, cars and even ships. Galloo recycles more than 1 million metric tons of new raw materials each year. Its Galloo Plastics processing unit recycles approximately 50,000 metric tons of plastics into new granulates annually. As the market leader, Galloo is always looking for new techniques and processes to achieve its objective: 100% recycling with pure end fractions. This is why Galloo invests substantially in research and development each year. It stands to reason that Galloo's business is also highly dependent on the market price of raw materials. In a context such as this, cost control is extremely important, because market prices cannot be influenced, but costs can. 

Managing costs and stock optimization

"Our central team provides various maintenance services to our external branches," explains Kevin. "The hours, materials and incurred costs must always be allocated to the right branch and machine." Rimses enables the company to invoice each branch for those services, and offers a clear overview of the history of each machine.  Galloo also wanted to improve the collaboration between the branches in terms of stock, specifically with regard to critical spare parts. "Previously, every branch had to have these parts available for emergencies. Now, however, we can centralize this. This has reduced our stock costs. It also ensures the stock is correct: everything is registered and deregistered," states Olivier Courtois, Technical Manager Ropswalle. "While it takes more time to enter everything correctly into the system, I know we'll be able to work faster and more efficiently in the long run," states Kevin. "By keeping track of everything and building a digital index, we are creating something we can rely on at all times in the future. We will now also able to identify trends in the machines' histories and use these new insights in our work," states Olivier. 

A stable package with options for integration

Galloo was also looking for a stable Maintenance Management package that allows various links to be established with other software packages. "In the past, we needed 2 or 3 packages to do this. Now that we're using Rimses, we have been able to accomplish a significant amount of integration with, for example, our accounting package and ERP," explains Kevin. The way in which purchase order forms are authorized is now organized differently. "We used to check invoices after the goods had been purchased. Now the authorization mechanism is activated earlier in the process, with the check happening before the order is placed. Our invoice scanning tool is used to import digital invoice data into Rimses, where it is linked to the purchase order form. Once this link has been established, the approval is transferred back into the accounting flow for financial processing. Approval itself is performed in Rimses, because this is where the information regarding logistics transactions such as purchase order forms is located," states ICT Manager Steve Decroubele.

A turnaround time of around 6 months

The stock inventory is still an ongoing process. Given the large amount of data, we have been using upload templates from the very start. "We were able to include everything. We transferred items such as prices, stocks and suppliers already present in the old system to Rimses in a few steps without any loss of quality. We also uploaded all our machinery from Excel", states Olivier. The transition to Rimses took place in less than 6 months. "The most difficult issue was finding the right structure. What are the right cost centers, for example? How can we connect with the finance section? Our ICT department, maintenance services and Realdolmen have worked together very closely to answer those questions. The approach of the Realdolmen project manager was essential in this project, as it ensured we were able to meet our tight deadline", explains Steve. "Each company is different. You really need to understand the specific business context. It's the only way to establish the right links."  The reports are now based on data exports from Rimses. There are concrete plans to use the BI application Rimses Analyzer in the future. The tool will also be used for facility management from 2020. We are looking forward to tackling these interesting challenges together.

Products at Galloo

Other references in the waste processing industry

  • MIROM Milieuzorg Roeselare and Menen
  • Renewi
  • Galloo
  • Ecowerf