In the world of steel pipes and tubes, operational excellence involves innovation, efficiency, flexibility and a digital transformation. Irina Beltermann combines her role as Managing Director Romania with that of Regional Operational Excellence Director South-Eastern Europe. Her leadership and the collective efforts of her teams have made digitalization a real Van Leeuwen strength. The digitalization, among other things, will result in a better customer experience, faster fulfillment of customer requests and increased customer satisfaction.
Irina Beltermann was born in Romania, a country she still visits regularly because of her family and work. She has been based in Vienna for more than 25 years. ‘Until September 2021, I was Head of Distribution Eastern Europe, a huge area stretching from Poland in the north to Bulgaria in the south,’ says Irina. ‘After the Van Leeuwen regions were reshaped, with Italy, Turkey, and Romania forming the South-Eastern European region, I took on a dual role, because aside from this I also form part of the regional management team with a focus on the operational excellence agenda. It is a fascinating region.’ Irina enjoys managing different country branches and stimulating operational advancements. She is happy with Van Leeuwen’s focus on digitalization and how it underscores the company’s dedication to staying competitive in a rapidly evolving market. ‘Steel may be a classic, pragmatic industry,’ she says, ‘but in past decades, many large players have migrated to digitalization, achieving great results in the process.’
Global digitalization
Van Leeuwen has been using digital tools like Automatic Order Creation (AOC) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) for some years now. Such tools provide faster insight into product availability, accelerate delivery times, and reduce the risk of error. ‘However, even though our processes are standardized, countries and regions are using these tools differently,’ Irina explains. ‘To stay connected with our customers and their global ambitions, Van Leeuwen is working toward an integrated, digital solution.’ To achieve this, the Van Leeuwen Pipe and Tube Group is migrating to SAP S/4HANA. This cloud-based, real-time ERP system will harmonize the use of digital tools across the Group. It will also encourage sharing regional knowledge and it meets specific market requirements. Furthermore, it facilitates a digitalization project that particularly excites Irina: an online European e-commerce platform that brings together existing country-specific landing pages, web portals, and web shops. This simplifies access to products and services, and harmonizes interactions and transactions between the company and its customers.
A customer-centric approach to moving online
Irina is optimistic about the upcoming launch of the e-commerce platform, which is planned for 2024. ‘The migration to SAP S/4HANA is a prerequisite for the launch for our e-commerce platform. A pilot will take place in the UK, as they have already migrated to SAP S/4HANA. Our customers will definitely benefit from our efforts in this area. The platform provides streamlined processes that will enable us to fulfill customer requests faster, reduce errors and make our services even more reliable, thus improving the overall customer experience. The platform gives us better insight into data and consequently into customer behavior, their preferences and trends. This enables us to produce more targeted and personalized offerings. The use of this platform will enable us to better understand, serve and engage with our customers, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.’
A historical milestone
Irina’s role in leading this initiative demonstrates Van Leeuwen’s commitment to innovation and a customer-centric approach. She emphasizes that it is the business side, not technology, that makes this project so important. ‘This not only involves business processes,’ she says, ‘but also the customer experience, market experience, and product experience. It really is a historic milestone for Van Leeuwen,’ according to Irina. ‘We have been engaged in the pipe and tube trade for a hundred years, and today we also are an online service provider.’
Cultural connection in South-Eastern European markets
In September 2021, Van Leeuwen created a South-Eastern Europe region, with a renewed focus on Italy, Turkey and Romania. At first glance, these three companies appear to have little in common. The company in Italy, whose roots go back to the early years of the 20th century, specializes in maintaining customer-dedicated stocks for the hydraulics sector, with fast growing distribution activities in the Mechanical Engineering and Process & Power market segments. Our business in Turkey is a merged company of Benteler Distribution and Van Leeuwen (both Turkish companies were established in 2007), and provides pipe and tube treatment services for customers in the Automotive, Hydraulics and Mechanical Engineering sectors. Romania, another newly created branch established in 2006, is a classic distributor, strategically located close to Artrom Steel and Tube, a major supplier of mechanical pipes.
Culturally, these countries are closely connected, however. With a common strategy, they have leveraged their expertise to access new market segments and offer a broader portfolio. Today, product and procurement knowledge are routinely shared between the three countries. This strategic shift has not only yielded better work processes, it has also increased the synergy of the market approach used in this part of Europe. It is a textbook example of a fresh, forward-looking approach to regional management.
Reduced lead times
A great example of how the Operational Excellence program is already making a significant impact is the South-Eastern Europe’s route planning concept and warehouse management system (WMS). Irina Beltermann set up a team of process experts to optimize the region’s supply chain processes and reduce delivery lead times. She also wanted to support the strategic transformation of the Italian branch, from agent to distributor. The Italian team started by studying the approach used in Romania, which had been working successfully with route planning for some years. However, order-picking prioritization, route optimization, and truck capacity utilization were new concepts for Italy.
Recently, the same digital processes were introduced there. Since then, both countries have been fully utilizing the WMS, with impressive results. The region’s overall On-Time Delivery rate is consistently around 99%, while the delivery lead time for random-length tubes has been reduced to 1-3 days and to 2-3 weeks for production. While work continues on adding WMS functions, such as automated tracking, customers are already reaping the benefits.
