Following the acquisition of BAX Global by Schenker, a kick-off meeting was held at Schenker’s regional head office in Singapore to initiate the activities related to the integration of BAX processes into Schenker’s systems. René Coppens participated as a moderator for integration for financial processes and its implications to operations.
From 11th to 13th of June, the project kick-off for the SAP implementation of Schenker Australia and New Zealand took place in Sydney. Participants from Schenker Korea and the new colleagues of BAX Global were also present to prepare ahead for their upcoming projects.
Participants of the kick-off meeting in Sydney in front of Schenker Australia’s corporate office
Schenker Malaysia has started with SAP after half a year of intensive preparations. The local project team involved 5 staff members where each one had his/her individual responsibility within the finance and administration department, with René Coppens as project manager supported by Foo Joo Liang from the regional office in Singapore. The other 15 accounting colleagues were dedicated to gain sufficient experience in the final project phase, which was one of the reasons for a smooth production start up.
Schenker Malaysia with the traditional SAP certificate in Kuala Lumpur.
A standard interface has been released for SAP users of CoProcess SA in Switzerland, that makes in-house developments redundant and allows them to easily set up the interface with help of a few simple customising steps.
Schenker Thailand has started with SAP after half a year of intensive preparations. The local project team involved 6 staff members where each one had his/her individual responsibility within the finance and administration department, with René Coppens as project manager supported by Foo Joo Liang from the regional office in Singapore. The other 20 accounting colleagues were dedicated to gain sufficient experience in the final project phase, which was one of the reasons for a smooth production start up.
The Schenker colleagues proudly show their SAP certificate after a successful start
Gerben Dokter, manager control, announced that the SAP R/3 project has been successfully completed now that the final interface to the HR system has also been completed. René Coppens had been asked to manage the project phases 1 and 2 (preparation and blueprint) and then handed over the deliverables to another team for the remainder of the project.
A toast on the successful implementation start of SAP. Left to right: Thessa Schneijdenberg, Jan-Hendrik van den Berg, Frans Lagas and Gerben Dokter. (Source: Rondom Railion May 2004)
From 21st to 25th of March, the project kick-off for the SAP implementation of Schenker Thailand took place in Bangkok. Participants from Schenker Malaysia and Schenker India were also present to prepare ahead for their upcoming projects. A presentation was given during the first two days in a conference room in the hotel.
The participants of the kick-off meeting in Thailand
With only a year to prepare, Schenker has managed to switch to parallel accounting according to IFRS GAAP regulations. Every country world-wide can now report according to local GAAP as well as IFRS GAAP. At the same time, the opportunity was taken to develop an interface between local accounting systems and the central consolidation system, which makes manual reporting of the monthly statement redundant. René Coppens has designed the concept for parallel accounting specifically for the HAI system, and has also developed the interface to extract all data for the consolidation system.
In October 2004, Schenker Singapore Pte Ltd went live with SAP R/3 successfully, after 6 months of preparations. René Coppens had the role of project manager, together with his local counter part Ms. Lau Kim Hoon for all local coordination. The successful start was celebrated with all project team members and accounting staff with a party at the beach front of Singapore.
