A unique company means unique processes. Each customer requires a tailored approach.

“For every customer, we have to implement a specific way of working,” explains Franken. “That’s our strength. We want to offer customers exactly what they need — also from an IT perspective. We always say: ‘everything is possible.’ We can create any integration — and that’s possible thanks to Thinkwise.”

Traditionally, Schijvens worked with the ERP system Plusmaker. When the demand for new functionalities and integrations increased, that system proved too limited. Additional modules were therefore developed using Thinkwise.

“The idea was to eventually replace the old system completely. But due to rapid growth, SCHERP, our Thinkwise application, expanded enormously. More and more was added, even while the migration was still in progress.”

Among other things, the entire support for the Quality Control department has been integrated into SCHERP, as well as purchasing and production planning — both very specific to this line of business.

“From the moment a customer places an order until delivery, we go through many control steps,” says Franken. “We have a department that manages all these checks, and the process is very detailed. You can build that into a standard ERP system, but it will never work exactly the way you want it to. With Thinkwise, we can configure it precisely as we need. Our planning has also improved significantly — we can now monitor delivery times much more accurately.”

Schijvens’ IT landscape is straightforward: one legacy ERP application, the new Thinkwise-based SCHERP system, integrations with Visma for accounting, and various customer APIs — including one for KLM, built using Thinkwise.

“Our biggest challenge is that we are still running two systems,” says Franken. “But our goal is to switch completely to Thinkwise by next year.”

“The company has become four times larger, but the team has only doubled,” says Franken. “Our IT department consists of four people — three developers and one application manager — yet we’ve been able to support that level of growth. That development speed is the strength of Thinkwise.”

The benefits go far beyond IT alone.

“Smart IT solutions make people work more efficiently. If I see someone working in a roundabout way, I prefer to fix it in the system. If that saves ten minutes a day, you gain from that every single day.”

Once the old system is fully phased out, Schijvens’ IT department will have more time to focus on innovation.

“We will no longer have to maintain two systems,” says Franken. “We can use that time to develop new applications. My goal is to do as much as possible with Thinkwise. For example, we don’t use Power BI — we can also create dashboards within Thinkwise.”

Franken also values the collaboration within the Thinkwise Community.

“There’s a lot of valuable information to be found there. And during the annual Thinkwise Summit, you can easily exchange ideas and experiences with other customers.”

Finally, Franken shares an important piece of advice for organizations starting with Thinkwise:

“Think carefully about your first step — especially about what you do after using the Upcycler to copy your old system. Legacy systems often contain quirks. If you handle those properly, you’ll benefit from that for the rest of your Thinkwise journey.”