Rügenwalder Spezialitäten Plüntsch accelerates projects in the entire value chain with InLoox

What matters most are the employees

Since 2017, the German meat product manufacturer Rügenwalder Spezialitäten Plüntsch has been using InLoox to implement projects in the areas of product development, sales, purchasing, production and management more quickly and effectively.

Rügenwalder Spezialitäten Plüntsch has been producing and marketing sausage products for more than 150 years, selling them in Germany as well as internationally in food retailing and discount stores. The family-owned company has locations in Bad Arolsen in Hessen as well as in Staßfurt in Saxony-Anhalt and employs around 120 people. Together with two other companies, which originally come from the town of Rügenwalde, it is one of the only suppliers that are permitted to use the brand name "Rügenwalder Teewurst" and sell it. As a manufacturer, the company attaches particular importance to quality, efficiency, sustainability, customer orientation and humanity.

Managing projects faster and better across departments

To be able to implement projects in the areas of product development, sales, purchasing and management faster and better, Rügenwalder Spezialitäten Plüntsch decided in mid-2017 to use the InLoox software for this purpose. "Our goal was to manage the many small and medium-sized projects, i.e. tasks that we had previously managed in Excel and Outlook, together in one solution, because the previous solutions had their limits," say Elmar and Julia Plüntsch. Both are active in the management of the company. Julia Plüntsch is in charge of product development.

Specific, measurable, attractive, realistic and timely - SMART and integrated

Integrating the project management software into Outlook was a requirement so that employees could work in their familiar environment. The software also needed to include a mindmap and other visualization features such as Gantt charts. "Because if the software can be integrated quickly, we can achieve immediate success. In addition, the projects must be 'SMART' - specific, attractive, measurable, realistic and timely - managed in the software so that they can be successful," says Elmar Plüntsch.

In the end, the integration of InLoox into Outlook and the 'look and feel' were the deciding factors. As a result, the employees needed less extensive training. According to Julia Plüntsch, who was responsible for the implementation, InLoox allowed the first tasks to be completed relatively quickly and results to be achieved quickly. During the implementation she was supported by three key users among the employees. They helped train the other employees in the solution based on their tasks. In order to avoid pitfalls during the implementation, it is important that the employees change their way of work and adapt to the new processes. According to Julia Plüntsch, those who "firstly structure the project - preferably using a mind map - and secondly define the tasks work effectively. Workflow is important".

Currently, 30 users rely on InLoox in management, purchasing and sales as well as in IT, production and product development for a wide variety of use cases. According to Julia Plüntsch, the solution is partly used for CRM (Customer Relationship Management) in sales, for example.

Avoiding mistakes: Transparency of tasks, projects and progress

Avoiding mistakes in purchasing or when relaunching packaging foils, for example, is of great benefit to employees and the company at large. Using InLoox's document management features and the Gantt chart, the status of all stakeholders can be tracked at any time and costly misunderstandings can be avoided.

Quality Management and Continuous Improvements

When a continuous improvement process (CIP) is to be examined more closely because the CIP projects have become interdepartmental and complex, Rügenwalder Spezialitäten starts a project in InLoox: If additional managers such as department heads and technicians who are not normally involved in the CIP have to be called in, the participants manage their CIP project in InLoox.

Managing the GDPR-Process

According to Elmar Plüntsch, if individual project tasks become too complex, it is important that the respective project is divided into sub-projects. A further example of what the solution was used for was the management of tasks relating to GDPR: Plüntsch employees worked through the tasks together with an external consultant.

Conclusion: Internal emails reduced significantly and further employee training in the future

Within the first year, Rügenwalder Spezialitäten Plüntsch completed about 250 projects. With InLoox, employees can solve their tasks in a structured manner and get a comprehensive overview of projects and project progress. The time and effort required for coordination is also reduced. According to Elmar Plüntsch, internal emails in the company have been greatly reduced by Inloox.

"Our experience is that people are the decisive factor in collaborative work - whether it is the introduction of project management, the use of IT solutions or day-to-day business. The cost of training pays off very quickly as soon as the individual employees have experienced the benefits of the solution themselves," concludes Elmar Plüntsch. It is therefore planned to encourage those employees who only use InLoox occasionally to become more motivated. That's about 30 percent of the users. By training them more intensively in the future, the company can continue its process of continuous improvement in this area as well.