Mammoet standardizes and automates way of working

The beating heart of the Mammoet organization is the planning of people and resources. For that planning, the 'Mammoet way of working' was devised back in 1997. "But that method involved quite a lot of red tape," says Mark de Jong, programme manager of SHERPA. "Lots of Excels, a lot of data in silos and we could only look back, while better decisions can be made when looking ahead, of course." 

The desire to extensively automate planning and all subsequent processes had long existed. But the organization also realized how big of a challenge it would be. After all, it affects just about everything: from job profiles and staffing to equipment maintenance. When a new management team took office in 2018, the knot was tied and the SHERPA programme was launched.   

SHERPA programme for a unified way of working 

In 2019, Mark and his colleague Michael Zevenbergen were appointed programme managers. Mark from the business side, Michael from IT. Together with the business, they launched an extensive preliminary study, partly to test how well the 68 BVs, with more than 100 branches combined, were adhering to the Mammoet way of working. In addition, reference visits were conducted together with various teams from the business to companies within and outside our own sector and discussions were held with multiple major consulting firms. The goal was to design a high-level architecture so that a good choice could be made for the applications.  

It has to be a business project, not an IT project. This means that sufficient business capacity must be made available. It was also clear to Mammoet that we were going to run the programme ourselves. With outside support, but we should not have it done entirely by an external consulting firm. Finally, the team had learnt from the many reference visits: easy does it. The first thing to go when facing a hard deadline is the focus on adoption. Moreover, you will sometimes make choices under pressure that aren't well-considered enough and that you don't discuss with the business in enough detail, regretting them later. 

Six core systems 

The solution that Mammoet ended up going for contains six systems: SAP S/4HANA as an ERP backbone, SAP BTP as an integration platform, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, planning software, an Azure Data Lake, associated (SAP) Analytics and the low-code development platform Mendix to develop apps that provide additional functionality on top of this core landscape. "Choosing the right planning package was especially tricky", says Mark. "We do have standard field service processes, but the interplay between people and resources is often so specific that a standard configuration simply won't do. Most planning software focuses either on scheduling equipment or personnel. We need both, and in a very specific form. Fortunately, SAP guided us well in the selection process. They provided architectural support and are now also filling the quality assurance role." 

Support from Conclusion in designing and developing the template 

The investment proposal was approved in March 2022. It was also clear at that point what roles had to be assigned to external parties. Mark explains: "Because of our positive experiences in the past, we asked Conclusion to fill the missing roles, specifically focusing on developing the global template."  

Conclusion joined in autumn 2022, at a time when Mammoet started the actual design of the template. Mark explains: "Of course, we knew they were behind quite a bit. Still, we had underestimated how much knowledge had amassed within our organization. As a result, the gap between their level of knowledge and ours was wider than expected. We assumed that Conclusion would be completely up-and-running within three months, but a total of 150 people were involved from five different operating companies. This is due to the fact that we needed in-depth expertise for specific areas. It stands to reason that those 150 people could never have been as quickly and thoroughly informed of all the details as we were." 

Worker ants 

Mark is very satisfied with Conclusion's guidance. "We are a great match in terms of corporate culture. We are both worker ants, hard workers. Conclusion does not try to take the wheel or dictate how we do things. They solve complex issues in close consultation with the client." 

Both companies also shared a basic attitude: this was a new experience for everyone, so no one assumed they knew how to do it. "For us, this is the first time we are doing such a major business transformation, with accompanying software migration. We are about to replace the heart of our organization. For Conclusion, SHERPA is the first major transformation project where the various operating companies work together under central direction. Moreover, the programme consists of as many as 70 sub-projects and intervenes in our processes at a very deep level. The lifting and transport market only has a limited number of players, so there is no SAP best practice. We had to design that best practice ourselves from scratch."  

Fit to standard? 

The fact that Mammoet's business is different from that of other companies was evident, for example, in discussions about the extent to which fit to standard can be applied, according to Mark. "Conclusion was used to developing customized solutions when processes cannot be automated within the standard, but we were very much against it. We continuously and very tenaciously managed to nip in the bud any tendency for customization. Fierce discussions erupted at times, because our business is so different in some areas from how SAP's software is structured. Which is a good thing, as 'a gem cannot be polished without friction"'. 

A difficult aspect of developing the global template was the fact that SAP is less suitable for an Agile approach than the other software suites that are part of the solution. Mark explains: "With SAP, you have to design first and then integrate with other applications. In an Agile approach, integration is included from the start. Because we were able to test the realized integrations in the final phase of the project, there was a lot of pressure in that phase of the programme. Of course, such a test always yields results that need to be resolved first. This is manageable if you have a relatively simple operation. But our software contains as much as ninety different business flows. That's 90 happy flows, all of which also have a multitude of 'unhappy' variants. Such as work that has been scheduled but is withdrawn at the last minute." 

Those unhappy flows are the ones that require complex interfaces. Now that the first country, Belgium, has gone live, it turns out that the processes designed are still a bit too constricting in certain places. Mark explains: "We now know that in Belgium, more than 95 percent of our processes are covered by the template. A great score, but we want to raise it to 100 percent before we roll out in the other countries as well. This requires additional configurations to be made. But first, we need to establish a basic working method for all non-matching process steps, i.e. the unhappy flows."  

Benefiting from Conclusion's expertise 

Conclusion's development team has now handed over the programme to the administration team, which acts as a single point of contact for the SAP environments. Mammoet carries out the global roll-out with its own people. Mark reflects positively on the collaboration and is very pleased with choosing Conclusion. "We really benefited from the fact that they have such deep expertise in sub-areas. An unlikely asset to find among other parties. Plus, our corporate cultures match. Because of that, you always manage to connect and find a solution together, even when things get tough." 

Phased implementation 

Once the final adjustments have been made to the template, the implementation in the Netherlands will begin. Mark stresses that this is a much bigger project than Belgium. "Belgium is a relatively young organization, with only two branches. The Netherlands is home to our headquarters. With 10 branches, it is bigger. But more importantly, it is a lot more complex due to four past acquisitions that remain tangible under the bonnet." The ultimate goal is to have migrated all 100 sites worldwide by mid-2026.  

The key lesson is that rigorous adherence to fit to standard works out well. "We will soon have software that completely covers our processes while being easy to maintain. Many of the decisions currently being made by humans will soon be made by software", says Mark. This will make Mammoet more efficient, but above all more effective. Right now, we are still driving by looking in the rear-view mirror. Soon, we will also be able to look ahead. Moreover, when unexpected things happen, we will have a much better understanding of how to act. In short, we will truly be in control of our business."