Camfil harmonizes processes with Dynamics 365 to bolster sustainability and profitability

Today, the company produces 180,000+ different filter products for a wide range of industries, from life sciences and automotive to hospitality and healthcare. Camfil meets its customers’ air filtration requirements through continuous innovation, regularly releasing new form factors and filtration capabilities along with systems that are more energy efficient and require less labor to run.

Sustaining growth and values requires fresh solutions

Camfil’s commitment to sustainability goes back to 1963, when the fledgling air handling unit company was tasked with producing a scientific-grade, high-quality air filter for a highly specialized industry facility being built nearby. Over the years, as the connection between air quality and filtration to health, safety, and manufacturing processes became clearer, Camfil added new products, production facilities, and markets, expanding beyond northern Europe to keep up with demand and fulfill its mission.

With growth came inevitable growing pains. Much of the company’s expansion came through acquisitions, which brought with them disparate business processes, software systems, and practices that couldn’t be scaled to meet the company’s objectives. Camfil locations ran on a variety of legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, including Dynamics AX 2009, SAP, Iscala, and Sage, with niche solutions for specific functions like warehousing, manufacturing, and marketing. The proliferation of systems, localized processes, and siloed data made it daunting to share reports, status updates, inventory levels, outstanding invoices, customer feedback, and other information needed for decision-making.

Building cutting-edge air filtration systems for a global market in a sustainable way required harmonizing the company’s various technology solutions. It wouldn’t be a quick fix, given the number of facilities and offices needing updating. But unification would allow the business to operate more efficiently and support a more connected and collaborative culture.

Taking a holistic change management approach

Camfil’s priority was the selection of a modern, robust, cloud-based ERP solution that would meet a variety of requirements, scale as its business grew, simplify infrastructure management, and make each department more efficient. The company’s goals were holistic, considering each product’s lifecycle and the business processes required to support it. They included:

• Establish a naming convention for filter parts so that everyone, at every location, could use the same part number throughout manufacturing, ordering, and invoicing.
• Manufacture products as close to the consumer’s destination as possible, both to reduce emissions during shipping, and to deliver orders faster.
• Maintain just-in-time inventory for parts so that the stock is available when and where it's needed, optimizing inventory at all production facilities.
• Integrate a product configurator with the ERP to ensure accuracy and consistency of product data and to create repeatable product configurations and templates for use at all locations.
• Reduce manual work and bottlenecks by connecting every stage of the process to centralized data and automation.
• Streamline documentation and shipping processes to speed deliveries and save time on administrative tasks.
• Improve customer experience by forecasting reorder dates to help customers stay in compliance and realize greater efficiencies.

The project would take considerable planning and patience, but according to Jonas Markman, VP Product Master Data and Controlling, Camfil Group, “We were building a foundation of a common structure that would serve as an enabler to harvest fruits later on.”

Moving to the cloud harmonizes people and processes

As a long-time Microsoft customer, Camfil trusts the security, privacy, and robust feature updates Microsoft cloud services provide. It’s no surprise the company selected Dynamics 365 for the harmonization project, since it would allow Camfil to innovate and scale at the time and pace that was right for the business.

The biggest challenge would be unifying and standardizing products and parts in a centralized data structure with consistent part numbers and naming conventions. Every aspect of the business would be affected, but with the change would come common, efficient processes and best practices built into Dynamics 365.

Easy integration with other systems, like BlueStar CAD, and robust out-of-the-box features would provide flexibility to adapt to a variety of processes and production flows. Of particular interest to Camfil was the job card terminal feature that supports manufacturing processes. Some of its products are standardized to general industry dimensions and requirements, but most orders include customized filter requests. Technicians on the floor can scan filter bar codes at their terminals that auto-configure machines to the specifications needed for production.

To orchestrate the flow of ordering, manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, and invoicing, Camfil would implement several Dynamics 365 products: Finance, Supply Chain Management, Project Operations, Customer Service, and Sales. And it would use Power Automate to automate workflows and Power Apps for some niche capabilities, including quick item setup.

Better systems lay the foundation for success

The company started its rollout in the Nordics. In January 2024, Dynamics 365 was live in fifteen locations across Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Slovakia, Belgium, France and Poland. The Netherlands is in progess and the United Kingdom and Austria are slated for deployment next.

Camfil has harmonized its data and business processes to run more efficiently and sustainably while providing customers with enhanced quality of service. Every area of the business where integration is completed is enjoying positive experiences for both customers and employees.

Sales and production: Unique products configured and delivered  

Camfil uses Dynamics 365 Sales to manage customer interactions and opportunities. Ninety percent of the items Camfil sells are unique. For these orders, the company uses an Experlogix configurator to create products, cost estimates, and bills of materials including each component and part required, and to help estimate filtration needs based on industry and building type. Production engineers oversee validation of product configuration today, but Camfil intends to extend its configuration capabilities to further automate the sales process in the future.

Although many of Camfil’s products are unique, the configurator allows the company to also identify products it produced in the past. It may have been at a different production facility in a different country, but when the company finds a configuration match, it reuses the existing item. Together, these processes are reducing complexity and increasing efficiency, and are projected to improve margins in the coming years.

Another key customer improvement is the CamCard, a Camfil exclusive, which is like a blanket order for recurring items and is an added customer service convenience. As Ansgar Kuper, Head of Export Sales for Camfil Germany, explains, “Customers can keep track of the exact items they need for each building or office and their replenishment dates. We programmed this functionality into Dynamics 365 and use it for both quotes and reorders.” CamCards also act as a natural reminder to reach out to customers in a cadence that matches their rhythm of business. And along with order details, CamCards store shipping instructions like which filters to pack together and which building, office, or floor to deliver to, making it easy and efficient for customers to manage installation and eliminating confusion when shipments are delivered.

Supply chain management: Unification improves production

It’s now much easier and more cost-effective to prepare for production and source raw materials as orders are confirmed. With common part numbers, Camfil can maintain preferred suppliers for materials by location, with supplier pricing and payment terms stored centrally in Dynamics 365. In the past, that information was entered manually in Microsoft Access at each location and managed separately. Now, even locations that haven’t migrated to the new system yet can use this information with easy access to Dynamics 365. And if a price changes, it’s pushed out to all locations so that everyone works off the same information.

The new system is flexible and has a wide range of features that support the warehousing and shipping across all workflows. Orders are released directly for fulfillment, without the previous manual back-and-forth. Then, Dynamics 365 master planning allocates material and schedules production. This is a major jump in efficiency compared to the old process, which involved manual steps tied to users and paperwork. The entire process is integrated and provides real-time visibility for sales and customer service teams, so no one is left wondering about an order’s status or if it’s been released for production or available for shipping. All users in the order lifecycle have the visibility they need, which makes everyone more efficient.

Transportation management: A clear destination keeps orders moving

With the flexibility of Dynamics 365, the team uses the warehouse mobile application to scan inventory receipts, then performs quality checks before items are moved on to stocking locations. And a seamless integration of Dynamics 365 and Camfil’s custom shipping application makes it easy to include shipping instructions, whether the order is intercompany or for delivery to a customer. The system automatically selects the right transport service for each order based on defined shipping rules, prints the label, and tracks delivery in progress. Integration allows for electronic rate lookups and bookings with transportation agencies based on cost, proximity and speed. If the order is an intercompany transfer, advance shipment notifications are sent to the Camfil destination so the local receiving team can automatically register the receipt in the system and prepare for its arrival. And as locations begin to add their own trucking fleets, Dynamics 365 will support load assignments and more.

Finance: Finally seeing the forest and the trees

After orders are shipped, they automatically flow to the finance department for invoicing. With all data at the team’s fingertips, month-end closing takes just hours instead of days. Reports, including on-demand reports for everything from high-level views to drill-downs on a specific product and its price and cost details, can quickly be created giving leadership a 360-degree view of the business and its customers.

Moving forward and breathing easier

Even as Camfil continues to roll out its Dynamics 365 solution in more locations, it has plans for other Microsoft projects to support its digital transformation. For instance, now that all customer data is stored in a single location, the marketing team is connecting the dots on the back end with new communication strategies they’re building with Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

Jonas Markman, VP Product Master Data and Controlling, Camfil Group, sums up the company’s transformation this way: “We were a big-small company for a long time, and now we’re becoming a small-big company.”

Camfil can now apply the same technological precision used to design and produce its air filters to manage and optimize its global business.