Heraeus Electro-Nite is an international company, headquartered in Belgium. It is the market leader in its sector. It supplies steel mills and foundries with immersion sensors for instant temperature measurements and chemical analysis of metal melts, and manufactures and sells analysis devices and sensors for improvement of the quality of recycled glass, as well as automotive sensors.

The company uses application FDC of Infor (formerly Comshare) for 'Management Summary Reporting' (MSR) and Statutory Consolidation. In the MSR, Flash Reporting covers reporting about the cash position, headcount, sales and backlog. Several Financial Statements (Assets, Liabilities, P&L) are also included, as well as a detailed financial analysis. The Statutory Consolidation application covers the Balance Sheet and P&L, modifications in fixed and financial assets, debt management according to maturity dates, and intercompany eliminations.

Heraeus EN also uses Infor DecisionWeb with Essbase, mainly in the area of sales reporting. Sales data is stored per product group and country for each one of the affiliates in local currency, and consolidated in DEM. The information is available for actual sales (5 years history); budget sales for 2 years; a five-year business plan; and a detailed variance analysis versus budget and the previous year. Sales data per client will also be available.

"In the past, changes in the consolidation structure were a nightmare, and meant a lot of work. We are very happy to say that - from the moment we started using FDC onwards - these problems belonged to the past"

Frans BUYL, Corporate Finance & Administration Controlling, Executive Vice-President