High-Impact 3D Visual Product Configurator
Van Wijnen redefines the construction industry and slashes sales time in half
“Our sales time has been cut in half, looking at it from first customer contact until the realization of the project itself.”
Established in 1907, Van Wijnen is a Dutch housing developer committed to building affordable spaces for a better life in a way that respects the planet.
Van Wijnen develops diverse, green, and social neighborhoods where people feel at home. They believe in sustainable reuse and consider responsible development the ideal way to offer locations a bright, new future.
Van Wijnen doesn’t just construct houses; they also undertake major maintenance and energy improvements. This helps to preserve the function and value of existing real estate, which can range from a single property to entire neighborhoods.
The challenges
Inefficient and Labor-Intensive Quote Creation Process
The construction industry needs to grapple with a confusing and protracted quoting process. Generating the relevant documentation of a project is a complex and inefficient manual process. It required juggling several software products, including PowerPoint, Excel, and hand drawings.
Manual processes increased the risk of errors and slowed the pace of work. In the construction industry, sales processes often stretch between two and four (or even more) years from initial customer contact to project realization. The approach is unscalable.
Rising Construction Costs
In addition to this manual process and for years, Van Wijnen was battling an increasingly challenging construction market. There needed to be more raw materials and human resources. Costs were also rising sharply, making traditional construction methods unsustainable and expensive. Van Wijnen urgently needed a solution to increase construction productivity while reducing construction projects’ costs and delivery time.
Need for Advanced Technical Knowledge and Expertise
The traditional sales process at Van Wijnen was iterative, complicated, and required specialized knowledge from engineering experts. It involved manually creating customer-specific sales material, 3D models, drawings, and sketches, demanding high technical expertise. This was time-consuming, made the process more susceptible to human error, and lengthened the sales cycle, making it challenging to keep up with customer demands.
Difficulty in Communicating Desired Configurator Requirements
When searching for potential solutions, Van Wijnen struggled to communicate their unique needs to CPQ vendors. They were looking to innovate and achieve things that had never been done before. For example, to configure 200 houses simultaneously for a project. This was a far cry from what most CPQ solutions can handle: Configuring 20 or so parts for a single product.
Providing Detailed Customization and Advanced Visualization
Van Wijnen’s products are highly customizable, offering customers thousands of different features leading to millions of configuration possibilities. Managing these options was incredibly time-consuming and complicated, posing a significant challenge for the team. Van Wijnen needed a configurator that allowed customers to visualize these different options easily and in a user-friendly manner.
“Our biggest challenge was finding a good configurator. How do you explain what you want to achieve when your work has never been done? We’re not looking to configure a product with 20 small parts—we need to let our customers configure 200 houses at an extremely high level of detail with millions of configuration possibilities.”
The Solution
Implementing Epicor CPQ
Van Wijnen turned to Epicor CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) and partner Cadac. An innovative web-based solution, Epicor CPQ accelerated the sales process by providing an automated and efficient system for configuring, pricing, and quoting a customer’s order. Moreover, its advanced 3D visualization capabilities allowed the company to demonstrate a customer’s desired configurations in granular detail quickly.
Linking the CPQ Solution With a Central Technical System
Van Wijnen connected Epicor CPQ to a central technical system containing all product rules. This integration streamlined the sales process by providing instant access to the necessary product data, eliminating time-consuming manual searches that previously slowed their operations.
Introducing a Digitalized CTO (Configure-To-Order) Strategy
Van Wijnen’s strategy transitioned to a CTO approach, allowing a smooth and efficient sales process through a modular housing and apartment platform. Epicor CPQ played a critical role in this transformation, providing the capabilities to the sales team for configuring complex housing projects (which previously required technical experts). With the configurator’s help, Van Wijnen could build blocks of houses or apartment buildings to exact specifications–right down to the last bathroom tile from a digital process.
Creating a Frictionless File-To-Factory Process
Van Wijnen needed to do more than digitize its sales process. They introduced a ‘file to factory’ process, sending a digital twin created based on the Epicor CPQ configuration directly to a highly automated, digitally managed factory in the north of the Netherlands.
This factory transforms digitally conceived designs into tangible, high-quality housing elements and end products. Epicor CPQ catalyzed this digital transformation by providing a customer-facing portal that integrates Epicor directly into the factory.
Integrating Epicor CPQ with Other Core Systems
Van Wijnen integrated Epicor CPQ with their CRM, PDM, ERP, and MES to further boost efficiency. This created a fully interconnected IT system where leads in the CRM seamlessly transferred to the factory.
From there, Van Wijnen could automatically generate the product the customer configured in Epicor CPQ. This connected ecosystem significantly improved workflow speed and reduced the risk of errors in data entry or product configuration.
“We are now able to build 2,400 houses and apartments within a year, which are assembled in a day—that’s a huge acceleration”
The Benefits
Automating Processes: from Labor-Intensive To Efficient
Implementing Epicor CPQ solution has automated Van Wijnen’s previously labor-intensive sales and engineering process. The CPQ system transformed their operation into a fully digital and highly efficient workflow, eliminating the need for cumbersome manual labor.
Reducing the Demand for Technical Expertise
The ability of Epicor CPQ to store all product rules and limitations was another significant benefit. This feature reduced the need for sales representatives to possess extensive technical knowledge, streamlining the sales process and allowing more staff to handle complex product configurations effectively.
Facilitating End-To-End Automation
Epicor CPQ is an essential tool in Van Wijnen’s end-to-end automated process–from the customers’ configuration to the manufacturing phase. This newfound level of automation drastically decreased the need for manual intervention, increasing efficiency while ensuring product and process consistency.
Scalability and Flexibility
Epicor CPQ significantly enhanced Van Wijnen’s ability to scale. The configurator made it possible to create configure-to-order products using an industrial process, supporting Van Wijnen’s ambitions to grow easily and handle higher production demands. Additionally, it allowed for more complex configurations, offering customers a choice from thousands of product features.
Continuous Improvement and Customization
Epicor CPQ supports Van Wijnen’s culture of continuous improvement. Van Wijnen has been able to adapt and enhance the system post-implementation, continually adding new features to meet user needs.
Halving Lead Times and Enhancing Document Generation
Epicor CPQ was instrumental in reducing sales lead times by half. Instead of a process that could traditionally take months, project generation now took only a couple of hours.
Additionally, the ability of Epicor CPQ to automatically generate relevant documents eliminated the scramble to compile necessary paperwork, boosting responsiveness and customer and employee satisfaction.
Impacting Construction and Labor Costs
From a construction perspective, Epicor CPQ helps Van Wijnen to build 2,400 houses and apartments within a year, each assembled in just a single day. This represented a significant increase in productivity using fewer employees compared to the traditional construction industry.
Providing Affordable Housing
Despite the sophistication and speed of their new processes, Van Wijnen remained committed to providing affordable housing. The cost efficiencies generated by the CPQ solution, coupled with reduced labor costs, allowed them to continue delivering high-quality yet affordable homes to their customers.
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