enwis gets off to a successful start at Fortum Waste Solutions

As a leading green energy company and the third largest energy producer in Scandinavia, Fortum offers solutions in the areas of electricity, heating, cooling as well as solutions for the sustainable use of resources. Three years ago, Fortum entered the waste management and recycling sector under the Fortum Recycling & Waste Solutions brand with the purchase of hazardous waste disposal specialist Ekokem. Fortum Recycling & Waste Solutions was looking for suitable software providers to help building a multi system digital infrastructure that would be implemented first in Sweden and then in other countries. For the “transaction engine” part Fortum decided to work with the tegos Group.

With the introduction of enwis, Fortum have now implemented an industry software that is comprehensively configured to their requirements and replaces other ERP systems that had been used previously. As a “transaction heart”, enwis is connected to other systems, such as an MDM (Master Data Management) system, a laboratory system, reporting tools and a financial system. “The particular challenge initially lay in harmonising the different requirements and working methods of the three sister companies in Sweden, Finland and Denmark and defining a standard process,” Tristan Küsters, project manager at the tegos Group, comments on the challenges they faced at the start of the project.

Despite the intention to “keep it as simple as possible but still support the most important business needs” i.e. to introduce the MVP (Minimum Viable Product), enwis, as the transaction core of the new digital infrastructure, nevertheless had to cover as many areas of activity and business requirements as possible. Thanks to the second principle of “no development”, the solution could also be implemented within a relatively short period of 15 months, considering the required scope of the project.

In order to succeed with the MVP approach and within the tight schedule, immense effort was needed in terms of Fortum internal work, consulting and coordination. “Thanks to our agile project approach with three-week sprints in which consultants for different systems and customers business rep came together and as a group presented the results of the sprints, the project team was able to guarantee successful and on-schedule project handling,” said Tristan Küsters as he summed up his satisfaction and delight with the customer’s praise to the solution and the successful go-live in Sweden. “We have had no major issues and I would even say minor ones have been fewer than expected as well. Of course, it has meant more effort in our daily work, but due to the excellent co-operation of the tegos team together with other system suppliers as well as Fortum project team, the go-live of our new system has been a big success”, said Tuomas Tommola, Program Director. So, it has been a successful system change all round, which has now moved into the next phase with the implementation of enwis in Finland and Denmark started in summer 2019.