ALPINA Burkard Bovensiepen GmbH + Co. KG: In top gear with Microsoft D365 Business Central

The ALPINA automobile manufacturing plant was founded by Burkard Bovensiepen in 1965. The company has expanded steadily ever since, and now has some 300 employees. In parallel with this expansion, demands on the company’s IT infrastructure intensified to the point where the ERP system developed by the company was no longer capable of mapping the full complexity of the business models. The future business software will allow ALPINA to pursue the aim of mapping all business processes while significantly enhancing integration with partners and other internal systems; and this will just be the starting point for many more digital initiatives on the part of the company based on the modern technological platform of Microsoft. For ALPINA, combining Business Central with the BE-terna's automotive industry solution developed by BE-terna and Microsoft’s modern platform architecture emerged as the ideal solution package.

For ALPINA, however, technological and content-related criteria were not the only decisive factors. For any digitalisation project, the interplay of people, technologies and project management methods is the critical success factor. With this in mind, ALPINA attached great importance to incorporating the various project teams in order to achieve high-quality results subsequently and implement the new digital concepts into the organisation responsibly. After a short but intensive test phase, it was evident to ALPINA that the BE-terna and ALPINA teams complemented one another very effectively. 

During the run-up period, the BE-terna team worked closely with our own project teams so that they could assess the full complexity of the business models we use. Together we worked out the ideal solution package for ALPINA, 

recalls Florian Bovensiepen, member of the ALPINA management board.

Ideally equipped for the future

ALPINA applies the highest standards to its projects, so it was also necessary for the company to ensure the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central technology was deployed to the best possible level of quality. To simplify collaboration between business areas, Business Central and the Automotive industry module developed by BE-terna will link processes across the business divisions. Amongst other things, this will mean efficiency gains in intra-logistics through the use of mobile scanners and greater transparency in warehousing for vehicle manufacture. Data will be collected immediately at the precise point where it is generated, with the resultant information made available across the company without delay. Thanks to BE-terna's automotive solution, ALPINA will also ensure compliance with OEM-specific requirements, and benefit from automatic and electronic processing.

The innovative digital project has been running since November 2019. As early as February 2020, the new business software solution for the wine trade was put into operation (to be followed by the automotive division early in 2021).

Building on the ERP system, follow-up projects have been defined in advance; these include the incorporation of business intelligence and an integrated document management system.

Project results

• Better integration of partners
• Simplification of internal, interdepartmental cooperation
• Faster availability of information
• Greater transparency in stockholding
• Enabling the integration of Business Intelligence & an integrated document management system

Business benefits

• Increased efficiency of intra-logistics
• Time savings through improved processes
• Reduction of complexity

About ALPINA Burkard Bovensiepen GmbH + Co. KG

In 1965, Burkard Bovensiepen founded the automobile manufacturing plant ALPINA Burkard Bovensiepen KG. Today, the independent, family-run business builds some of the world’s highest regarded cars, developed and produced on the basis of BMW models in Buchloe in cordial collaboration with BMW; it is this close partnership that forms the basis for the enduring success of the ALPINA brand. The result is distinctive automobiles created with attention to detail and technical refinements that also meet the stringent quality and safety standards of the mass market. The Federal Motor Transport Authority accredited ALPINA as an independent automobile manufacturer back in 1983.

For more than 40 years, trading in fine wines and storing wines for the long term has constituted a second business area for the company. Our clients include more than a thousand leading restaurants, vintners and private wine connoisseurs around the world.