Franke Coffee Systems: New structures for greater efficiency

Franke Coffee Systems is a leading supplier of professional coffee machines and coffee services. Headquartered in Aarburg, the Franke Group division develops modular B2B solutions to enable it to respond flexibly to the customer needs of restaurants, cafés, hotels and coffee-to-go outlets.

No software, no coffee

A strong research and development department has been crucial to the success of Franke Coffee Systems’ business from the outset, with software development playing a key role, driven by the expansion of digital services and offerings. It implements all the functionalities of the machine control system and guarantees the perfect integration of software and hardware. It also ensures that the user experiences the same concept across all machine series.

Over the past few years, the expansion of digital services and functionalities meant that Franke Coffee Systems’ software department had grown significantly. Although the number of software engineers was increased, development capacity could no longer be sustainably expanded. ‘The parallel development of several product lines, simultaneous renewal of the shared machine software platform together with the general growth of the company – all of this pushed the existing organisational structures to their limits’, says Christof Hurni, Vice President Technology at Franke Coffee Systems.

For the owner-managed company, it became clear that the existing processes and structures would have to be changed so that software development could keep pace with the increased requirements and increase its output. ‘The aim was to enable the teams to scale better in order to implement the software customisations efficiently and respond quickly to customer needs’, says Christof Hurni.

‘We didn’t want just any consulting office that optimises processes from their desks, but experts who are familiar with the business as well as with agile methodology and software development.’

Christof Hurni, Vice President Technology at
Franke Coffee Systems

A bold step into the future

Franke Coffee Systems was aware that this meant a radical change with new roles and changing processes. Instead of a classic reorganisation, the company therefore opted for a holistic transformation of the department. ‘Thanks to their far-sightedness, those responsible at Franke Coffee Systems recognised the need for a fundamental reorganisation and had the courage to take the necessary measures consistently and comprehensively’, says Martin Egloff, Business Area Manager at bbv in the Medtech and Industry divisions.

Productive collaboration

Franke Coffee Systems was able to put together the ideal team with Jonas Ruesch, Senior Consultant at bbv in the Industry division, and other bbv employees with expertise in agile development and requirements analysis. The Senior Consultant managed the transformation project, working full time on site for Franke Coffee Systems during the change process. He also took over management of the software development department at Franke Coffee Systems on request on an interim basis for the go-live of the new organisation. This approach proved to be successful in implementing what was a challenging project. ‘We realised right from the start that we needed professional external support’, says Christof Hurni. ‘We didn’t want just any consulting office that optimises processes from their desks, but experts who are familiar with the business as well as with agile methodology and software development.

Value streams instead of hierarchies and silos

bbv planned the entire transformation and developed a concept for implementation. With the decision to introduce a value stream-based organisation, responsibilities and competencies were redefined and new team structures established, with individual teams aligning themselves independently based on specific missions along the entire value stream and thinking about the products as a whole. Disciplinary silos were dismantled and new workflows established. ‘Franke Coffee Systems showed a great deal of courage here, taking the risk of discarding legacy structures and completely rethinking them’, says Martin Egloff.

From now on, a product owner is responsible for formulating customer requirements, while the teams determine how the solution is implemented. So-called ‘stream-aligned developer teams’ can now take on a complete value stream. Platform teams see these end-to-end teams as internal customers and empower and accelerate them by providing them with reusable solution modules. ‘The individual teams can now focus their expertise and concentrate on developing solutions and implementing customer requirements’, explains Jonas Ruesch.

Customer benefit is key

The young software development team was open to more modern approaches, agile methods and value stream-based processes. ‘The entire change process worked well’, says Christof Hurni. ‘Now the teams are working hand in hand, as one. What counts is the result for the customer. No customer is interested in how we are organised internally and how the teams work. It’s the result that counts. We have to deliver quality. And we are now in a position to do this’, summarises Christof Hurni.

Hurni greatly appreciates the close and intensive support that Jonas Ruesch and the bbv team provided throughout the transformation of the Franke Coffee Systems software development department. ‘We had complete confidence in bbv’s approach, even if some points had to be discussed thoroughly.’ Jonas Ruesch is also very positive. ‘We were given a lot of responsibility and were able to play an active role in shaping the process.’ Even though his proposals were initially greeted somewhat hesitantly at times, he and the team were given the opportunity to break new ground and demonstrate with a ‘proof of concept’ – embedded in operations – that the new method works. ‘The great thing about this type of collaboration is that you get immediate feedback on your suggestions. You reap what you sow’, says Jonas Ruesch with a smile.

A change project with potential for the future

With the transformation from a structure characterised by disciplinary silos to a value stream-driven organisation with agile methods, bbv has introduced an approach that Franke Coffee Systems is now successfully applying. The key points of the transformation were successfully put into practice within twelve months. With the reorganised software department, the teams now implement all developments for several product lines synchronously and coordinate them efficiently. The agile way of working ensures shorter development cycles, better planning and integrated product maintenance in order to be able to respond better to customer wishes and functional requirements.

The next step? Having successfully completed the transformation of the software development department, Franke Coffee Systems is now venturing to transform the entire product development department. ‘This project now brings even further aspects into play. Due to physical dependencies, such as supply chains or the design and construction of tools, the hardware-based R&D teams are organised more rigidly for historical reasons and employees have additional issues to deal with’, says Hurni. Accordingly, change management is somewhat more complex. ‘But we are convinced that a switch to value stream-based working will also have a positive effect on our business across the entire development department.’ Based on the concept developed for the software department, Franke is now taking over the internal management of this project. Jonas Ruesch is particularly pleased that Franke Coffee Systems is relying on bbv to support this project, too: ‘This shows us that we are on the right track with our approach of practical and highly vertically integrated consulting.’