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Flowserve

Flowserve Corporation (NYSE:FLS) is the recognized world leader in supplying pumps, valves, and services to the power, oil, gas, and chemical industries. Headquartered in Irving, Texas, with more than 16,000 employees in more than 50 countries, Flowserve combines global reach with a local presence to deliver the best in quality service offerings.

Flowserve: Improving service and accelerating dispute resolution

Business Problem

Flowserve has inherited a wide array of non-integrated back-end systems across the global enterprise. They use ERP systems from Oracle, Great Plains, Baan, and others, and each of the implementations of those systems can be different across regions. Flowserve lacked a single “source of truth” through which to view and act on all of this disparate data. The problem manifested itself in many areas. One was invoice dispute management. Resolving a customer invoice dispute was a painful process of digging through multiple systems and collaborating through email (completely outside of any structured process). Another was in ensuring a consistent and high-quality customer experience in Flowserve’s Aftermarket service business.

Appian Solution

Appian provides Flowserve a platform for comprehensive process and data management. Through a single interface, Appian connects to all of Flowserve’s ERP systems and unifies all of the data regarding a specific customer and a specific invoice or service instance. That same interface provides access to all the processes a Flowserve employee needs to do their work. In the Invoice Dispute app, that means managing, escalating and resolving a dispute. In the Aftermarket Services app, that means tracking the complete aftermarket business from receiving a pump for repair, disassembling it, cleaning and inspecting it, creating a statement of work for the customer (including pictures taken in Appian on a mobile device), and completing the repair. Email has been virtually eliminated from these processes. Flowserve has cut the average invoice dispute resolution time by 50 percent, getting a backlog of many millions of dollars out of dispute and into revenue. At the same time, Appian ensures a high-quality and consistent customer experience across Flowserve’s more than 150 service centers around the world.

“Appian helped us accelerate our business operations and improve the overall customer experience. Mobilizing our field service teams and improving collaboration to resolve finance and repair issues allows us to be more responsive to our customers while running the business more efficiently.”

Achal Augustine
IT Manager for Services and Solutions, Flowserve