Arcelik as consumer goods Microsoft365

Customer Story

The realities of the COVID-19 health crisis continue to change life in many vital aspects—from ways of doing business and schooling our children to shopping and socializing with friends. Those who are fit to survive through the challenges of the new era are those who manage to adapt to the changes with a scientific, technological, and agile approach. Turkey`s leading brand Arçelik AŞ sets itself as an exemplary name and tailors its business with agility, which aligns with both the “new normal” and its innovative perspective, in action since the company`s inception in 1955.

March 19, 2020 will probably be remembered as the day the world had to sign out of offices and retreat into new spaces of work. This meant that while most business units transitioned to working from home, there emerged a clear need to have swift and efficient solutions to ensure business continuity on the manufacturing side. The leadership teams at Arçelik also focused intently on the health and well-being of employees to safeguard against any possible contagion risk in the workplace. Accordingly, the company set off to create a robust contact tracing system that could act swiftly and reliably.

The teams assessed the efficiency of various social distancing technologies and in a matter of days they decided to proceed with the first phase launch at Eskişehir Buzdolabı İşletmesi (refrigerator plant). The tool of choice was Microsoft Power Apps, as the solution met the need to swiftly develop an app with a minimal amount of code writing.

With prior knowledge and experience of working with Power Apps, the project team scanned data sources such as employee numbers, total facility area, and production line capacity, with the goal of making these data available for convenient use on mobile devices through an app made with Power Apps.

Customer
Arçelik A.Ş.

Products and Services
Microsoft 365
Power Apps
SharePoint Online

Industrydustry
Consumer Goods

Organization Size
Corporate (10,000+ employees)

Continuous production through COVID-19

The ability of Power Apps to scan barcodes via mobile phone cameras led to the idea of creating a “check-in” database for employees. Initially, there was a SharePoint Online tool directly connected to Power Apps. While planning to transfer data through SharePoint Online to a database and running a background algorithm, the team championed for all employees to scan QR codes at their locations throughout the day. Gateway configuration for SharePoint Online allowed for regular transfer of data on the database. Refrigerator unit R&D teams used their software expertise to support the efforts and write a real-time analysis algorithm. Thanks to the coding efforts of the software teams, a web interface was created to trace contact. This interface allowed speedy tracing action when a confirmed case was identified within the premises, which meant that all those in previous contact with the person in question could be reached swiftly. A version of the interface, developed in cooperation with teams at Microsoft Turkey, was used to bring Arçelik`s overseas operations into the mainstream. Design was further refined with additional properties like notifications and error messages. Hourly “push-ups” through PowerApps were deployed to remind employees and ensure habitual use of the application.

After the success of the initial pilot in Eskişehir, further rollouts took place in the Bolu and Ankara facilities. A Romanian version was developed in response to the request from the refrigerator and washer plants in that country, followed shortly by Russian and English versions.

Supported by the capability of Power Apps to provide usage metrics, teams could monitor the app for number of scans per day as well the number of app users. The system is enhanced by the contributions of all users, with team heads championing to ensure regular scans are a well-established habit among all employees.

An incident to monitor: Self-isolation

Self-isolation is also a part of post-pandemic realities. Arçelik had its share of cases where either by direct and suspected diagnostic indication, or by way of household contact, employees had to self-isolate, for which the company decided to put a monitoring program into use. One of the main targets of the program was to make life easier for healthcare professionals within the vocational medical teams operating internally.

The ultimate goal was to differentiate between suspected cases and healthy individuals throughout the Arçelik group of companies. It was also a chance for the employees to directly contact a member of the group healthcare team in case of possible exposure and if they felt the need to do so. The app was founded on the SharePoint Online list, making use of various features of SharePoint Online. Deploying Microsoft Turkey support for performance and privacy, Arçelik software teams used SharePoint Online administrator dashboards to log the daily health condition of self-isolating employees and allow monitoring by healthcare professionals, which accordingly enabled physicians to prioritize these cases by need.

“COVID-19 meant that we found ourselves in need of data at an unprecedented scale and detail, to allow for the determination, planning, and execution of healthcare precautions and measures within our group of companies,” explains Tarık Tümerli, Healthcare Coordinator at Arçelik. “This included data such as employees` health conditions, travel history, daily routines, and the like. The above-mentioned applications allowed us to meet the need in a swift, user-friendly, and proper manner, thus assisting us invaluably in our efforts to protect the health of our workforce.”

How self-isolation works

When an employee needs to go into self-isolation, they get contacted by the Human Resources department, which advises on setup of the app and routine of daily entries into the app, regarding the employee`s health condition, explains the purpose of data collected, and gets consent provided the employee is happy to do so. App use and data collection are only possible if the employee agrees to proceed and provides consent. This is also the time healthcare professionals get in touch with the person. Following installation of the app, Q&A, and information next steps, the employee starts to provide daily health updates on the app. All active subscribers who completed their registration receive daily notifications from the app through Microsoft Flow.

“It was important for us to trace any exposed employees, and to make our notes a part of the corporate memory,” recalls Görkem Ihlamur, Skill-Building and Employer Brand Manager at Arçelik. “We used Power Apps to monitor self-isolating cases within the business right from the beginning of COVID-19 and successfully manage the process. Power Apps was of great help to protect the health of our employees and their families.”

With initial setup prepared in one day and scheme put swiftly into action, the pilot app was up and running in a week. This was followed by a series of health surveys that provided vital feedback in assisting with the back-to-office planning and phase assessment of the leadership team. Microsoft Forms was a successful enabler in offering multilingual, globally scalable, and swift solutions, taking less than an hour to have the surveys ready for use.

In times of stress, calling for immediate action, low-code requisite systems are favorable, since their multitool kit structure provides room for much-needed flexibility. The systems can work in tandem with the operational needs of the teams and the company`s preferred way of doing business, all with an excellent overall response to the set timelines.

New experiences, new learnings, new solutions

The need for swift action and solution-based apps in the post–COVID-19 era was a valuable learning experience for Arçelik. Trial licenses were set up to induce Power Apps use and provide companies a tester opportunity for real-life user experience, followed by various notifications. During initial Power Apps usage, SharePoint Online was deployed to allow licensing through Microsoft Office 365. This was then followed by data flow through to the database, which is a relatively indirect method. When Microsoft introduces free of charge some key aspects of Common Data Service infrastructure for Teams subscribers, this will provide all Teams users the chance to write, keep, and store Power Apps data in a warehouse as well as the opportunity of directly running flows.

As more large-scale businesses like Arçelik adopt employee-centered, novel solutions in the post–COVID-19 period, it is expected that these time-sensitive and proactive solutions will gain momentum as they become accessible on a widespread basis.

According to Ceyda Artun, Human Resources Specialist at Arçelik, “The health and well-being of our employees and their families have been our utmost priority from the very beginning of the pandemic. This is how we decided to come up with a system to track and monitor any self-isolating members of the workforce on a daily basis. The app made with Power Apps was taken on board to meet this need and allowed us to adopt a systems-based approach for tracking and monitoring purposes. It proved to be extremely useful in aiding the successful efforts of our teams in Human Resources and Healthcare Services,” he concludes.

In these times of COVID-19 hardship, Arçelik carries on its efforts to maintain business-continuity as well as safeguard its employees and ensure health and safety in the workplace. Arçelik is also highly focused on real-time monitoring of any changes in confirmed cases or risk groups as part of its public health sensitivities.

All for a robust and healthy future!

Microsoft Customer Story