GRÜN a strategic partner of the DVS in Düsseldorf

VEWA as the central software at DVS – German Association for Welding and Related Processes e. V. Since 2011, the VEWA software family has been in productive use for member administration and for the administration of contributions, research projects and committees.

"It's crazy what DVS and GRÜN have built up together over the years" says Christian Habel, team leader information network at DVS - German Association for Welding and Related Processes e. V., about the cooperation with the GRÜN Software Group. The DVS has been working productively with the VEWA software family since 2011. there is VEWA has become the central software at DVS and supports almost all activities of the association. The GRÜN Software Group is therefore a strategic partner in a dynamic market at DVS.

Without welding, the world would look completely different today. The DVS is the community in joining, cutting and coating technology, in which science, transfer and innovations for small and medium-sized companies are promoted. The DVS is one of the largest technical, scientific professional associations in Germany. For more than 125 years, a good 17.000 members, around 3.000 of them from the corporate division, have ensured that joining technology is constantly being developed. In addition to the headquarters in Düsseldorf, DVS has a dense network of experts nationwide in 5 state and 67 district associations.

The DVS is a classic association. DVS members can be both companies and private individuals. The membership fees are one of the main sources of income for the association. The members and the membership fees have been paid since 2012 via the Membership management from GRÜN VEWA managed - from contribution creation to contribution settlement. The communication switch reliably handles postal dispatch or dispatch by e-mail.

Peculiarity to the address system

An example is Christian Habel himself: There is "Christian Habel" as a person in VEWA. This person is also a member of the Düsseldorf district association, so that this personal data record has been related to the district association. He is also the “Public Management Board” in this district association. The context-related correspondence should not be sent to the private address or to the district association, as there is a third address because Christian Habel is also an employee at the main office in Düsseldorf. A high requirement for address management in VEWA, since many eventualities have to be mapped. "The flexible address system makes managing our members so much easier for us and saves us a lot of time managing all addresses," says Habel.

Also important for the DVS in relation to the address system: Extensive reports can be created from VEWA. Taking Christian Habel as an example, this means: The DVS sees its data as an employee, the Düsseldorf district association sees this data record either as a personal member or as a member of the board in its function as "Public Management Board". The data from a person displayed in the report therefore depends on the point of view in this triangular relationship.

Online membership management GRÜN eVEWA

In addition to VEWA, DVS also has the Online membership management GRÜN eVEWA for use. Here, those involved in the committees can view their data or register for the upcoming meetings. In addition, the board of directors of a state or district association can communicate with the members via eVEWA. “We want eVEWA to be the central point of contact for the members and also within the board in the future. If possible, no other media should be used for communication,” says Habel as the goal.

Classic committee topics can also be mapped in eVEWA. For example, there are examination and certification committees (PZAs) at DVS. The DVS appoints inspectors who can carry out a welder's test. The necessary requirements are checked in advance and then approval certificates are created from VEWA.

The DVS is financed primarily through membership fees. The contribution regulations The areas of membership service, research association and education are structurally very different from each other, but are managed in the central contribution system and sometimes calculated dynamically for each year. Invoices are created automatically in VEWA, sent by e-mail if desired and then archived. Finally, the transfer to accounting takes place via an interface. "VEWA reliably handles all the special features that result from our sometimes complicated contribution regulations," says Habel, happy about the automation.

The DVS also uses the committee administration in VEWA for the organization of working groups and technical committees.

Working groups

Working groups are organized in both the technical and educational sectors of DVS. The group participants in these bodies can be people with a personal membership, an indirect membership through a company, but also in principle without membership.

technical committees

There are currently 14 specialist committees within the DVS research association. These technical committees are also managed via the committee administration in VEWA. From the VEWA point of view, specialist committees are a special form of a body that is related to research. "Over the past few years, committee management has become a highly specialized module that can map everything," says Habel. For example, legally independent companies such as the Research Association for Welding and Related Processes eV of the DVS , DVS-Research for short, with its specialist and management committees. Project ideas are submitted to the meetings of the technical committees in the form of project outlines, evaluated by industry representatives with regard to applicability and then decisions are made on the further progress of the project. “An eVEWA-based web app supports us in forming an opinion on each individual project idea. Here, too, the VEWA family is a great help, from collecting opinion polls to automated evaluation in the back office,” says Habel.

Address management is also of great relevance in committee management: "So that addresses in the contribution system and in committee management do not have to be maintained twice, we have decided to use GRÜN have a tool developed that we have called the “Project Participant Matrix”.” explains Habel. "If a new project is recorded in a technical committee, VEWA automatically checks whether this person is already involved in this technical committee at the time of admission. If not, this person will be created in this technical committee.”

Technical committees usually meet twice a year. The agenda relevant to each meeting is also easily and conveniently created from the VEWA data pool. “Before we had VEWA, the information had to be collected from various places in the house. In the past, we used to spend a lot of time maintaining Excel lists and Word documents to create an agenda. Today VEWA aggregates all relevant project data at the push of a button", Habel also remembers the times without VEWA. “We were previously unable to create any information with this level of detail and this level of efficiency. Before we had VEWA, we had to put days and hours into this.” For the agenda, a lot of information for reporting on the project outlines and ideas that need to be dealt with is provided as attachments to agendas and minutes.

The members of DVS research include institutes at universities, colleges, Fraunhofer societies and other institutions. This is where the research projects are carried out. DVS raises public funding for these projects and supports the institutes in the administrative processing of the projects. "VEWA supports us here so that no dates and deadlines are missed," says Habel.

Around 12 million euros in research funds are available every year, which are distributed over more than 100 projects. This funding is provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection.

The DVS regularly sends information to the members. In order to be able to process the triangle construct described above, dynamic distribution lists are compiled in VEWA. "This is a very practical solution if you want to network with members," says Habel. For this purpose, different tables are integrated in the selection system, based on the relationship system.

For example, all persons from a committee who belong to a specific research project can be specifically addressed. Or individual features can be selected in a mailing list, such as honors for a 10-year membership. Selections can also be made from the context of the research groups, for example to write to institute directors, administrative heads or project managers.

In this way, targeted distribution lists are created in VEWA, which are updated at the push of a button before they are sent out. What is also special is that members can be active in several projects at the same time. For the mailings, VEWA compiles the content from all projects dynamically and sends out a mailing with the collected content of all projects. All recipients thus receive individually compiled information.

DVS Research uses the Business Intelligence Manager (BIM) in VEWA as a controlling and reporting tool. Here you can easily analyze how much funding has already been accessed in which technical committee and how much money is still available. "BIM combines data from a large number of different tables and prepares them graphically," says Habel, appreciating the analysis options. In this way, a great deal of detailed information on the projects from the different areas of VEWA can be output directly and interactively selected. Analyzes and statistical values ​​for new, ongoing and completed projects can be called up on a daily basis.

The collaboration between GRÜN and DVS has been established for many years. "GRÜN has become a strategic partner for us. Because our contacts at GRÜN know our processes very well. We have also come to know and appreciate the flexibility of VEWA over the years. The high degree of customization of VEWA will enable us in the very near future to advance the digitization of our association in the shortest possible time. Platform-independent interfaces will exchange data in standardized formats and, if necessary, verify them without having to write e-mails or make telephone calls. In short: with VEWA we are able to consistently implement the idea of ​​"do more in less time".