Exel Computer Systems

Stainless Steel Fasteners Ltd (SSF) is worldwide market leader in the field of special fastener manufacturing with a unique blend of traditional manufacturing machinery and the very latest CNC and computer technology.

With a heritage spanning over 40 years, the £9m turnover company employs 82 skilled personnel and supplies high integrity, high quality products and services primarily to the oil, gas and associated industries. Full traceability is an absolute prerequisite as many of its products are used in mission critical applications so when SSF needed to replace its aging disconnected business systems, it knew it needed a fully integrated solution and a supplier that was totally dependable. It found the exact fit in EFACS E/8 from Exel Computer Systems.

In addition to exacting quality standards, flexibility lies at the heart of success for SSF. A 100% Make to Order (MTO) manufacturer, SSF has a potential range of product permutations in excess of 20 million, taking diameter, length, materials and finishes into account. Orders extend from oneoffs through to batches of 10,000 with multiple calloffs with a number of products being able to be manufactured in a variety of ways depending on urgency and cost. Typical lead times for the 20 orders processed on average each day are 2-3 weeks although this can be as low as 24 hours for extremely urgent orders that can physically be manufactured in this time.

In terms of business flow, much of the value-add is done before the order is dispatched to the production floor and its collection of 50+ production resources.

When a Sales Order is received it is checked against customer enquiries before undergoing a product  configuration process which generates the required part number. A Works Order is then raised, stock availability checked with the Works Order then checked by SSF’s Quality Manager for material certification conformity etc. The order is then released to the shop floor where it can undergo a wide range of operations that begin with a further quality check on the raw materials allocated for the order. After this, the product undergoes intermediate product forming before a variety of finishing processes, final inspection, final marking and then packing and despatch. Subcontracting can also occur at any stage of the process depending on the nature of the product. Stephen Wilkinson, Managing Director of SSF, has been with the company for 26 years and explains the key business challenges his company has to deal with. “Let’s begin with the customer as ultimately everything revolves around the customer and their requirements. It is essential that we maintain excellent customer relations by delivering product and service of the highest quality.” He continues, “Because our customers may make annual purchases, it is also paramount that we keep just the right balance between continually being in our customer’s mind for when it comes to them making a purchase and not being a nuisance. This is especially the case where specific customers require very exotic materials which may have long lead times that we might need to pre-order.”

Another key challenge is the need for absolute accuracy at every stage of the business, especially at the early order processing stage. A single typing error may render an entire order unusable which can not only be costly given the nature of materials used, but also result in a customer not getting their order as expected. This is held in tension with the need to process orders and have them on the shop floor as quickly as possible in order to meet the tight lead times that are involved.

Visibility is also a major challenge and not just as expected on the shop floor as Wilkinson explains. “Having access to historical information, at a customer, order and stock level, is important to be able to make the best strategic and tactical decisions.” He cites the ability to review the price and availability of stock as an example. “We deal with materials with varying degrees of availability and fluctuating prices. By having a historical record of who tends to buy what, and when, we can time our buying to take advantage of particularly favourable conditions.” As mentioned, flexibility is central to successfully making those all important delivery dates which is why SSF has a wide range of what Wilkinson refers to as “flexible routes of product realisation.” Quite often however, this is highly specialised information known only to key personnel in the company who can then make the decision as to which production route to use and in what circumstances. It is imperative that resources are utilised efficiently although as Wilkinson adds, “always with a strong sense of the cost/benefit involved.” Finally, traceability is essential with different products requiring different degrees of testing in order to conform to customer requirements.

Prior to investing in EFACS E/8, SSF had relied on an aging Sage Line 100 system, a separate Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program, and a range of spreadsheets for production control. Despite various Visual Basic (VB) tie-ins, there was no sense of integration with data duplication being rife, along with the potential for data variance in each system. Given the bespoke nature of every order, each order increased the risk of data duplication due to the lack of internal consistency. Wilkinson explains why this was a problem. “Every order on our Sage system had to be manually entered in 4 lines of generic text and with no internal consistency, operators could process the same product twice but use different order descriptions on different days. This was also subject to operator experience and different people would make different assumptions and use a variety of abbreviations to say the same thing.” In terms of stock control, the system at best was able to keep limited stock availability information but even here, the information was difficult to get to. Data issues hit the critical area of CRM hard with typing mistakes leading to several entries for the same customer with vital buying information spread across different records, all of which could be potentially missed or which took significant time to double check. In addition to looming obsolescence of its Sage system, it was becoming increasingly clear that the company’s all important flexibility was being compromised by rigid and complex systems which were heavily reliant on the expert knowledge of its users to get meaningful information out. As two companies within the group were already successfully using EFACS E/8, Wilkinson and SSF naturally were drawn to this. The implementation route they chose however was quite different and reflected the need for any replacement system to be a success  from day one. As Wilkinson recalls, “We’d heard horror stories of companies putting in systems and then being unable to do business for weeks if not months. Nothing could be allowed to negatively impact on our quality of product and service to our customers.” SSF therefore bought two EFACS E/8 licences and began a high level mapping of the company’s business processes with EFACS’ capabilities. Wilkinson brought in key personnel within the company to add their expert insight into what EFACS E/8 would need to do in order to replicate their existing processes. A fundamental issue for SSF was the need to quickly and accurately allocate product numbers from the 20 million possible permutations. As working these out and entering them beforehand was completely impractical, the only alternative was to be able to do this dynamically. Even a skilled operator might take half a day to do this manually for 10 items so this was clearly an area that could be improved on.

The solution lay in Wilkinson and others spending 9 months distilling their expert knowledge into an inhouse configuration program which now enables a skilled operator to generate a part number in twenty seconds by answering 8 questions with 9 mouse clicks. As Wilkinson is quick to point out, the technological infrastructure of EFACS E/8 makes linking this data very straightforward. “One of the strengths of EFACS E/8 is its centralised SQL database which allows very open access to the data outside of EFACS E/8 as well as a great deal of flexibility within EFACS E/8.” Once this was in place, the company invested another year testing and developing every aspect of its EFACS E/8 system. At this stage, all potential users of the systems were consulted and shown how the system worked and following healthy interactions, any system customising that was required was actioned. Only one external customisation was required from Exel and that was to enable SSF to dynamically re-route a works order once it had been issued which reflected the potential and often used flexibility within the company. An intense month of testing in December 07 including parallel running with Sage proved the viability of the system and following final data imports, SSF went live with EFACS E/8, as planned, in January 2008.

Most importantly for SSF, there was no impact on its existing business and by the end of the first day there was no backlog of work on the system at all. Matthew Tongue is SSF’s Resource Manager and he comments on where the benefits were felt first in the company. “From the outset we found all the material control data to be totally accurate and providing the variable route flexibility we needed in order to deliver the quality and flexibility required by our customers. Other benefits however were gradual and reflect the reality of change within any company, as Wilkinson explains. “Purchasing took approximately 6 months of using and trusting the system before they began to see additional ways that EFACS E/8 could help them do their job better. This was largely as the system gradually accumulated historic data which could then be easily accessed and mined to provide genuine business intelligence benefits.” It is estimated that EFACS E/8 has on the whole led to increased efficiency resulting in an increased focus on purchasing strategy. By using the workflow capabilities within EFACS E/8, it is now quick and easy to access and review all relevant testing certification per order which in turn helps ensure that the most accurate and cost effective price can be given.

The same was true concerning the company’s customer focus with the integrated CRM capabilities of EFACS E/8 having proved to be one of the most significant areas of benefit. Now the Sales team is able to monitor and analyse to great depths, all the company’s customer facing activity. This has brought visibility on buying patterns and trends and allowed much more strategic purchasing as well as ensuring that the company is best placed to meet the demands of its customers. This is especially the case when responding to customer queries concerning existing orders where Wilkinson says there has been a  spectacular 90% reduction in time taken to be able to get the customer the information he or she wants. By incorporating the expert knowledge previously held in different individuals throughout the company within EFACS E/8, SSF is now able to train replacement and additional staff much, much quicker. Tongue remarks that whereas previously it could take six months for a new employee to be proficient in knowing the complexities of how the company works, now with EFACS E/8 they can make a valid contribution within a very short timescale. Moreover, the system ensures complete consistency of information irrespective of who is using it, which has eradicated data duplication errors at a stroke.

Looking to the future Wilkinson and Tongue see further benefits to be had from a deeper use of EFACS’ existing functionality, especially in the area of CRM. Machine timings and routings may well be added into wider MRP/ERP considerations in addition to further streamlining of Export documentation where EFACS E/8 has already saved one week per month. For Tongue, the greatest benefit of EFACS E/8 so far is its flexibility and dependability which has provided greater consistency in quality and service and only serves to make things better for the customer. The final word however belongs to Wilkinson. “The added value that EFACS E/8 has brought matches the development aspirations of the company. I couldn’t imagine going back to what we had before.”

Martin Aerospace is a global supplier of precision manufactured products to Aerospace and other quality critical industries. The company based in Lanark, Scotland, has grown steadily from its genesis in 1993 and now boasts a 60 strong workforce which helped generate a turnover in 2007 of £4.5m. Such is the company’s reputation that it works extensively with leading global aerospace manufacturers, all of which demand the most rigorous manufacturing processes.

When Martin Aerospace needed to replace their existing fragmented systems it was obvious to them that EFACS from Exel Computer Systems would meet their needs.

Martin Aerospace has steadily developed its Aerospace business to the extent that this now comprises 80% of the company’s entire workload. A walk-through of the company’s business processes shows the challenges it faces in ensuring consistent quality delivered on time to the most demanding of customers. Orders are received complete with a set of drawings and can range from a batch as small as 5-10 up to as large as 3000. A typical batch however is approximately 200. The drawings are quickly reviewed and validated for manufacturing capabilities and once approved, the order is passed to materials purchasing/stores. A simple MRP run is made to determine the materials required and whether these are available from stock or whether unique materials need to be purchased for the order. Given the high value and rarity of some of the materials used, materials handling is a crucial component of the company’s ability to be successful.

At this stage, all other information relating to the job is added to a job card. This includes a full Bill of Materials (BoM) breakdown, work to lists, routing information and other subcontracting processes. A simple job can comprise of one process and be completed in under two hours whereas a complex job may have 10 distinct process operations including a range of subcontracting operations and take up to six weeks to finish. Once this information is assembled, raw materials are uniquely stamped for traceability purposes and issued from the stores along with the job card. From here the order progresses and is monitored by shop floor data collection across the production floor from turning, milling and through to grinding before being dispatched for any subcontracting work. Following extensive quality checks, the product is then dispatched to the customer.

Andrew Wallace is IT Manager for Martin Aerospace and he outlines the major challenges the company faces. “Quality control and traceability is central to our business. Not just at a batch or individual product level, but right down to every process on every raw material item. One faulty bolt is enough to potentially bring down a plane – so there can be no margin for error”. Because of this, not only is every process recorded once it is completed, the product is quality checked at each stage at a sample/batch level. Each individual product is then rigorously tested across every required parameter before being dispatched. Wallace is quick to point out another reason why orders are checked at each stage, cost. “We deal with exotic and very expensive materials which is why we aim to maximise our yield for every batch produced.”

The exotic nature of the raw materials leaves it open to significant fluctuations in terms of price and availability, all of which can affect not just the time taken to deliver the finished product, but also the costs involved in producing the order. Another challenge lies in managing the flow of work to and from the company’s list of approved subcontractors. As Wallace remarks, “the best laid production schedule can be ruined by unforeseen delays at a subcontractor level, leading to faileddelivery dates and less than happy customers.” Other challenges are those traditionally associated with managing production lines – namely maximising capacity while avoiding capacity constraints which in turn necessitates minimising changeovers and optimising sequencing of product through the company’s varied machine resources. While keen to point out that given the company’s inherent flexibility, the vast majority of components can be made across a wide variety of resources, there is a significant time difference between using the optimum machines and not.

Prior to investing in EFACS from Exel Computer Systems, the company had relied on a mixture of complex Excel spreadsheets, 5 disparate IT systems and “good old pen and paper”. This meant that it was simply impossible for anyone to accurately identify where any particular job was at any time on the production floor without physically going onto the floor and finding it. Not only was this very time intensive, it meant pulling staff off an existing job to do so which further added to the time cost involved. They would then have to manually forward plan from there to determine an approximate completion time. The company also had zero visibility of the true costing of each process and ultimately it was only at the end of a production run that costs could be accurately identified and therefore any profit determined. Another problem lay in the specialisation of knowledge within the company or as Wallace puts it, “everything tended to be in the head of the Production Manager which was fine as long as he wasn’t ill or on holiday.”

This extended to all the other disparate systems which tended to have a very select group of people who used them and therefore understood how to access the information within. This lack of visibility extended to managing stock levels and availability, especially if deliveries arrived mid production run or were later than scheduled. “We’d also have problems with different people having different means of trying to keep track of the same information” adds Wallace. “Our Production Manager and Stock Manager would each keep a record of the same information which was not only wasteful but could lead to problems when variances occurred.” Finally, the confusion surrounding data added to a general tendency to only really trust on a gut feeling level and often not what the IT system generated report said. As well as these obvious difficulties, Martin Aerospace found itself under growing pressure from customers to be working, and seen to be working, with the latest manufacturing business systems. Not only this, targets set by the board were becoming increasingly impossible to hit with the existing departmentalised way of working. What was needed was a fully integrated system that would replace all the fragmented systems and allow true visibility and communication between different departments and across the company as a whole. After attending several trade fairs and meeting a number of vendors, Wallace began to draw information from all areas within the company and found that the company had a very definite idea of what it needed. As he recalls, “From accounts through stock control, from traceability through to real time production control, it was immediately apparent that EFACS was the system that stood out as meeting all of our needs.” Further discussions took place with RAD Software, the Scottish partner of Exel and in November 2001, Martin Aerospace invested in EFACS. RAD drew up an implementation plan which necessitated exporting all the relevant data from Martin Aerospace’s existing systems and reworking this to import into EFACS. This was easier than trying to document and systematise all the process steps and related information that different people within the company uniquely held. This included much of the process steps and routing information for all of the immediate three months business so that the company could begin using EFACS as quickly as possible.

Because of this approach, the sales department were using EFACS in under a month with stocks and purchasing having to go live in less than a week. Wallace recalls those early days of using the system. “We didn’t have any choice but to go live early and most importantly, we had to keep working no matter what. This meant updating each job as we went along and ironing out the data issues as and when they occurred.” By January 2002, the company was fully up and running on EFACS and the benefits were beginning to show. Arguably one of the most notable impacts of EFACS was the removal of all the pain and time involved with the manual creation of each unique works order. Now EFACS simply generated them automatically with complete BoM and routing information, including bar code information so that  every process step could be logged in real time, thereby ensuring that the system was fully up to date.

This real-time updating of information brought immediate and massive improvements in visibility across the entire company and to significant depths as Wallace explains. “With EFACS storing all relevant data and being updated as soon as anything happened, we could immediately see where each job was on the production floor, and its completion time – at both a process step and total level.” Not only did this immediately contribute to the large time savings EFACS is credited with across the company, it was itself crucial in helping Martin Aerospace to analyse completed job cards, and use this information to determine whether the efficiency can be improved, or the jobs exited.

Another area which benefited from the outset was purchasing and stock control. Given the scarcity of materials, it was safer although much more costly to buy in a surplus amounts of stock rather than run out. “Now with EFACS”, recalls Wallace, “we were able to confidently buy only what we needed when we needed it.” He continues, “This also meant that stores only needed to issue exactly the right amount of raw materials per job which in turn massively reduced Work in Progress (WIP) and also reduced the tendency to over manufacture product which would then cause storage problems.” Given that this was a number of years ago and against a backdrop of no clear visibility Martin Aerospace can’t fully quantify precisely how much of a cost saving this proved but Wallace smiles when he says, “it’s an awful lot ofmoney.”

One of the additional benefits of the increased visibility was the improvement in cohesion between different areas within the business because everybody soon came to see the impact of their decisions on others. This combined with the consistent accuracy of EFACS also helped to win over initial suspicion about using a company wide system. It also helped the company as a whole explore more of the flexibility inherent in EFACS with a view to making maximum use of the system to help meet customer demands. Wallace adds at this stage that the system flexibility is amply matched by its reporting capabilities. “The ability to customise reports to draw all the data together and then select the specific information you require has ensured that you can always access what you need, when you need it.”

In fact, thanks to EFACS, Wallace believes it’s now possible to do as much business in one day than it previously took a week to do. And the system is still evolving in step with the company, with Wallace looking to further refine the planning and scheduling capabilities to take into account increased capacity arising from new machine investments. This in turn will generate more ‘what if’ capabilities because the company will have even more ways of utilising its resources to deliver products on time to its customers. It is therefore understandable that with regards to EFACS, he says “We couldn’t live without it now – it helps keep the company alive and we couldn’t have got to where we are without it.”

At some time in their lives, most people will have eaten cheese produced at the Somerset site of Ilchester Cheese.  The Company makes a vast range of speciality cheese and today it is sold in the UK and in over 20 countries around the world.

Since January 2004, Ilchester Cheese has processed 4400 tonnes of cheese and produced 25 million packs.  This has been the company's most successful year, with sales to 31 March 2004 up 7.5% on the previous 12 months.

While many companies claim that their products are unique, Ilchester Cheese is indeed a unique blend which incorporates a "secret recipe".  The area in the factory where this ingredient is added is strictly off-limits.  That's why the company claims that "nothing tastes like Ilchester Cheese".

Formed in the early 1960's, Ilchester Cheese was the first British cheese company to blend cheese with other ingredients.  At the Ilchester site, opened in September 1992, the company has over 100 staff and a board of directors said to have a pro-active, open mind towards IT.

As Ilchester Cheese grew over recent years, so did the realisation that the existing management information system was not developing in a way that would meet the company's changing needs.

Systems Manager Steve Bagwell drew up a shortlist of potential ERP system suppliers, eventually getting down to two.  Following various site visits and consultation with future system users, Exel's EFACS package was chosen.

Steve Bagwell says:  "We went for EFACS for various reasons, not least that we preferred Exel because as a company they were more akin to our culture.  They are a ‘stand-alone' company, they have one product, and they care about that product and its users.  They are a good, honest and straightforward home-grown British company who are genuine innovators with a ‘can-do' attitude."

"But what really clinched it for us is that, like our products, EFACS is genuinely unique in that its toolkit enables real customer bespoking - in fact, they positively encourage you to customise it to your needs, so we can basically do whatever we want with the system as long as we follow certain guidelines and the core system remains unchanged."

"The toolkit is phenomenal, especially since I'm not a programmer yet I've been able to make changes quite easily.  In Adapt, the language is so simple to understand and the Easl language is straightforward too.  It's such a simple screenwriting toolkit.  Both tools are a gift to those of us who aren't programmers."

One of the major benefits of choosing EFACS has been the ability literally to sit with programmers and discuss making modifications to the system in line with Ilchester Cheese's specific needs.

"Right from the implementation stage," says Steve Bagwell, "I saw real-live Ilchester requirements being written as I sat there and I was encouraged to write some myself.  It's a major bonus that the consultants are also the trainers, it's extremely unusual to have the same people sometimes answering the phone, doing demonstrations and offering support and it makes a huge difference to us."

Since installing EFACS, Ilchester Cheese has had much greater control over operating specifications used on the shop-floor, with strict procedures for making and accommodating any changes to the product.  A series of triggers ensures no changes are made to the bill of materials specification without the full knowledge and approval of the relevant departments.

If there were any BOM changes made by the purchasing department, unlikely in the product's ingredients but more likely in the packaging, the technical department has to accept it first as a legitimate change to the specification before the sales department can sign it off.  Once approved, the change finally goes back to purchasing, they give it the go-ahead, and only then is it possible to activate new works orders for the altered product.

EFACS modules currently used by Ilchester Cheese include engineering, product costing, purchase order processing, sales, planning, material control, production, accountancy, EDI, BACS, system management and review.

Communicating with the SQL server, EFACS handles financials, stock management, despatch, intake, production planning, KPI and much more.

Ilchester also uses the Analysis Services application, which is delivered with SQL Server, to create OLAP cubes.  These are queried using pivot tables and charts, technology which is also there to be used when Microsoft Office is installed.

The result is real-time business intelligence in as much or as little detail as required.  The company simply didn't have such easy access to this kind of information before and would have to rely on dot matrix paper reports.

Says Steve Bagwell:  "Having this intelligence means that we can now make better decisions about the future course of the company and can see the effect that those decisions will make and have made.  This process used to be much longer and far less reliable."

The other main benefit has been the adaptability, flexibility and "open culture" of the EFACS system and of Exel as a company.

"We are able to push the boundaries all the time", says Steve, "and that is entirely down to the flexibility of the toolkit.  It has also enabled us to ensure we are recording accurate data which we can later analyse and make best use of.  Also, because we can use standard software such as Microsoft packages that we can link into EFACS and we are able to feed up-to-date data back into the system in real-time, it makes our MRP more accurate and we can buy raw materials more intelligently.  The system enables us to close those loops."

He adds: "There is a substantial comfort factor in that EFACS sits in front of an SQL Server database.  To this end, I can say that it is highly unlikely we will move to another ERP system because as well as the overall functionality and flexibility, the technical and customer support has been outstanding.  We see our future with EFACS."

Doncasters Blaenavon is part of the Doncasters Group, a leading international engineering group that manufactures precision components and assemblies.  Doncasters Blaenavon primarily manufactures rings, casings and blades for aerospace, industrial gas turbine and specialised engineering industries and currently employs 330 workers with this projected to rise shortly to over 450.  The combined turnover of the Doncasters Group is around £800 million, which reflects the scale and value of manufacturing it undertakes in a highly competitive market.

Doncasters Blaenavon is part of the Doncasters Group, a leading international engineering group that manufactures precision components and assemblies.  Doncasters Blaenavon primarily manufactures Rings, Casings and Blades for aerospace, industrial gas turbine and specialised engineering industries and currently employs 330 workers with this projected to rise shortly to over 450. The combined turnover of the Doncasters Group is around £800 million, which reflects the scale and value of manufacturing it undertakes in a highly competitive market. When Doncasters Blaenavon decided to upgrade its business management system to bring maximum control, visibility and flexibility, it forged a winning partnership with Exel Computer Systems.

Challenges Faced

Doncasters Blaenavon works entirely on a manufacture to blueprint basis treating every product as a one-off unique product. This is not just because of the potential design variations possible with a product range that spans from 100mm up to 3.5m, it is due to the very nature of the materials and manufacturing processes involved. As Richard White, Business Development Manager explains, "No two products behave the same throughout the varying processes that each may require. We're dealing with individual bits of metal that have unique properties and characteristics and putting them through processes which affect each product differently. For example, a minor variation in the metal's composition may require it to spend less or more time in the furnace. The rolling, expanding, and billeting operations can also be affected by ambient temperature amongst other things. This in turn can vary the number and order of various processes - typically around 40 per product."

In other words, planning an ideal work flow for each product is simply that, an ideal - the reality exists within a range of possibilities either side of this. What is a reality however is the need for each product to receive precisely the right amount of time at each stage, and to receive diligent on-site testing before a final Mechanical Test off-site. A further reality is having to utilise each resource effectively in order to avoid bottlenecks, maximise throughput, and ultimately ensure that the customer gets the required product in the required timescale.

This is not helped by the fact that the nature of markets served by Doncasters Blaenavon tend to run with pronounced peaks and troughs. Dealing with suppliers where some materials have lead times of up to 60 weeks and where deliveries may not be as reliable as desired is compounded further by the visibility of incoming stock being notoriously difficult to achieve. This in turn affects planning confidence. With different products taking different times for many reasons, planning which product was to be where was a continual challenge. Not only this, but visibility of what was actually happening on the plant floor compared to what was supposed to be happening, was practically impossible to achieve.

Prior to investing in EFACS from Exel Computer Systems, the company had relied on a standalone database system which offered very limited functionality but was good at what it did. It was supplemented by some in-house bespoke coding and a standalone accounting program but as White recalls, "It was still very much purely a manufacturing system. What we increasingly came to see the need for was a complete business management system." Additional factors at work were continued growth within the Doncasters Group as a whole and the growing problems of synchronising 5-6 sites each with its own individual bespoke systems in order to generate group level business information and reports.

Selection Process

One company within the group had already begun investigating the EFACS route so it was natural for Doncasters Blaenavon to include EFACS from Exel in its search for a new solution. White was heavily involved in the rigorous selection process and recalls it came down to a 2 horse race between EFACS and Maddison. He recalls the deciding factors with great clarity. "Exel had given the much stronger presentation and showed they understood our business, yet we wanted further discussions with each company and looked to accomplish this at the CIM (Computers in Manufacturing) Show in 1995. Exel welcomed us on the stand and proceeded to listen to our requests." Doncasters Blaenavon decided to invest with EFACS and White reflects that even though all Doncasters companies were left to choose the system that worked best for them, 4 out of the 5 Doncasters companies selecting the system best for them chose EFACS.

Implementation went hand in hand with a business process re-engineering exercise that brought together key representatives from Planning, Materials Buying, Manufacturing, Management, Accounts and IT. For White it was important not just to understand what each area required from EFACS but to clearly show what EFACS could do for each area. More importantly, this would provide a means for discussing the impact that each area's operations had on each other as the company moved to work under a joined-up business management system. While another Doncasters company had decided to go down a multi-database route, White was adamant that a single database provided the optimum way forward and with the full support and backing of the implementation team, helped steer the company to a successful go-live in October 1997.

While no go-live is completely smooth, the acid test for White was that the company could in his words, "still sell product." As ever, with the benefit of hindsight he believes that people could have been better trained but his main recollection of that time is of the attitude of "making sure we got the best out of the system no matter what." This was helped during the early days by the first class support Doncasters Blaenavon received from Exel, especially a key consultant that White describes as "a terrific help."

It wasn't long before the benefits of EFACS began to be felt within the company with the first being how quickly people came to trust and rely on the system. "Because we'd done such a thorough job explaining where the benefits would be during the implementation, it's fair to say that people literally took the system for granted - there was no real surprise when things began to improve. Perhaps the most often heard comments were, ‘That used to take me all day before' and ‘I couldn't do that before'. One key area that was experienced was the ability to access, interrogate and report on the data held within the system via ODBC links. As White explains, "All of a sudden we didn't have any need for data analysts to tell us what was happening - we could see the data for ourselves, which gave us immediate business intelligence.  Reporting time has been significantly reduced".

In January 2007, Theory of Constraints (TOC) was introduced at Doncasters Blaenavon as a means of focussing adherence to a specific way of working with the one key objective of achieving 95% On Time and In Full (OTIF). White again, "TOC works well with EFACS and has met with considerable success. The challenge for us as a company is to continually balance the rigid demands of TOC with the inherent variations in our business processes and EFACS helps us to achieve that."

As for the future, the old mantra of "getting the best out of the system no matter what" still remains. For Doncasters Blaenavon, this means continually getting people to address the critical issues in order to deliver the best possible products to the customer at the right time, while remaining agile enough to react to an ever changing market.

Coram Showers is the UK's leading specialist in the design and manufacture of shower enclosures, shower trays and bath screens.  The company's range - available in a wide variety of types, sizes and styles of installations - are sold to leading builders' merchants such as Plumb Center, Jackson Building Centres and others.

Coram Showers is the UK's leading specialist in the design and manufacture of shower enclosures, showertrays and bathscreens. The company's range - available in a wide variety of types, sizes and styles of installations - are sold to leading builders' merchants such as Plumb Center, Jackson Building Centres and others.

Over the years, Coram has completely redesigned its products several times over with the aim of making them easier to install than anything else on the market. Today, the company has many unique design features and construction techniques which enable it to make products that are competitively priced and built to the highest possible standards. As a result, Coram has become a popular choice with UK house builders and with the leading builders' merchant groups.

Products manufactured at the Bridgnorth, Shropshire, factory include doors, wall channels, frames and corner posts. Among the designed-in features are smooth edges, all screws and fixings are concealed, and all glass is toughened safety glass that complies with BS6206 Class A. The frame is finished to BS6496 and the enclosure is power shower tested to BS6340. Other features of Coram's showers include a full length, waterproof wall fixing and hinge, said to be the most durable and long lasting on the market, and push-fit bottom seals which enable the installer to make adjustments for out-of-true walls.

Not surprisingly, Coram's commitment to quality does not just apply to the products it makes and in September 2002 the company decided to replace its ageing DOS-based Comet MRP system which was clearly no longer capable of meeting the increasingly demanding requirements of the business.

Says IT Manager Ian Spittle: "As we grew we realised that we needed to move on with our IT. Support for the old system was falling away and it was becoming increasingly difficult to manipulate or to extract any data from it. It was becoming a bit of a nightmare, to be honest, and it was clearly vital that we changed."

The company set up an implementation team that consisted of key function heads such as the sales manager, sales director, production director, financial manager and IT manager, and drew up a list of potential system suppliers. This was soon reduced to a shortlist of five and all were visited.

The subsequent aim was to reduce the shortlist even further but the EFACS ERP system from Exel  

Computer Systems, the UK's largest author of integrated business solutions for manufacturers, "stood head and shoulders above the rest", says Mr Spittle, and it was instantly chosen as the preferred system.

"Everyone knew EFACS was the one we wanted," he says, "because it was way ahead of the others in terms of how it fitted our business and also how it could be manipulated to fit our business with the use of bespoke modules, bespoke reports, and so on. We were also very impressed with the people at Exel. They were very knowledgeable about our industry sector and totally understood our specific needs."

One of the major features of the EFACS system was this ability to tailor the software to meet the particular needs and demands of the Coram business.

"I'd say that 90% of EFACS as it came out of the box was useful and relevant to how we run our business here," says Mr Spittle. "However, obviously a system's never going to be a 100% match but the beauty was that the people from EFACS helped us along the way to get that perfect fit. So we have always had the choice that we could either change our business processes slightly to meet EFACS or alternatively change the software to match the way we operate. Having this flexibility is a major attraction of the system."

Coram was very pleased with the way the installation and implementation of EFACS went and felt that the system fitted the business so well that there wasn't any real need to make further changes.

Currently, Coram is using around 70% of the EFACS system - all the MRP modules, the MPS modules, backflushing, sales order processing, purchase order processing, the accountancy system, and the EDI modules. There are parts that will probably never be used, says Ian Spittle, but only because EFACS is designed for use by a wide variety of businesses and Coram's simply doesn't match those criteria.

However, Coram is continually looking at how to improve the quality of service that it offers to its customers and in December 2003 the company decided to use EFACS to cut the delivery times of goods to builders' merchants.

An EDI link was set up between EFACS and a remote warehouse in Stafford where key products are stored. The warehouse is run by a third party haulage company which doesn't have access to any EFACS  

modules but when orders come into Bridgnorth - and meet the dual criteria of being key products and for a certain type of customer - the details are fired off to the warehouse as PDF files using the EFACS Mailshot routine and the despatch notes and delivery labels are printed out directly in the warehouse.

As a result, orders are sent out of the door much quicker than was previously possible.

"Before," says Ian Spittle, "our haulage company didn't hold any stock. We held it all here at Bridgnorth and when our customers ordered, depending on the cycle for the driver of the lorry, it might have taken three or four days to get the goods out. Now, nine times out of 10 the haulage company can get the orders out the same day that they are received, so the whole delivery process has been improved considerably."

Mr Spittle concludes: "We knew from the beginning that EFACS was the right system for us and we've been proved right time and time again that we obviously made the right decision. We are delighted at the way it has helped to improve our efficiency and our customer services and at how its flexibility gives us the freedom to change the way we operate without having to make major changes to our IT infrastructure."

One of the oldest private owned food companies in the country, Bennett Opie has grown from humble origins in 1880 to a leading manufacturer of quality pickles and preserves that are enjoyed by families in the UK and across the world.  The £12m turnover company operates a manufacturing and a distribution centre in Sittingbourne, Kent, home of the company since 1929, and is managed by the great grandsons of founder Bennett Opie.

One of the oldest private family owned companies in the country, Bennett Opie has grown from humble origins in 1880 to a leading manufacturer of quality pickles and preserves that are enjoyed by families in the UK and across the world. The £12m turnover company operates a manufacturing and a distribution centre in Sittingbourne, Kent, home of the company since 1929, and is managed by the great grandsons of founder Bennett Opie. Opies supplies to all the leading multiples and the food service sector with 75% of its production destined for the UK and the remainder going to Europe and beyond. When Opies needed to replace its fragmented IT and paper-based systems, EFACS from Exel Computer Systems proved to be the best recipe for success.

Whilst certain pickles are much more popular than others, Opies' product range extends to approximately 400 SKUs. The company prides itself in the quality and care involved in every aspect of its production - from raw ingredient selection through to rigorous production processes to meet stringent customer expectations. 20% of Orders are now received via EDI but as these are mainly from large multiples, these account for 50% of the actual production with other orders coming in via fax, telephone and increasingly email. Opies manufactures on 90/10 split between Make To Stock (MTS) and Make To Order (MTO) with the former having a typical lead time of 1-3 days and the latter between 1 to 3 weeks depending on product. To meet these orders, Opies runs 4 main production lines - 2 product type specific and 2 with multiple product capabilities - with additional hand packing capabilities when required.

Paul Fox joined Opies in 1999 and is Business Development Director. His arrival was a catalyst for implementing significant changes to the company's manufacturing and he outlines the key challenges a company like Opies faces. "A food company like ours has 3 main considerations: forecast accuracy, stock control and production. If the forecast is wrong, you either end up making too little or too much product. If your stock control is poor, you either end up with surplus stock which is waste or a shortfall which means you are unable to meet your customer orders. In terms of production, you need to maximise the efficiency of your product lines to avoid costly downtime due to poor planning especially where lengthy changeover times are involved."

When it comes to forecast accuracy, Opies is fortunate that customer demand via multiples is fairly predictable, even allowing for the Christmas weighting of certain products. Only the food service sector offers the occasional challenge in terms of unexpected demand. Opies therefore compiles its forecast on a rolling monthly basis based on the previous years' sales figures and demand levels.

A much greater challenge however exists in the area of raw materials and stock control. While demand may be fairly consistent, availability of raw materials may not be. Opies buys in against contract and draws down according to order and demand, however as Fox explains, this doesn't necessarily guarantee supply. "We are sourcing products from all over the world - many of which have very narrow windows of availability and which are highly susceptible to disruption. Drought, flooding or disease can decimate an entire crop of a vital ingredient or push the price up dramatically. Because of the distances involved, we also have to deal with delays and problems in transportation."

Fox cites the current world shortage of lemons and silver skin onions as examples and this can lead to limited availability of a certain product which then brings complications of product shortages. This also puts acute pressure on the manufacturing and production side of the business because failure to get each batch right first time and the resulting waste could make the vital difference between meeting customer demand or not.

The greatest potential difficulty in terms of production comes from dealing with such a large range of product types each with different shapes and sizes of packaging. In addition to managing the flow of correct product down the appropriate line, sequence dependency is also critical to minimise time consuming changeovers. "A complicated product changeover can easily take an hour" explains Fox. "Not only does the line need cleaning to varying degrees depending on the difference between products, it also needs to be recalibrated in terms of jar size, cap type and size, filler header and label type and size. Even allowing for the ideal of a ½ day run this still represents a minimum of 4 hours per week." With Opies running a 40 hour, 4 day week, even a modest increase in the number of changeovers or changeover times can effectively take out an entire day's production.

Prior to its investment in EFACS, Opies had relied on a disconnected set of computerised and paper systems. Fox doesn't try to gloss over the difficulties - when he says disconnected, he means disconnected. "Our recipe system was an in-house program, our Sales Order Processing was handled by a commercial package while our accounts and stock handling were purely paper based. Nothing interacted with each other because nothing could!"

The problems arising from this approach are best summed up in Fox's worst case scenario where, "we'd make the wrong product in the wrong jar with the wrong label." The disjointed systems led to data duplication, data variance between these duplications and lines of communication that were prone to misunderstanding and error. The consequences were extremely serious as Fox explains. "In the earlier worst case scenario, we'd have to scrap an entire batch which could feasibly leave us with a stock shortfall of a key ingredient and a potentially disappointed customer. With regards to stock availability, we may plan a run because the stock system said we had enough ingredients only to find when we actually went to get them that they weren't there. The result would be a line standing idle while we have to reschedule our workflow."

As mentioned, Fox was a catalyst for change when he arrived as then Special Projects Manager in 1999. With a wide experience of the food industry he was quickly able to build a relationship with the company Directors who knew that there was a problem but not sure how best to fix it. "One of my tasks was to help move the company to a more efficient way of doing things."

In light of this, Opies approached the selection process for an integrated ERP solution from a different perspective to many manufacturers. Instead of a very detailed wish list of system criteria, Opies simply knew it was looking for something that represented good value, would work well and consistently well, and given the large degree of IT illiteracy in the company, a system that was easy and intuitive to learn and use. For Fox there was therefore just one acid test to pass. "We had no interest in sales pitches - we just wanted a company to demonstrate how its solution could help our specific requirements. We knew we would need to develop a partnership with a supplier that would help show us the possibilities a modern, integrated ERP system could offer and how to make best use of these."

From mostly internet-based research, the company ended up with a shortlist of 3 vendors that appeared to offer what was required. Exel had already impressed by providing a demonstration EFACS CD which was so intuitive that it allowed Fox and others in the company to see for themselves how easy it was to use and to set up. This was followed up by a presentation that clearly showed that Exel understood Opies' business needs and how EFACS could address these. This ease of use combined with comprehensive functionality and solid value for money led to a quick decision to invest in EFACS. As Fox recalls, "My lasting recollection was the sheer ease of use and the look and feel of the system. We also liked that we would be building a partnership directly with the authors of the software - those most knowledgeable about the system - and this proved invaluable during our implementation."

Implementation commenced in Jan 2001 with Opies wisely opting for a slow burn approach and a big bang go-live. One of the main contributing factors to the success of the implementation was Opies' approach to training. Senior management went to in-depth training at Exel's dedicated training centre where they learned a much greater level of how the system worked and could be used. All other training was done on site by Exel consultant Trevor Rush over a period of 6 months. This involved hands-on training with each operative covering how they would need to use the system with the training system using real data from Opies.

Fox again, "Because people were using information they understood about their daily role in the company, it was much easier for them to see not just how the system worked, but how it might help them do their job better." He continues, "People could ask real questions like, ‘How does EFACS handle pallets?', and Trevor would be able to walk them through each question." One of the other key benefits from having such regular access to an Exel consultant was the depth of system and business knowledge Exel could pass on to Opies. As Fox explains, "We knew various ways we were doing things weren't working properly. Many times Trevor would make suggestions about doing things differently which had a real impact on our overall business approach. This was exactly what we needed and as a result, we ended up with a business in much better shape than when we began and much better than we expected."

Exel also remained on site when Opies went successfully live in June 2001 and by doing so, was able to answer any real-life questions and provide immediate fine-tuning to the system when required. By doing so, confidence levels in EFACS never dwindled and people were able to get the best from the system from the outset.

Unsurprisingly the first visible benefit was the dramatic reduction of mistakes being made throughout the business. The combination of everyone knowing what they were doing combined with the inherent benefits of a single database driven, fully integrated system with intelligent workflow removed data duplication and data variance errors at a stroke. It also saved considerable amounts of time which could then be re-invested in business process improvement in every area. Greater accuracy of data leads directly to greater stock control and manufacturing efficiency with no worst case studies and wastage to deal with. Fox singles out the MRP functionality for special praise. "We now had complete and utter confidence in our ability to make the right decision on what to make, and when, for our entire product range for our full 12 month forecast."

In terms of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Fox simply cites an increase in right first time, a decrease in inventory, and increase in customer service and a traceability system that allows a forward and backwards trace to be completed in minutes. He therefore concludes very positively, "Our stock levels are always right, our production and work flow is always right. EFACS just gets it right, every time - what more do you need?"

UAV Engines Limited (UEL) is dedicated to the design, development and production of Wankel-type engines for the propulsion of small and medium sized Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs).  The £10m turnover, Lichfield based company gained exclusive world-wide rights to use this patented technology based on R&D work carried out by Norton Motors Ltd between 1969 and 1992, for application to the unmanned air vehicle market.

UAV Engines Limited (UEL) is dedicated to the design, development and production of Wankel-type engines for the propulsion of small and medium sized Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs). The £10m turnover, Lichfield based company gained exclusive world-wide rights to use this patented technology based on R&D work carried out by Norton Motors Ltd between 1969 and 1992, for application to the unmanned air vehicle market. Since 1992 UEL has continued to develop the technology and supplies approximately 450 units per year in addition to a growing number of spare parts. As with any supplier to the military, quality is of paramount importance, as is ready availability of supply. When UEL needed to upgrade its ageing ERP systems, it put its trust in EFACS E/8 from Exel Computer Systems.

From an original product range of 3 basic engine types, UEL has seen spectacular growth resulting from an increasing requirement for surveillance UAVs. The company now has 5 major product lines, but each of these is highly customisable and configurable depending on customer specification. Fuel delivery mechanisms, casings, exhaust housings and electronics are often made to individual customer specifications, with UEL designing to order where required. While a typical order may be approximately 10 engines, the company has had orders in excess of 700 as well as one-off development models. The ongoing success of the company and the growing number of its products being used in the marketplace has given rise to a secondary business stream of supplying spare parts. Whereas the engine/spares ratio used to be 85/15 it is now 50/50 and has been a major contribution to the range of challenges now facing the company.

UEL's Operations Manager, Nathan Bailey, identifies the growth in the company as the single greatest business challenge. "In 1991 we had 11 people, a £1m turnover, and focussed on R&D projects. Our rapid growth has directly led to a huge expansion in our part numbers, the need for complete product and part traceability, and also some sophisticated configuration control. For example, our smallest engine has 180 unique top line components but our BOM structure is 14 levels deep. A top level component in product "A" may also be a level 12 component in product "B". We have customers who will come back 6 years after buying an engine asking for the same engine - we clearly need to be able to record all the components and also any potential upgrades to such components. Any component that is upgraded for one engine has potential knock-on-effects for every further use of that component. However the upgrade might not be suitable for every other use of the part which then necessitates the creation of a brand new part number. We already have in excess of 13,000 unique part numbers!"

This becomes more complex as UEL could potentially be working on up to 11 projects simultaneously, with 2 design teams working on the same problem for different customers, duplicating resources and coming up with different solutions. At one stage, UEL employed an engineering clerk solely to create and update part numbers on the company's AutoCad system in order to try and keep some level of configuration and version control.

The changing nature of UEL's market, from speculative R&D to active service equipment has also dramatically affected expected delivery and project times. In a hypothetical R&D setting, a customer is happy with 16 week lead times and a project life of a number of years. In a current real world conflict context, products are expected within 2-3 weeks, often much less, with spares being required almost ex-stock. This can be a considerable problem with many parts being costly and time-consuming to make. As Bailey notes, "You either have to bring lead times down on individual parts or build in buffer stocks. Given that we only work with suppliers of the highest quality, which tend therefore to be in considerable demand, we have had to build in buffer stocks based on a market in which it is difficult to accurately predict forecast demand." For non EU markets, the need to obtain export licences can also add considerably and variably to the time taken for a customer to finally receive a product.

The high quality of components required from suppliers presents its own challenges because supplier quality can be variable, even within the same batch. UEL's tolerances are much more exacting, so every individual component must be rigorously QA checked to ensure that it matches the required standards. Bailey again, "UAVs may have over a million dollars worth of camera equipment attached in addition to highly sensitive electronic equipment, so customers are much more interested in multiple use UAVs and maximum reliability." The underlying driver in UEL's component selection is therefore quality, and not price.

A related area of challenge arises from the fact that much of the actual machining is subcontracted out to specialists. A subcontractor may quote a certain time in order to win a job, yet not actually be able to deliver, or may in turn be waiting on components from elsewhere in the Supply Chain. In a similar way, if UEL receive 95% of the required components to assemble and test an engine on time, the ability to supply to the customer on time is determined by the remaining 5%. Visibility is therefore paramount here in order to monitor and trace the progress of multiple orders across suppliers and keep customers informed. As Bailey dryly remarks, "Customers in military uniforms do not take kindly to being let down," which is why Supplier Relationship Management is crucial to UEL.  

In order to try and overcome such challenges, UEL had relied heavily on an in-house, bespoke system written by a former employee in 1991. While it initially did everything, it was completely reliant on the expert knowledge of its creator for upkeep and development, so when the employee left the company UEL found itself exposed. While able to keep the system running after a fashion, it became clear that it was getting old and had no forward development potential. UEL approached a variety of programmers with a view to updating the system but none were prepared to undertake the task. As Bailey comments, "We knew then that we needed an ‘off the shelf' system."

UEL was currently evaluating a US system for another aspect of the company. This required a certain type of cost accounting, so any ERP package would have to be compatible with this. Only Sage Line 100 proved to be so and was therefore initially selected. It soon became clear however that whilst the accounts elements were solid, the manufacturing areas within the system were weak. Bailey again, "We had Sage for 18 months during which it helped us realise we needed a true, specialist manufacturing system." Several suppliers were evaluated including BAAN, Exel, K3, Kewill, QMS and Micross. Ultimately EFACS E/8 from Exel Computer Systems was deemed the best fit for UEL's requirements.  

Bailey explains why: "Norton itself had actually used a UNIX version of EFACS and some of our employees remembered it being a solid system. I was most impressed by the combination of technology and functionality. The SQL backend, the familiarity of a web browser, the ease of configuration, the ease of using the ADAPT programming language to modify the system yourself, all combined to make EFACS the clear choice for us." UEL was also keen to work directly with Exel given previous experiences working with resellers. Bailey again, "We didn't like the reseller experience - they're ultimately always trying to sell you something, hence the name. Dealing direct with the software author is a much more positive experience as it gives us access to people with the best possible knowledge about the system in case you need it."

After the decision to invest in EFACS E/8 in Q4 2004, UEL embarked upon a co-ordinated implementation strategy. From its earlier Sage implementation UEL had already decided on the need to either have a centralised data repository, or failing that to link and synchronise its systems in order to keep all data up-to-date. However, due to the database structure within Sage and various encryption difficulties, this had not been possible. The technology base behind EFACS made this much more possible, and the company's original plan was to use EFACS as the main data source within the company. After working with Exel to import all possible data into EFACS, it soon became clear there was a problem once testing began. Bailey admits candidly, "Basically we thought our data from Sage was very good, but we soon found out that it wasn't."

At this stage UEL took the strategic decision to re-evaluate its entire implementation plans. Consequently it was decided that only the data required to go-live would be imported into EFACS, which turned out to be surprisingly little. The problem lay in consolidating the 3 existing data sources of UEL's redundant bespoke system, its outgoing Sage system, and its current live PDM system, DB Works. Bailey explains what happened next: "The BOM information from our bespoke system was very good, but the sales/customer information was obviously out-of-date. The BOM data from Sage was poor, but the accounts and customer data was good, while DB Works had valuable supporting BOM data. We therefore did a 3 tier implementation taking the strong data from each system."  

It was whilst writing the communication script between DB Works and EFACS that UEL realised that virtually the same script could also perform all the synchronisation duties, thereby achieving the company's aim of a singularly updated database entity. Bailey also attributes a key element of success to having a system based on live data that everyone could access and experiment with prior to the launch. "Everyone had an icon and login details to the system based on the original data, and we found that people were accessing the system in their own time to get familiar with it and to practice using it. It massively helped reduce any sense of nervousness and fear of the system when we actually went live with the second implementation."

UEL successfully went live with EFACS E/8 in March 2005 after a week of completing the final data transfers. From the outset UEL has been using the system for a wide range of activities - some planned, others not. Quotations, Sales Orders, Purchase Orders, Supply Chain Management, Stock Control, Work Flow, Traceability, Sub-contractor management and Roll Up costs are all handled by EFACS as per expectations. However, as Bailey describes, one of the most useful features UEL now relies on was only discovered by chance. "Because we'd had a working version of EFACS in place before we went live, we'd all got used to seeing a Document Management icon and never thought to ask what it meant. One day we clicked on it and it was a complete eye-opener. It's an incredibly powerful piece of functionality. Now we use it to link all scanned paperwork in PDF format to the progress of an order through the system. Whenever anyone is talking to a customer or supplier now they have immediate access to the entire product history, which is ideal when you are dealing with the nature of customers we have that expect instant information and answers."

This system-wide instant access to information is just one of many benefits UEL has achieved through using EFACS. Certain suppliers and customers even contact the company to check information because UEL can get it quicker than they can from their own systems. A key enabler to people making use of this instant access is the intuitive, ease of use nature of the web browser interface. As Bailey notes, "Everyone's familiar with the layout and being point and click with multiple levels of drill down people can get to the required information quickly and easily from many different logical places elsewhere in the data."  

The ease with which EFACS manages and controls the data completely eradicates the need for engineering data clerks within the company to continually monitor and update the data. When it comes to real-time, the power of EFACS enables UEL to run MRP each time a new order is entered. Bailey comments that a full MRP run takes less than 15 minutes and "doesn't kill the rest of the system." The open access nature of the data also provides visibility across the company from within other systems, meaning that information flow is not kept in disconnected islands. The ability to display targeted data is also something UEL benefits from. According to Bailey, "Even the general manager has his EFACS window open so he can instantly see when an order comes in."

In a project based business like UEL with natural peaks and troughs it is hard to quantify specific benefits. This is why the company sees a direct correlation between success and turnover/profit. "In this sense EFACS has clearly had a huge impact on the company" admits Bailey. He continues, "Our product lines have quadrupled and our turnover has doubled - which simply could not have happened with our previous system which was struggling with only half the current turnover. We simply couldn't have got this far without EFACS, and what's more, the system is coping very comfortably with where we are as a company, so we know it will facilitate considerable further growth."

As for the future, UEL has ambitious plans to continue exploiting the interconnectivity potential within EFACS, to the extent that the company now has a policy that all other systems must have an SQL backend. This includes Computerised Measuring and Monitoring systems (CMM), automated monitoring of test cells etc. EFACS is also being used to feed information into new bespoke systems currently being developed by UEL. One such system will enable information to be fed back directly from customers about work done "in the field" to products, in order to form a complete product lifecycle history, right down to every process affecting every part. As Bailey concludes, "EFACS is already at the heart of what we do - it's now a case of building further and more extensively upon this."

It was 1989 when McBraida plc - a specialist in precision machining and assembly for high technology industries, in particular aerospace - installed the EFACS ERP system from Exel Computer Systems, the UK's largest author of integrated business solutions for manufacturers, and EFACS is still running McBraida's business today and enabling the company to remain at the top in an extremely competitive industry.

It was 1989 when McBraida plc - a specialist in precision machining and assembly for high technology industries, in particular aerospace - installed the EFACS ERP system from Exel Computer Systems, the UK's largest author of integrated business solutions for manufacturers, and EFACS is still running McBraida's business today and enabling the company to remain at the top in an extremely competitive industry.

Based in Bristol and employing around 90 people, McBraida sells direct to blue chip aerospace companies, supplying the likes of Westland and Rolls-Royce with finished parts and assemblies and kits for them to build. Although it does sell some of its products abroad, most of McBraida's business is in the UK and the company holds quality approvals for most of Britain's aerospace companies, along with ISO 9000, AS9100 and SBAC TS157.

McBraida offers a complete bought-out service including material purchase, manufacture, provision of heat and surface treatments, assembly and testing. The company produces aero-engine, airframe, control systems and gearbox components in a range of materials including steels, stainless steel, nickel based alloys, titanium and aluminium. It also makes rings and turned components with milled and drilled features up to about 400mm diameter, and prismatic and irregular shaped components up to around 400mm cube with a long length milling capability up to 1200mm long.

In addition, McBraida provides specialist subcontract services, including EDM wire cutting and spark erosion for valve ports, mould tools and other specialist applications, as well as pressure test and flow testing valves and jets for oil and fuel systems. The company offers customers a non-destructive testing service, including dye penetrant and magnetic particle inspection and Vickers Hardness testing.

McBraida also manufactures specialist filters and strainers for oil and fuel systems and offers a design for manufacture consultancy service to enable customers to achieve cost effective and consistent product solutions.

Although McBraida plc was incorporated in 1954 it began 10 years before that, founded by the grandfather of one of the current company directors Iain McBraida.

Over the last 50 years, the company has experienced steady growth which has enabled it to remain independent. A policy of continual investment and the development of new technologies has been complemented by a commitment to quality and technical excellence while a progressive management team has helped to implement change and deliver continuous improvement to McBraida's high-profile customers. This combination of high quality service and responsiveness to customers' needs are said to be the foundations of the business.

Hand-in-hand with this steady growth has been a gradual diversification into other markets mirrored by changes on the shopfloor.

Says Iain McBraida: "The company has changed quite a lot over the years. We've moved on from producing precision machined components to supplying assemblies and kits and then on to buying bits from other companies and integrating them into our own. We've found that EFACS has been ideal for this because while we wanted to use a ‘standard' package to keep costs and support issues to a minimum, we also wanted an element of ‘bespoke' in that we wanted a system that was capable of changing with the company without us having to buy another system."

He adds: "When you buy software, your first option is a standard package and you look to see if you can improve the way your business runs to adapt to the software. We're never too proud to admit that the way we work might not be the best way and we are very happy to embrace change, so if the model a system like EFACS adopts works better, we're happy to fall in line with that. However, if you can't change for whatever reason, the software you choose needs to be flexible and changeable enough for it to fit in with how you operate. You want the best of both worlds so you can run on a standard basis most of the time but when you need to you can go down the route of some sort of tailor-made solution. This is the combination that EFACS offered us and that's why we chose it and have stuck with it ever since."

In the years before it installed EFACS, McBraida looked at a system called 4W written by PERA but could not justify the cost, so it developed its own in-house system using the Infomix database editor running on Unix. This worked in some way but it soon became clear that a more sophisticated system was needed and EFACS was the preferred choice.

"We decided that it would be just as easy to adopt EFACS as it would to keep using our own system,"  

says Iain McBraida. "We chose EFACS because it was written in an open and straightforward manner - you could align the product to what you wanted rather than having to take it as it was. And it was highly interactive which was a key factor."

Mr McBraida adds: "We had a completely bespoke solution with our own system and it was a nightmare - essentially we were on our own with no professional technical support, we often simply couldn't remember why we'd made certain changes to the system, the person who wrote it left the company, and the task just became much bigger than when we first started out. It was the usual scenario with a bespoke system, so we decided an off-the-shelf system would be better."

McBraida plc moved away from the Unix platform and on to NT a couple of years ago and was able to stay with EFACS as it made the change because the Exel system also changed platforms. At this point, some companies may have considered changing their ERP system - with all the disruption and added investment that such a move involves - but McBraida plc was keen to continue its relationship with EFACS.

Mr McBraida says: "We've stuck with the system for all this time so we are obviously happy with it. The only ‘bespoke' work we have done in recent times ended up being incorporated into the mainstream software and was funded by us. This ability to alter the software to meet our changing requirements means we never end up in a cul-de-sac with a system that no longer matches our needs. This is the reason we've been able to grow and diversify and change the way our business operates yet still remain with the same ERP system. That's the beauty of EFACS."

On the shopfloor, McBraida's business is based around low volume, specialised production. The aerospace sector wants its suppliers to produce components in small quantities but the industry brings unique challenges - for example, quality and traceability systems are extremely tight and demanding - and EFACS has helped the company to cope with these.

Says Iain McBraida: "Working in this sector is completely different, it's not like organising a factory where you have high volume production and a simple manufacturing process. The processes involved in the aerospace industry are pretty complex and EFACS lends itself to this environment very well.

"The system is written around a batch production philosophy, ie it is perfect for discrete quantities of jobs rather than large volumes. Many of the components we make are very small volume indeed - we often even do one-offs - and I can't see a better system for handling this than EFACS. The fact that you can adapt EFACS and use different parts of the system to create reports in slightly different ways is a major advantage. It would be a nightmare to change packages."

Founded in 2004, Modec is at the forefront of purpose built, zero emission commercial vehicles using the very latest in battery technology and Lean manufacturing techniques. Since production began in 2007, the company has steadily grown and now has over 90 leading automotive team members working together to supply an expanding UK and European network with customers including Tesco and many local governments. Given the very new nature of the market, Modec recognised the need for an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that could grow with the company and be flexible enough to adapt to a rapidly evolving business environment.

While Modec’s Coventry factory is purely an assembly plant, the successful delivery of the right vehicle to the right customer at the right time depends on managing a complex and highly variable series of business processes and overcoming the inherent challenges associated with this type of business. At the heart of this is the fact that each Modec vehicle is essentially a standard vehicle but with a number of potential configurations including wheelbase length, body style and other options. Modec is often approached by customers looking for a vehicle which will meet their specific requirements and this may involve a degree of fine tuning or customising of the standard configuration options. Standard vehicle lead times are typically four weeks depending on the amount of sub-contracting involved. There are a range of other issues to take into account on the customer side, including the need to ensure the vehicle is suitable for the company’s operation as well as checking that the appropriate power supply is in place.

As Business Systems Manager, Stuart Morris, explains, the first challenge begins with specifying the vehicle that the customer requires. “Modec has a wealth of production experience about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to the possible permutations of any vehicle. It is a skilled task to consider this while taking into account the customers’ particular requirements. It can literally add days to an order to do what might seem a very minor bodywork alteration which may not deliver any functional benefit to the customer.” He continues, “Needless to say, it is essential to then accurately record the exact specification details and for this to be passed through to our logistics and manufacturing teams.”

Given that each vehicle has approximately 340 parts sourced from over 200 suppliers, supplier management is critical to Modec’s success. With various components being highly specialised and often involving significant lead times, it is essential to ensure a continuity of supplies and to have a range of contingency suppliers. As ever, quality is a prerequisite, as is availability of supply. Modec aims to operate as Lean as possible but as Morris points out, this does not mean having zero stock levels. “Lean is about the removal of waste but not at the expense of the customer getting their order on time. We have to keep a minimum level of stock of key items which may have lead times longer than our own. Forecast accuracy is therefore important to us, especially on larger orders.”

Once an order is confirmed, the assembly process is relatively straight forward with a pick list and routing card being generated and the vehicle being assembled and tested according to tightly defined timescales.

Servicing however is more complex because the realworld longevity and performance of components is often only discovered in real world use which leads to a steady stream of part revisions. All of these need to be carefully recorded and monitored so that if a particular component appears to have developed a problem, this can be proactively dealt with across existing vehicles. As Morris notes, “Once you are aware of a problem, you are then in a position to deal with it and to take preventative steps where required.”

Running throughout Modec is the importance placed on accuracy and consistency of data at every stage of the business. For Morris this is one of the core requirements for success, from being able to accurately specify and record orders, to purchasing the right components in the right quantities in the right time frames, to having visibility of which order is where in the production process, to reviewing performance of vehicles in service. When he joined Modec in 2006 the company was in its early stages and data was spread across different spreadsheets used by different individuals. To begin with only finance and engineering data was stored in the company’s EFACS ERP system. He recalls the reason why EFACS had not been expanded into the other areas of the company.

“There was a prevailing view at the time that because Modec was focussing on Lean manufacturing, there was no need for any of the MRP and related functionality to be used. Morris correctly challenged this and began to develop the production capabilities with EFACS in order to move towards an integrated production strategy. “I had experience in many areas within the automotive industry”, explains Morris, “and could see the advantages of using EFACS, especially for keeping on top of our processes as they develop and evolve as our understanding of the market grows.” All the production modelling was carried out in EFACS to verify its capabilities and took into consideration the expert input from different areas within the business.

The benefit of this is that now EFACS holds what Morris describes as “all the joined up information within the company” which means that whenever one element is changed, the whole system can be updated.

Given the evolutionary approach of Modec with its EFACS system, there was no traditional “go live” as such. The system was updated to the latest version and since April 2007 EFACS has been used for stock control, routing, sales, and servicing. Given the lack of performance metrics prior to this and the evolving nature of the business, quantifiable data on performance benefits is difficult to determine. What is certain however is the increased accuracy of data and visibility of this across the company. This begins at the Sales Order process where a Sales Form, based on the EFACS system configurator, makes it much quicker and easier for Sales personnel to meet customer requirements and ensure their specific vehicle configuration is viable. Morris credits this with a significant time saving of five days for each vehicle lead time. This in turn makes it much easier to manage the company’s supplier network and to reduce the amount of unquantifiable time on a custom process which can impact the smooth scheduling of the shopfloor.

While very pleased with the system so far, Morris has ongoing development plans for the future as the company continues to grow. “We’ve come a long way in three years but there’s still huge potential for growth.

We want to remove any possibility of data inaccuracy which means implementing bar coding throughout the assembly process so an accurate record can be kept of what process is actioned and when it is completed.

We also want to further develop our use of workflow within EFACS as well as the system’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management) potential. The good thing about EFACS is that it provides an enabling, flexible platform on which to build as our company continues to grow and develop.”