Global manufacturing group, Gooch and Housego plc, is standardising K3's SYSPRO ERP across its European and US businesses, following a period of acquisition and growth.

Gooch & Housego manufactures acousto-optic devices and precision optical components for use in photonics-based systems for scientific, medical and research applications. Over the past five years, the company has grown rapidly through the acquisition of competitor businesses.  It now has operations in Ohio, Florida, New Jersey and Germany, and employs 250 people worldwide with an annual turnover of £25 million.  On 8th May Gooch and Housego also acquired SIFAM Fibre Optics Limited, a 93-employee, £3.9 million business, based in Torquay, Devon.

With four of the group's businesses previously operating semi-autonomously, Gooch and Housego embarked on a programme in 2006 - 'Project Orion' - to bring the separate companies together as a single, consolidated operation.  The programme includes the standardisation of the company's business systems to SYSPRO.  SYSPRO was already installed at two of the company's US sites, but it was the far-reaching benefits from its recent implementation at the UK HQ that proved the catalyst for standardising it across the group.
 
Gareth Jones, CEO and principle sponsor of Project Orion, says it was the next logical evolutionary step for the business: "All the businesses were doing well in their own right but there was headroom to further improve the way we approached the market.  We had seen how K3 had delivered global solutions for other customers, so had every confidence they could deliver for us too."

The SYSPRO system helps the company present one common, consistent interface worldwide. "Customers from all over the world will be able to deal with Gooch and Housego as a single operation; one common sales front and one common business style, irrespective of where the client is or where goods come from."

Financial consolidation and control is a primary objective of the implementation, whilst better visibility across the group improves customer service levels and control of the supply chain.  The system also offers the flexibility for each of the group companies to operate independent accounting and financial reporting and to satisfy local territory legislative requirements.  Implementation of the 75-user system is expected to be complete in August 2007.