Following four years of rapid growth, building products manufacturer, Timloc, has implemented a new ERP system from Access Supply Chain.  It is already feeling the benefit. 

Established in 1968, Timloc is a leading UK manufacturer and distributor of building products, mostly for ventilation and damp proofing. Its customers range from nationwide builders’ merchant chains such as Jewson, to local independent outlets. Its manufacturing operation in Goole, East Yorkshire, runs around the clock, five days a week. Part of the Alumasc Group, it employs 55 staff and has a turnover in excess of £5 million.

Timloc doubled the scale of its business in four years and needed to reassess its operations – some processes had developed to cope with the surge in business, but its IT system - a DOS-based solution, installed in the late eighties - wasn’t capable of taking the business forward.

Refining its manufacturing processes to embrace best practice, Timloc wanted a new system with strong manufacturing credentials to support this. In particular, it had to have strong MRP functionality - something absent from its existing software.  Access Supply Chain was evaluated, along with three other products.

Finance director, Davin Coleman comments: “We could see immediately that Access Supply Chain was very much a manufacturing-derived product, which was exactly what we were looking for. It was also an all-encompassing system that linked seamlessly throughout every process - and it was easy to use.”

While system capability was fundamental to system selection, cost was also important. “Access Supply Chain is competitively priced. Some systems were two or three times as expensive for the same functionality. Access Supply Chain really is way ahead of the others when it comes to overall implementation and cost of ownership,” he says.

The switch across to the new system took just eight months and the benefits have already started to roll in. “We saw improvements in sales order processing immediately,” says Davin. “We also now have MRP running and it’s providing us solid data to work from. It’s given us extra control that wasn’t there before.  “The reporting capability is great too; it’s so flexible. As time goes on, we find we want more and more information – and now this is easily available.”

Timloc’s customer service record is exceptional and Davin says with Access Supply Chain, the company has effectively eliminated the risk of missing delivery times. “Next-day service is vital to this business, so stock accuracy is critical. Now we have all the data we need at our fingertips, we no longer have to rely on a storeman spotting an empty shelf. We’ve sharpened up our processes and staff can spend more time on value-added activities in the factory rather than running around checking stock levels.”