Customer
Sandusky International is headquartered in Sandusky, Ohio, but has its largest site based in Bolton, UK. Sandusky manufacture, repair and refurbish paper making machines.

Requirement
The sheer scale of Sandusky's products presents significant logistical challenges. When some assemblies are transported, not only do they require a police escort, they also need an escort from the telecoms companies who cut, then re-attach, cables in order to allow the machine to pass.
According to Andrew Wilkinson, Group Director of Corporate Systems, these challenges are matched by the bespoke design to manufacture nature of the machines: "Every system we supply is unique given the sheer variety of components required to meet the specifications of each customer. Given this, the speed with which we can respond to individual customer requirements, and the accuracy of the costings provided, are critical business factors."

Solution
d2order PLM solution.
Although the Sandusky group's data centre will be at the Bolton site, the solution will be deployed to all sites within the group, including Scotland, the United States, Australia and South Africa.
This contract incorporates 27 seats of d2order, complemented by 25 seats of Solidworks 3D CAD and 75 seats of Jobscope Enterprise Edition. The total implementation is expected to be complete by Q3 2005.

Supplier
Integration and automation specialist, in2grate, a member of the Anisa group.
www.anisa.com

Anticipated benefits
By integrating and automating many of the processes involved in generating business critical information, Sandusky believe that the d2order solution will dramatically improve their ability to respond to individual customer requirements, reduce the time taken to actually design and manufacture each order, whilst improving consistency on other items such as spare parts.
As Andrew Wilkinson concludes: "The integrated approach of d2order will enable Sandusky to operate both more effectively and efficiently. In the last 3 years, we have achieved over 50% growth in the Paper Machinery marketplace. This investment in in2grate will underpin and continue our growth curve in a market where we currently only have 2% of total market share. It's a genuine integrated manufacture to order solution."

Comment
Bob Clements, Managing Director of in2grate, comments on the nature of the implementation: "Sandusky's equipment is not only individual variants built around a set of rules, but the nature and life-span of the machinery necessitates a high degree of spares, repair, and refurbishment services. This is exactly the type of one-off, contract-based environment that d2order was designed for.
We are also very pleased that Sandusky share our vision of the truly "joined-up" approach to their business IT. They have taken a strategic approach to their business needs from IT, rather than just "plugging holes" on a departmental level, which is exactly what we believe manufacturers need to be doing in today's marketplace to survive and prosper."