Product category:
Manufacturing Information Technology systems
News Release from: Information Engineering | Subject: SYSPRO information technology software
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 07 May 2004
Two of everything replaced by one system
When the Power Jacks Group acquired its biggest competitor, it found itself with two ERP systems - neither delivered the functionality the new business required.
When the Power Jacks Group acquired its biggest competitor, it found itself with two ERP systems - neither delivered the functionality the new business required Established in 1987, the Power Jacks Group is a privately owned, family-run company employing over 80 people
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 19 Aug 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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Based in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, Power Jacks is the UK's largest manufacturer of actuators and mechanical jacks and exports to over 40 countries worldwide.
It provides precision actuation, power transmission, mechanical jacking and as complete systems (with engineering services) or as individual items.
Power Jacks acquired Precision Actuation Systems of Glasgow in February 2002 and initially, transferred all the data for the new company onto its existing ERP system but was faced with duplicated data and effort.
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"It was very time consuming; we had two of everything," says Bruce Bultitude, Power Jacks' managing director, "two purchase ledgers, two MRP runs and two part numbers for thousands of different parts.
We were faced with a mammoth data clean-up exercise but rather than just try and shoehorn the two businesses together, we saw it as the ideal opportunity to upgrade our ERP system." Bultitude looked at a number of systems (including new versions of the two incumbent systems) before he opted for SYSPRO from Information Engineering.
"It's a market leading system, so we took the view there must be safety in numbers, and they demonstrated the software using our data, which was very impressive." Power Jacks has implemented a 24-user SYSPRO system including ERP, CRM and a new shopfloor data collection system.
It has already started to use the system for rough-cut capacity scheduling too and is starting to iron out the peaks and troughs in production, as well as receiving early warning of the need to re-route stock or increase labour to meet the customer's delivery.
The system's works order profile report also allows Power Jacks to look at customer order at the top level and then with a single part number, drill down to see where any component part is in the production process.
Suzanne Irvine, materials manager at Power Jacks says, "If you're waiting for stock, you can drill down to the level you need, check the current lead time and then estimate when that job is going to be finished, and therefore when you can deliver the final assembly." Irvine is particularly taken with the product configurator.
The company's core product - the screw jack - has a lot of standard components but every customer's order is slightly different, depending on what they1re using the jack for.
"There are different capacities, ratios, screw lengths, mounting positions, fixturing and so on, all based on a common theme.
The product configurator allows us to configure products from standard components, and orders can be processed by non-technical staff.
Works orders are generated as soon as the sales order is received, so we generate a flat bill of materials and only one set of paper work for the workshop - it's fully automated and error free." Irvine estimates it has already reduced administration by about a third and saved a day between the sales order coming in and production starting.
The company is now planning to use the product configurator for specials and complex products.
"On the manufacturing side," says Irvine, "the immediate benefit was in visibility and usability.
Because of the integration with standard Microsoft products, you can run reports on just about anything in any number of fields.
You can see the status of any job and where your stocks are sitting at, all in real time.
The system has really improved communication between sales and manufacturing." Even with the data consolidation exercise, it has taken less than eight months for the system to be fully functional.
Bultitude expects to see significant reductions over the next few months in work-in-progress and inventory, as well as improved throughput times.
About Information Engineering - Information Engineering is headquartered in Manchester and has offices in, Reading, Galway and Cape Town, South Africa.
The company has been a specialist in implementing manufacturing systems since 1986.
Through its manufacturing software, SYSPRO, Information Engineering delivers world-class IT solutions to a broad cross-section of manufacturing industry, from design and make-to-order operations to batch and semi-process.
Its expertise comes from a real understanding of how manufacturing companies and their needs can differ, often quite dramatically, from one to the next.
Information Engineering can integrate SYSPRO with other best-of-breed software, including CAD, HR, warehousing and logistics.
Information Engineering supports Microsoft Windows, NT, XP, SQL Server; Unix; 32-bit client server; Citrix; Linux.
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