Traceability function changes Toray to ERP

Japanese-owned weaving and dyeing firm Toray Textiles Europe has become the latest customer to go live with its implementation of the TROPOS fast-response ERP suite from SSI.

Japanese-owned weaving and dyeing firm Toray Textiles Europe has become the latest customer to go live with its implementation of the TROPOS fast-response ERP suite from supply chain solutions specialist SSI.

Nottinghamshire-based Toray is a producer of polyester and nylon fabrics for applications such as garments, home furnishings and surgical use.

Once largely a commodity producer, the firm is diversifying into higher value products, including performance fabrics for sportswear.

In implementing TROPOS, the company is moving away from its existing bespoke Unix systems and some manual processes, such as purchasing.

"We selected SSI and TROPOS from a shortlist including vendors such as Epicor and JD Edwards," says Toray FD Phil Davis.

"People played a major part in the decision - we felt we could work well with SSI - but there were significant technical and business reasons for choosing TROPOS too." High on the list of reasons comes TROPOS's advanced quality and traceability functionality.

"In our new markets, such as sportswear, surgical fabrics and home furnishings, testing is far more intensive than in apparel," says Davis.

"Quality standards are often attached to an order, so it was vital that our new system had strong quality functionality.

We were impressed with TROPOS's lot traceability capabilities; for example, though most of our yarn comes from the Far East, we do have customers that insist on EU origin goods - so we need to be able to prove the source of the yarn in a product." SSI's partnership with advanced planning and scheduling vendor Greycon was also a significant factor in Toray's decision.

Davis says that the company, as an integrated dyer and weaver, faces two completely contrasting scheduling environments, and thus needed powerful scheduling tools.

The weaving element of the business involves a complex long-term plan - one beam of yarn takes up to five weeks to weave - whereas Toray dyes to order, with a lead time for dyed products of between two and three weeks from order to delivery.

Phase 1 of the project, which went live in August, covers products, processes, costing, planning, production, purchasing and goods receiving for the weaving part of the business - more than 500 looms in total.

Phase 2, which incorporates the dyeing business and the complete implementation of CODA financials, is expected to go live towards the end of the year.

Davis says that Toray is in the middle of a period of major culture change, and that the implementation of TROPOS is an important part of that process.

"It's very easy to live in a vacuum and assume you're doing the right things," he says.

"But we can't expect to survive if we just carry on as before, because our competition is mainly from countries with labour costs a fraction of ours.

"That's why we've changed our business to target new markets, and why we need to implement better technology to control those changes.

Far too much of our managers' time is spent chasing information.

With TROPOS, we shall be able to get our managers focused on key issues.".

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