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| Case Studies
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Threadneedle Investments/Epicor (July 2010)
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Threadneedle Investments is a leading fund management house offering full service solutions and products across four
continents and in over 15 countries.
Based in the UK, Threadneedle manages more than EUR 105 billion of assets (as at 31 January 2006) for a wide
range of retail and institutional clients including pension schemes, insurance companies, private investors, corporations
and affiliate group companies. Threadneedle was formed in 1994 as part of British American Financial Services and became part of the Zurich
Financial Services Group in 1998 following merger activity. In 2003, Threadneedle was acquired by American Express
Financial Corporation, which then in 2005 spun off its financial services business, Ameriprise Financial. Threadneedle is
now a subsidiary of Ameriprise Financial. It needed to deploy a new enterprise application and chose Epicor Enterprise.
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Hansatech/Epicor (July 2010)
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Hansatech has been providing manufacturing solutions for electronic products for over 25 years. The team at
Hansatech is renowned for its dedication to providing customers with product lifecycle support. Hansatech has manufacturing facilities in the UK and partners in Eastern Europe and Asia providing the right solution
for any business’ needs. It also provides a fully outsourced solution if required. Due to changing customer demands
within a competitive industry the company needs an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that can support and
help control the business.
Prior to a recent management buyout, Hansatech had invested heavily in a large ERP system that subsequently didn’t
match its strategic requirements. Initially Hansatech looked at four different systems, each offering a similar product in terms of inputs and outputs, but
selected Epicor 9, the next-generation ERP solution from Epicor, because of its costs, agility and rapid installation
process.
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Clydesdale Jones/Access (May 2010)
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For more than 50 years, Clydesdale Jones has specialised in the design, development and manufacture of park brake
levers and mechanisms. These products are manufactured to order for a client base of materials handling, agriculture
and construction equipment manufacturers including such names as JCB, Yale and Caterpillar. Continued growth meant that Clydesdale Jones was straining at the seams and had outgrown its existing software system. With the help of IT advisory body CUIS (the Computer Users Information Service), the company developed a tender
document which it then issued to a host of IT suppliers. Throughout the process Access Supply Chain stood apart from the rest. The comprehensive evaluation process continued, before Access Supply Chain won out as the system of choice. The 15-user system took just three months to be implemented and went live following the Whit week shutdown.
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The Woodlands Foundation/Sage (March 2010)
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The Woodlands Foundation operates The Woodlands, a forested residential camp Wexford, Pennsylvania, USA, that
offers outdoor activities, games and arts education to children and young adults with a variety of disabilities.
Founded in 1984 by the Spina Bifida Association, The Woodlands first served spina bifida patients exclusively, but now
provides fun and fitness to kids with muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, sickle cell anaemia and many other
debilitating conditions. To date, The Woodlands has hosted over 1,400 people from 13 different charitable groups. After being spun off from the Spina Bifida Association as an independent non-profit foundation, The Woodlands
Foundation decided that it needed to manage its finances more efficiently and upgrade its financial reporting
capabilities. After comparing several products, the Woodlands Foundation installed Sage ERP X3 enterprise software as its new
financial backbone.
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Ravensden/Sage (March 2010)
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Ravensden plc is a privately owned family business that operates from
Northamptonshire-based premises. As an importer of toys, the company
specialises in supplying animal-themed merchandise to the leisure and
retail markets. With a range of over 2,500 products from piggybanks
to puppets, soft toys to stationery, the company offers one of the
largest selections of animal-themed gifts in Europe. Ravensden was very happy with its previous Sage Line 500 system as a product, but wanted to have the benefits of a
customer relationship management (CRM) solution to manage its growing customer base, along with more support in
dealing with ever-increasing stock items and locating these, often at short notice. The company had been running Sage products for many years and having carried out a thorough software review, felt
that Sage was still right for the business. Ravensden could see the advantages of Sage 1000 as a fully integrated system, giving total visibility in all
key areas of the business.
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Dudson Group/K3 – exclusive interview (November 2009)
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Richard Dudson opened his first factory in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, in 1800. Nine generations on from the founder, Dudson
is still a privately owned family business, the oldest in the UK tableware industry, and a leading specialist manufacturer of
ceramic tableware for the international hospitality industry.
Dudson continues to manufacture all its ceramic products at two factories in Stoke, and exports more than 70% of its
production to over 100 countries worldwide.
The company is associated with a number of well-known tableware brands – combining its design skills with the
manufacturing expertise of Dartington Crystal, Sola Switzerland and Bugambilia.
The Dudson Group has a total of 155 users, office-based or remote, using its latest SYSPRO ERP system from K3, and has recently
acquired a French ceramic tableware manufacturer which will be moved onto SYSPRO by the end of March 2010.
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Norland Managed Services/Touchstone (September 2009)
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Norland Managed Services Ltd is one of the UK’s fastest-growing providers of facilities maintenance and support
services in the built environment, achieving 25% growth in each of the last three years.
Working in partnership with some of the UK’s best-known companies, Norland’s success has been built on high levels
of customer service and its major focus on people and technical skills. With 11 offices across the UK and Ireland and
employing over 1,700 staff, the company has an annual turnover in excess of £200 million. With the company growing at such a rapid rate, it became clear that this success was putting a strain on its existing
ERP (enterprise resource planning) software. Norland looked at the market, assessed various solutions and saw Microsoft and its Dynamics AX solution as the rising
star in enterprise software. Norland also opted for another suite of tools – Touchstone Contract Management Solution (CMS). Developed by
Touchstone specifically for facilities management, consultant engineering and construction organisations, CMS is a
powerful yet flexible contract management system built on the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform.
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Herman Miller/Infor (November 2008)
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With operations in more than 40 countries, Herman Miller is a leading global manufacturer of office and domestic working
environment furniture. The company maintains manufacturing and distribution centres in the UK, North America and Asia, and
sales offices, dealers and licensees in North America, Asia/Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. As Herman Miller’s international business developed, it became evident that it had outgrown its previous IT solutions – an
inhouse MRP system and a legacy ERP product from Symix (which later became part of Infor). In 1996, Herman Miller
upgraded its ERP to SyteLine 5, which supported the company well for the next 10 years.
In 2006, Herman Miller decided to implement Infor ERP SyteLine 7 throughout the business.
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Routeco plc/Strategix – exclusive interview (October 2008)
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Routeco plc is an independent, privately owned company. It was formed in 1978 and has established itself as one of the
UK’s leading distributors of industrial automation and control products.
During its lifetime Routeco has recorded continuous growth and has established a network of 19 regional sales offices in the
UK and one in Austria, employing over 250 people. Routeco needed to improve the efficiency of its transaction processes. In the old system it had to access two
or three different screens to get all the information required to complete a transaction. This was time-consuming and affected
its overall customer service. Routeco evaluated a number of solutions including the new ERP offering from Strategix called OneOffice and decided that
this would satisfy its future requirements with the minimum of disruption to its existing operations.
It was the flexibility provided by OneOffice to bring all the relevant information together from different data sources and present
it to the user, rather than having to go searching for it, which made it attractive.
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Doosan Babcock/IFS (September 2008)
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Doosan Babcock is an established leader in the provision of unique
energy and environmental solutions to clients worldwide, adding
value to energy markets.
The company’s operations range from new-build projects to contract
management and support, including test, refurbishment and
upgrades of control and instrumentation. Headquartered in the UK,
Doosan Babcock has operations in Europe, Asia Pacific, and the US. Doosan Babcock needed to meet the requirements of two distinctive business environments – large, long-term, new-build
projects, and more varied short-term activities such as repair, maintenance and day-to-day operating contracts. IFS Applications has enabled Doosan Babcock to increase the efficiency of its operations. Easy access to high-quality
information, improved cashflow and tight links between projects and financials are other benefits arising from the company’s
decision to implement the component-based business software from IFS.
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Thorntons plc/Oracle (June 2008)
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Established in 1911, Thorntons plc is one of the UK’s leading manufacturers and retailers of confectionery products. The
company’s wide range of premium quality chocolates, toffees and ice creams are distributed nationally through a 600 specialist
store network and multiple channels. Thornton's challenges were to optimise production to match a highly seasonal sales profile while ensuring consistent product quality, cutting cost of raw
materials and minimising waste; reduce operating costs through automation, enforce process standardisation, eliminate duplication, ensure compliance with
food safety regulations, and speed new product development; and integrate manufacturing with financials, inventory management and purchasing, and gain real-time business visibility. Thorntons implemented Oracle E-Business Suite’s integrated web enabled applications.
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Promethean/Infor (March 2008)
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Promethean is a global leader in interactive learning technology that helps teachers to engage, educate, assess and motivate
learners. Developed by and for educators, its award-winning products help teachers to prepare digital lessons quickly and with
greater ease. The technology enables them to create, customise and integrate text, web, video and audio content, so they can
more easily capture students’ attention and accommodate different learning styles.
Promethean is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with flagship headquarters in Blackburn, Lancashire. Its products are
distributed through a global network of partners in over 70 countries. Promethean needed a business-specific solution to provide it with an accurate and real-time view of all operations across
finance, sales, manufacturing, customer support and distribution. After a competitive tender process, Promethean selected Infor as its partner.
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Magnadata Ltd/Sanderson – exclusive interview (October 2007)
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Magnadata is a leading manufacturer of security print products, primarily for the mass transit industry, and has been trading
since the mid 1980s. In June 2000, a successful management buyout team supported by London investment bankers Close
Brothers acquired the business and re-branded it as Magnadata International.
In January 2006, Magnadata acquired Norprint, one of Europe’s largest labelling and systems companies. Norprint
produces over 7 billion labels a year and can supply a wide range of Print & Apply, Applicators and other bespoke
equipment solutions. It focuses on a number of market sectors including food, retail, security, commercial and industrial.
In true entrepreneurial style, Magnadata has pioneered advanced technology with the development of contact-less
smartcards. Its portfolio of security print products now includes smartcards, RFID labels, baggage tags and magnetic tickets.
Manufacturing is conducted at two sites, Boston in the UK and Sydney, Australia, with Boston being the main unit. Magnadata needed a system that had proven warehousing and logistics functionality and
chose the Unity solution from Sanderson.
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Sandvik Mining and Construction/Infor – exclusive interview (November 2006)
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Sandvik is a high-technology engineering group with products in selected areas such as machinery and tools for
metalworking, rock excavation, stainless steel, special alloys and resistance heating materials and process systems. The
Swedish Group has 39,000 employees, operations in 130 countries and annual sales of approximately £4.6 billion.
Sandvik Mining and Construction is one of three business areas within the Sandvik Group and a world leading manufacturer
of drilling and excavation machinery, tools and service for the mining and construction industries. Its annual sales amount to
£1.5 billion and it has about 10,600 employees. Sandvik Mining and Construction’s latest ERP project is putting in place a new information and process infrastructure for its
service organisation across 40 companies in support of these goals. Sandvik is using System21 Aurora and Bluestream
software. System21 Aurora is an ERP solution from Infor. Bluestream is Infor’s service management solution which it jointly
developed with Sandvik.
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