ERP Software

The Woodlands Foundation/Sage

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.

Clydesdale Jones/Access

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.

Bespak/itelligence

Bespak is a leading supplier of drug delivery devices for injectable and inhaled products. Early in January 2011 it integrated acquired organisation Bespak Injectables (formerly The Medical House) onto SAP Business All-in-One. Headquarted in the UK, Bespak employs over 500 people and manufactures more than 600 million medical devices each year. Bespak has been an SAP customer since 1998 with the system supporting the administrative, manufacturing and distribution functions. In November 2009, Consort Medical plc acquired The Medical House plc and began the integration of the re-branded Bespak Injectables into its Bespak division. In order to drive further efficiencies out of its existing SAP investment and to integrate Bespak Injectables’ data to provide administrative synergies, Bespak began moving the company from its existing IT systems onto SAP Business All-in-One. Bespak identified the opportunity to expand the use of its well-established SAP system and made the decision to integrate Bespak Injectables’ systems with Bespak’s, and itelligence was chosen as the systems integrator.

Herman Miller/Infor – exclusive interview

Herman Miller is a global manufacturer of office and domestic working environment furniture with operations in over 40 countries. It has 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. Sales for 2010 reached $1.3 billion, and in 2008 Herman Miller was ranked as one of the world’s most innovative companies by Fast Company magazine. Changes in its market meant that the company needed to be more flexible, reduce time to market, reduce lead time to customers and cope with a rapidly expanding product portfolio. To do this it needed to upgrade its software and it chose to move to a package solution. It has established Infor SyteLine as the standard ERP solution for all its sites in 11 different countries.

LN Metals/itelligence

LN Metals was established in 1998. It specialises in the trade of non-ferrous metals, ores, concentrates, residues and by-products, actively using LME futures contracts to mitigate price risk. In 2007 the company commenced trading in minor metals and it added steel to the product range in February 2008. LN also provides consulting and advisory services to the mining industry. The company has grown rapidly over the past five years with turnover increasing more than ten-fold from $30 million to $350 million in 2007. For such a fast growing company, scalability plays a crucial role and it is paramount that the administrative functions keep pace with the trading portfolio. With the existing systems, the company was struggling to efficiently track the volume of business transactions and an integrated trading and accounting system was sought to streamline this process and scale up to the growing business needs. LN finally selected the SAP Business All-in-One solution delivered by the SAP Global Services Partner itelligence.

Dudson Group/K3 – exclusive interview

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.

Ravensden/Sage

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.

Norland Managed Services/Touchstone

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.

Routeco plc/Strategix – exclusive interview

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.

Doosan Babcock/IFS

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.

Thorntons plc/Oracle

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.

Promethean/Infor

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.

Magnadata Ltd/Sanderson – exclusive interview

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.

Sandvik Mining and Construction/Infor – exclusive interview

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.