Supply Chain Software & Manufacturing Software

Benson Group/Epicor – exclusive interview

The Benson Group is one of the UK’s leading privately owned printed carton suppliers, producing packaging product for both the food and pharmaceutical industries. The company has just under 800 employees across four sites. Headquartered in the Midlands, Benson also owns production sites in the North-West and North-East of the country. Benson has been making packaging products for over 85 years, with its origins in servicing the Leicestershire shoe and hosiery industries. The market has evolved, as have the company’s products, and through investment in people and plant it now has annual sales of around £85 million, with growth fuelled both organically and by acquisition. Benson creates packaging for a number of well-known companies and brands. Clients include GlaxoSmithKline, Northern Foods, Reckitt Benckiser, Greencore, Bakkavor and a number of leading supermarket chains. The company made the decision to invest in a brand-new greenfield site in Bardon, Leicestershire just off junction 22 of the M1 motorway, and its existing manufacturing solution was no longer suitable to meet its future growth plans. Benson felt that Epicor provided the best solution for its needs and it was installed at the new site in early 2000.

Associated British Foods/Barloworld Supply Chain Software

Associated British Foods, as the UK’s largest animal feed producer with a turnover of £5.6 billion and more than 42,000 employees in 41 countries, is acutely aware of the need to optimise networks and supply chains. Already the fifth largest animal feed manufacturer in China, the company’s animal feeds business, Associated British Nutrition & Agriproducts (ABNA), approached Gist Ltd’s consulting services division for the tools and know-how to develop a joint approach to optimising the supply chain of one of its customers in North America. The supply chain in question started with the US customer buying pigs from breeders, feed from mills and space from farms. The pigs and feed would then be transported to the farm, moving on to the abattoir once the pigs reached the desired size. Having established that the key to modelling the network was to recognise that it was actually a manufacturing problem – a bill of materials of one baby pig plus the appropriate amount of feed producing a fully grown pig of the desired size – Gist employed Barloworld Supply Chain Software’s specialist network modelling software, CAST, to pinpoint savings.

AgustaWestland/Barloworld Supply Chain Software

AgustaWestland has been contracted by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to provide a cost-effective, through-life, integrated operational support solution for all variants of the Sea King and Merlin rotary wing helicopter fleets. A similar comprehensive support solution for the Apache and Future Lynx fleets and for various commodity parts is also currently being planned. In order to discharge these contracts profitably, AgustaWestland has had to change a number of key processes at the interface with the MoD. AgustaWestland, in common with other aerospace manufacturers faced with long material lead times, realised that it was critical to improve its supply chain and management processes. After extensive analysis of the market, AgustaWestland selected Barloworld Supply Chain Software as a partner based on the ease of integration between Optimiza and its existing enterprise systems.

The Hinde Group/Epicor

From its offices and design studios in Europe and North America, The Hinde Group provides a total design solution, from concept to sourcing and delivery – a one-stop shop across a range of tourist gifts and novelty items to retailers, wholesale distributors, importers and leading theme parks and attractions around the world. With its headquarters located in County Wicklow, Ireland, the group is made up of five distinct divisions and sells direct to retailers in the UK, Ireland and the US and is also represented by distributors in Canada, Australia, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, New Zealand and Cyprus. Established almost 50 years ago, the group has always traded successfully in a highly competitive industry, due in part to its strong reputation for quality, originality and service to all sectors of the leisure gift market. Following expansion through acquisition, the group had five subsidiaries all using different core accounting and ERP applications, and it was decided that a unified solution across the group would provide a good foundation to enact further business process improvements. The Hinde Group became the first company in Ireland to implement Epicor Vantage 8.

Chingford Fruit/IFS – exclusive interview

Chingford Fruit is a global fresh produce business, responsible for importing and distributing over 11 million crates of fruit a year, the majority of which are sold to its key customer, J Sainsbury plc. Chingford Fruit’s parent company is AG Thames (Holdings) Ltd (AGT) which has grown from a £120 million to a £300 million turnover business in the last five years. Chingford Fruit aims for 100% supermarket availability with a one-day lead time, which means it needs to know exactly what stock is where, and when. This visibility of the ‘micro-working’ of its supply chain is critical to meeting its targets. The company agrees yearly programmes with the supermarkets and growers, so it also needs to have an excellent top-level view of the business, understanding what orders need to be placed when, and anticipating seasonal demand. This two-fold pressure on the supply chain makes having the right IT system essential to the success of the business as a whole. The company initiated a selection process to find a new solution and from a shortlist of six ERP providers it chose IFS Applications as providing the closest match to its requirements.

Snow and Rock/Exact Abacus

Snow and Rock is a true multi-channel retailer marketing sports equipment and clothing in a fiercely competitive marketplace. Quality products sourced from specialist manufacturers across the world coupled with a commitment to exceptional customer service positions Snow and Rock as a premium brand. The roots of the business stem from bricks-and-mortar retail. However, Snow and Rock was quick to identify the opportunities presented by home shopping and e-commerce in the 1990s. Initially the company’s 300-page directory style catalogue was mainly used as a retail-support tool, driving footfall to the stores. However, as the customer database grew in size and geographical diversity, more mail orders were generated, which demanded the set-up of a designated home shopping department. 3EX Enterprise software by Exact Abacus was selected after a lengthy search of the marketplace.

Dairy Crest/Oracle

With 17 factories and 180 local depots, Dairy Crest Limited is the UK’s leading chilled dairy foods company, producing household-name brands such as Clover, St Ivel and FRijj. The company’s expertise in developing new markets won it the prestigious Dairy Exporter of the Year award in 2005. Dairy Crest's challenges were to drive innovation, improve food quality, optimise production capacity and cut waste by upgrading, automating and standardising manufacturing processes at all plants; maximise performance of assets such as pasteurising equipment, processing vessels, filters, silos and forklifts; and centralise long and short-term forecasting to improve agility and respond quickly to changes in supply or demand. It decided to use Oracle Process Manufacturing.

Wolseley plc/HighJump – exclusive interview

Wolseley is the world’s leading distributor of heating and plumbing products to the professional market and a leading supplier of building materials. Headquartered near Reading in the UK, it operates in 28 countries across Europe and North America. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is among the top 100 companies in the FTSE 100 index. Over the last few years Wolseley has embarked on a major business change programme to re-design and standardise its business processes and supporting information technology infrastructure so it is ready to meet future business challenges. One element of this programme is to provide a leading-edge global warehouse management system across all its distribution centres in North America and Europe. In turn this will interface with a new core supply chain management (SCM) solution that will begin implementation in the second quarter of 2008. During the selection process to consider a suitable global solution, it evaluated offerings from several tier-one SCM suppliers and finally decided to partner with HighJump for their warehouse management solution.

Eaton Corporation/QAD

Eaton Corporation is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of a comprehensive line of high-efficiency hydraulic systems and industrial components. Once known as a vehicle components supplier, Eaton has diversified to include a broader industrial and commercial focus. Today, its businesses comprise four distinct segments – electrical, fluid power, truck and automotive. Eaton reported 2005 sales of $11.1 billion. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, the company has 60,000 employees and sells products to customers in more than 125 countries. Decision makers chose to replace the old ERP system with QAD MFG/PRO, to standardise the Cleveland facility with other Eaton sites. The business managers at the Cleveland warehouse recognised that the operation would also need an up-to-date WMS to work efficiently with other applications throughout the company. Eaton chose QAD Advanced Inventory Management (QAD AIM) based on the company’s long-term partnership with QAD and its own internal expertise in QAD product functionality.

The Cromer Crab Company/Access – exclusive interview

Cromer Crab is a 26-year old former family business, now part of the £40 million Seafood Company. The group also owns Anchor Seafoods, which processes frozen seafood, while Cromer Crab’s factory in Cromer, North Norfolk, produces chilled seafood products, including prawns, lobster and other shellfish, as well as its own-brand crabs. In 2000, Cromer Crab was a loss-making business with a turnover of £8 million. Today it is an expanding £27.5 million company with national and international accreditations, anticipating further growth. A key factor in the company’s transformation has been its adoption of an SCM system that enables it to control its costs, improve the quality and efficiency of its processes and offer increasing value-for-money to its UK supermarket customers. Cromer Crab needed a system that supported a high level of process automation and that fitted the scale of its business while providing the tools to support the company’s growth. It chose Access Supply Chain.

Geest/SSA – exclusive interview

Geest Limited is a leading UK-based fresh prepared foods and produce company. It supplies over 4,500 products to its customers – the major supermarkets and food service providers. The name Geest originates from the van Geest family who had worked in horticulture in the Netherlands since the late 1800s. In 1935, the first Geest company was founded in the UK to develop the sale of bulbs. In the 1940s Geest diversified into fresh produce and in the 1970s into fresh prepared foods. Geest now has over 40 manufacturing sites. Most are in the UK with overseas sites in Belgium, France, Spain and South Africa. It employs around 14,000 people. In 2004, the company had a turnover of £830.6 million and operating profit of £36.4 million. In May 2005, Geest was acquired by Bakkavör, a food manufacturing company of Icelandic origin specialising in chilled convenience foods. Bakkavör’s pro forma turnover is around £1 billion. The business operates a decentralised structure and requires real-time information to make immediate operational decisions. It is standardising on SSA’s Protean ERP package in order to achieve this.