MANAGEMENT + SYSTEMS Acorn ‘future-proofs’ business
Acorn Industrial Components has appointed international managed services specialists PRAIZAR, to lead its IT and marketing strategies. The appointment was made in response to an increase in demand for Acorn’s specialist industrial components services.
C
hris Till, managing director, Acorn Industrial Components explained: “Supplier consolidation is a key trend for 2011 and we’re experiencing rapid growth in
this area, particularly consolidated procurement and small sub-assembly. But for every contract we win, that’s up to 30 or even 100 other businesses losing contracts.” He adds: “We’ve been delivering exceptional customer service for over 30 years and I firmly believe our reputation for having skilled, knowledgeable and accommodating staff is saving our business today and helping us to grow. We brought in PRAIZAR to ‘future-proof’ our business which will allow us to continue to respond quickly to change.” PRAIZAR will be updating Acorn’s ERP solution to increase its
ecommerce services, consolidating its online presence and entering new digital channels such as YouTube, facebook and twitter. Till was keen to reassure customers that service was still their main priority: “Improving our IT systems is purely to give us the
tools we need to be able to respond quickly and effectively to change in the market. Our commitment to traditional service ethics is as strong today as ever, and we will continue to deliver consultative sales to all our customers.” The full family of Acorn websites will be consolidated and re-launched during 2011 as part of the strategy to provide small businesses and sole-traders competitive trade prices online.
Embracing the new manufacturing reality
Olivier Drean, director of manufacturing solutions at Apriso, a manufacturing software provider that offers a platform-based solution to manage global manufacturing operations, explains how embracing the new manufacturing reality will require managers to manage operations holistically across their company.
T
he increasingly global nature of business means that manufacturers need to adopt a “design anywhere, make anywhere, sell anywhere” strategy in order to outpace the competition and remain innovative and responsive to customers. Doing so successfully creates virtually unlimited business opportunities, but significantly complicates the manufacturing process. In recent years, manufacturers have come to realise that their operations can be more effectively managed in the
aggregate, from an enterprise perspective. This means looking at operations spanning all locations – rather than being confined to traditional silos, on a plant by plant basis. As a result, companies are taking an increasingly more strategic view of manufacturing by thinking holistically. Processes can be optimised when managed from an end-to-end perspective, rather than as islands of automation performed autonomously on a plant by plant basis. The challenge is that plant operators are not always inclined to change the way they do business, especially if current processes
work just fine. The counter-point to this perspective is “how do you know?” Your processes may or may not be best-in-class. In today’s increasingly global marketplace, goods and services are being purchased and evaluated from a global perspective. What may have once been a high quality, low cost production process may now no longer compare as favourably. Those plant operators that facilitate this process by helping to identify what inventory level, equipment performance or production throughput level is best will be seen as leaders in transforming their manufacturing operations to best in class. Manufacturers today must embrace a new reality and rise to a new challenge, which means fundamentally rethinking how and
what you do. This new thinking involves taking a perspective that extends beyond just plant-level activities, seeing manufacturing operations as an activity that must be managed and continuously improved across the enterprise.
114 Fastener + Fixing Magazine • Issue 69 May 2011
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