MANAGEMENT + SYSTEMS
Merlin’s magical transformation
British based authors of Merlin Business Software, Chatsworth Computers Limited, has recently gone through with an exciting transformation.
opportunity to rebrand under a single Merlin identity has been one that we have been considering for some time and, given the growth of our business and customer-base, we have decided the time was right to go forward into new and exciting markets under a common brand name.” Adding to this, managing director, Clive Mallender explained:
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“Whilst we will be retaining the Chatsworth identity at Group level, it will be sad to be moving away from the Chatsworth name directly – a name that is synonymous with businesses in Chesterfield, which itself has close ties to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, home to the Duke & Duchess of Devonshire. However, as we have worked extremely hard with our customers to make Merlin Business Software the success it has become, it made perfect sense to create a new and striking brand that would help promote the Merlin trademark to a growing and
o coincide with the start of its new financial year, Chatsworth is undergoing a total branding transformation and will be renamed Merlin Business Software Limited. Merlin’s chairman, Andrew Wilson commented: “The
international customer base.” Merlin’s marketing team, headed by sales and marketing
director, Ashley Jones noted: “Having spent over 17 years establishing Merlin as a brand it made sense to focus both product and company identities together to form a single, recognisable and outstanding brand.” Monique Saint, Merlin’s marketing co-ordinator has overseen
all of the branding changes. “We knew we were undertaking quite a complex process, in addition to continuing with regular marketing activities. Even so, we knew not to underestimate the work that rebranding requires which has seen changes from the Merlin website, through all marketing materials, stationery, signage, business cards, and even down to updating the logo on our Franking machine. A big thank you to Gary Bradley of Artisan Bytes for his brilliant idea concepts and his help throughout the project.” This bold and exciting rebranding process is set to further
enhance Merlin Business Software’s profile, however existing Merlin customers can rest assured that it is business as usual.
www.fastenersuppliessoftware.co.uk
aPriori releases latest software platform
aPriori, a provider of product cost management software solutions, has announced the general availability of the latest release of its software platform - aPriori 2012r1.
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he new aPriori 2012r1 offers new capabilities and enhancements that expand the platform’s cost optimisation functionality with new
baseline processes for manufacturers in automotive, consumer products, industrial equipment and medical equipment. The release also extends aPriori’s enterprise architecture, providing a common consistent view of product costs across an organisation and supporting new international costing capabilities. As a result, discrete manufacturers are able to expand their product cost management efforts to new product lines and plants, improve decision-making in product design, and speed time to market for new products and parts. aPriori’s Product Cost Management
software platform is a flexible and powerful
costing engine. It is able to quickly and precisely determine the cost of a part or product by automatically pulling geometric and feature information from a computer- aided design (CAD) model and leveraging its intelligent cost models to determine reasonable default inputs once the user has selected the manufacturing process, materials and the factory or region where it will be produced. As a product evolves through the development lifecycle, users have the ability to refine the cost by providing detailed inputs and overriding defaults to create a should-cost for negotiation or a manufacturing estimate. As design changes are made, or new
product specs are introduced, aPriori automatically reassesses and provides an updated product cost quickly and easily. Using this new level of cost
114 Fastener + Fixing Magazine • Issue 75 May 2012
knowledge, companies can make more informed design and production decisions and significantly reduce product costs throughout the entire product lifecycle. “An enterprise approach to product cost
management expands the cost savings impact from a single department or project to the entire product organisation,” said Julie Driscoll, vice president of marketing strategy and product management for aPriori. “This enables employees in every role, on every project to estimate, track and optimise costs as appropriate in their roles. In this latest release, we continue to help our clients realise this vision with expanded costing processes, increased global deployment capabilities and integration with other key business systems that use costs and provide costing inputs.”
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