Success story \\\ Manufacturing \\\


\\\ Contents \\\ 13, 14


• EFACS Touchscreen brings visibility and


control to Gesipa Blind Rivets


• Best Theratronics puts in place a


16, 18


healthy IT regime with the help of QAD


• F1 giant Red Bull Racing romps home


19, 20


with help from Epicor Software


• Gartner Business Intelligence Summit –


22


linking the theory and practice of Business Intelligence and Performance Management


EFACS Touchscreen brings visibility and control to Gesipa Blind Rivets ?


G


esipa Blind Riveting Systems is a leading manufacturer of cold formed, blind riveting solutions to a wide range of industries in the UK and throughout Europe.


With a possible range of finishes, sizes and other configurable factors contributing to a current range of over 1500 different products and annual production levels running into hundreds of millions, Gesipa needs exacting levels of manufacturing and stock visibility and control.


To ensure this, the company replaced its ageing legacy system in 2006 with the EFACS E/8 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution from Exel Computer Systems. In addition to delivering real-time visibility across the company, Gesipa achieved a range of specific savings including a reduction in sales arrears from £150,000 per month to under £30,000. “Customer satisfaction levels have also risen dramatically because we are now getting the right product to the right place at the right time,” explained Gesipa’s administrator, Sue Lamb.


Greater possibilities


In keeping with its recognition that EFACS E/8 offers far greater possibilities than they had anticipated, Gesipa continually reviewed other areas within the company that could benefit from the system. One of the first areas identified was the finished goods warehouse where operatives use forklift trucks to locate, pick, deposit and move goods. According to manufacturing manager Paul Taylor, many stock transactions end up being carried out ‘on the hoof’. “Take the example of when small quantities of product are left once an order has been picked – these would need to be relocated. The operative would then have to drive back from the location, walk from the forklift to the computer running EFACS E/8, and then, assuming it was free, update the actual stock inventory and product location before walking back to the forklift and driving it to the required location.”


While not a regular occurrence, a guided estimate study by Gesipa revealed that this and similar situations effectively cost the company one work hour per day. “What we ideally needed,” says Lamb “was a means to interrogate and update the system while the driver was on the forklift – at the very place where the transaction needed to take place.” Gesipa was aware that Exel had a recently developed touchscreen module for EFACS E/8 and so discussions began about how >>


“Even considering we had a number of employees that had very little computer experience, the easy, intuitive nature of the EFACS Touchscreen system meant that they found it very simple to use.” – Paul Taylor, manufacturing manager, Gesipa Blind Riveting Systems.


www.logisticsit.com


December 2010


MANUFACTURING &LOGISTICS


IT 13


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