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EFACS – the brains of the organisation at Harlow


Bill Timpson: “Margin checks become increasingly important in competitive markets.”


H 20


arlow Group is one of the leading UK manufacturers of precision sheet metal components, products and electro-mechanical assemblies. From its origins back to 1975 the £7 million company has steadily grown and currently has a workforce of 100 producing a diverse range of products across many sectors with a recognised specialism within the aerospace industry. Harlow’s reliance on the EFACS ERP system from Exel Computer Systems goes back almost as far, with managing director Bill Timpson describing EFACS as long having been “the brains of the organisation”.


Like most established metal fabricators, Harlow has had to adapt as a business to


MANUFACTURING &LOGISTICS


IT March 2011


meet changing customer requirements and highly variable market and economic conditions. As such the company currently exports 20 per cent of its output to Mexico with a further 20 per cent dedicated to the aerospace sector. Approximately 80 per cent of all business comes from around 10 major clients, some of which have been customers for several decades, with the remaining 20 per cent being comprised of over 20 smaller and newer customers. Batch sizes range from single items through hundreds to thousands and into the tens of thousands and the company can be working on up to 1200 works orders at any given time.


“ Keeping track


It’s no wonder that Timpson says the company would literally come to a standstill if EFACS stopped working. “Not only do we have a combination of firm and repeat orders which represents about 70 per cent of our business, the balance of orders comes from kanban requirements that we only have forecast


Every business decision is based on hard factual data and every bit of data comes from EFACS.”


visibility on. Then again, in the pure fabrication side of the company everything has to be flexible out of necessity, right down to working on individual and bespoke products. It’s simply impossible to keep track of this many orders across so many potential processes and resources without a good ERP system.”


– Bill Timpson, Harlow.


As if 1200 live works orders isn’t enough to manage, Harlow has many products with multi-level builds, with an individual product


comprising up to 100 individual parts. Timpson again: “In such cases we have the added challenge of ensuring that each component is produced at the right time and in the right sequence so that when it comes to sub and final assembly, all the right parts are at the right place at the right time.” And with 60,000 sq. ft. of premises containing 3 hi-tech CNC laser/punching machines, 10 brake presses, 4 welding bays, robot welding areas, spot welding areas, powder coating and wet paint bays, real time and accurate visibility across the entire production plan is essential.


Another business challenge that has www.logisticsit.com


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