\\\ Manufacturing \\\ Success story
increasingly affected Harlow is the growing demand by customers to have their orders quicker which puts pressure on the company’s standard lead time of approximately 4 weeks. Timpson explains why: “Not only are we dealing with a significant workload at any one time, we also have our kanban orders popping up which we have to factor in. And while a lot of the materials we have to order are generally available on a next day basis due to our strong supplier relationships, there are times when material is required from overseas or requires some prior subcontract work. As we can’t keep our customers waiting, this means we have to keep buffer stocks of certain products and components and keeping these replenished at an optimum level is something which again would be impossible without EFACS.”
Smooth running
Harlow also has to deal with the ordinary production and business issues shared by most other manufacturing companies – namely maximising production capacity, minimising sequence dependent changeovers, avoiding bottlenecks and ensuring smoothness of flow across the business. The latter is assisted by the company not working on a 24x7 basis, which allows it to expand its production times as and when required in order for the customer to get their order on time. And as Timpson adds: “Customers are demanding shorter lead time and smaller batch requirements, which means the manufacturing facility has to be flexible to demand and reduce set up times to ensure smooth running of production.”
Dave Carlisle: “The right tool for the right job.”
Dave Carlisle has been with Harlow for over 20 years and IT manager for the past 5 years. He explains how the company used to meet these challenges prior to implementing EFACS, almost 2 decades ago. “The company was a lot smaller and as such was using a basic MRP system called Micross
supported by a bespoke Sales Order Processing program. As the company grew and its operations became more complex, the limitations of this approach became increasingly clear, which led to our investing in a UNIX-based version of EFACS. In fact, we have been using a UNIX version up until our recent upgrade to EFACS version 8.5 and are now benefiting from the power of an Oracle database on a Linux platform. ”
Arguably one of the greatest strengths of Harlow’s investment in EFACS has been its longevity and the way it has both enabled the company to grow, expand and adapt to ever changing business pressures. The way that Harlow uses EFACS today is a genuine example of the long-term evolution of ERP and business processes working in harmony with every area of the business being covered by EFACS – from quotations, estimates and sales through to purchasing, stock control, planning, production and ultimately despatch.
Two areas that Timpson is especially pleased with are Document Management and Shop Floor Data Capture (SFDC). The former is a relatively recent introduction and allows not just the internal CAD/CAM drawings and associated documentation to be readily available within EFACS at every stage within the company but streamlines all documentation associated with an order throughout the entire order lifecycle. “We now handle the vast majority of internal documents electronically thanks to EFACS and this has extended to our interaction with our suppliers and customers. So much so that we estimate an 80 per cent improvement in document management efficiency thanks to the latest version which has directly led to our cancelling our contract for physical post.”
Added benefits
SFDC, on the other hand, is something Harlow has long recognised the value of, having
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MANUFACTURING &LOGISTICS
IT March 2011
www.logisticsit.com
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