EMS company installs ERP and sees savings
12 November 2010
CSI Electronic Manufacturing Services Ltd, based in Essex, UK, was founded in November 2009 and are an EMS company. With the Directors having used an ERP system in a previous company, they created a series of spreadsheets knowing that this would be a short-term solution. Early in 2010 they started investigating replacement systems.
Adrian Winch, MD, said: "Having had a bad experience with a previous system we were not going there again. We had previously spent over £16,000 a year on maintenance alone. We looked at five systems in total, one of which didn't even bother responding to several requests. And 123insight was recommended to me by a friend who is the MD of a manufacturing company (Reverie) that is also using it. I was aware of other EMS companies using 123insight."
Darren Webb, Manufacturing Director added: "Within six months of starting the business we literally had thousands of spreadsheets and had no visibility of forthcoming orders, purchases or deliveries. As a result we were doubling up on purchases, and did not know what was on site or what to chase. We ended up hiring temporary labour to solve the problem."
123insight was the last of the systems that CSI evaluated. The company attended an Evaluation Workshop in April 2010 at the University of Hertfordshire and quickly discounted the other systems, deciding on 123insight immediately. Two staff attended the no obligation training the same month, with a 123insight implementation day scheduled in May.
After this, CSI spent a month cleansing their data, which spanned 5000 stock lines, 266 BOMs, 200 suppliers and 500 purchase orders. They started the data transfer on a Friday morning and went live during the lunchtime of the following day.
Webb explained: "We had a very limited window to go live in. Several key staff had planned holidays after this date, which if we'd have waited would have delayed the project a couple of months. As we work with so many components we could not buy anything or book anything in or out, so we had to go live fast. We also did not have the opportunity to perform any trials."
CSI had planned to run the spreadsheets in tandem for a few weeks, but by the following Monday they were satisfied with the quality of the data transfer and stopped using them. Due to time constraints they did not have the opportunity to provide full training to staff, so 'on the job' training was performed. However, the manufacturing director states that all staff quickly picked up what they needed to. "The training materials provided electronically by 123 Insight were very useful. Ease of use is a big factor - after the experience of the previous system 123insight was fantastic; you can work your way through the entire system from the front screen rather than having to navigate in and back out of modules. Little things like predictive text on part numbers and company names are features that we never had before on what was a massively expensive system," said Webb.
After going live, CSI saw a dramatic change to their day-to-day processes. Webb noted: "We were suddenly able to do much more with our time. We're running at a much greater capacity with the same number of staff, and I would estimate that we could grow the business a further 25% without needing to increase staff numbers."
Paper usage across the business fell drastically. Previously purchase orders were printed in triplicate, and then often copied again on receipt of deliveries, but this has now been eradicated. Multiple deliveries are now often consolidated onto a single invoice. The need to print across the business has reduced to the extent that they have now scaled down from two printers to one in the office.
Stock control was also massively improved. CSI had visibility of all sales and purchase orders on the system, along with each item's stock/sales history, so they could make informed decisions about each purchase. Errors and stock inaccuracies were massively reduced, as information is entered just once, often with safeguards and predictive text, and is then followed through the system. Delivery dates from suppliers also improved as progress chasing was easier and CSI had better visibility of what parts were due/overdue.
Webb commented; "We're confident that by the end of the year we'll reduce our stockholding by 25% and almost eliminate stock inaccuracies. 123insight is far superior to any other MRP/ERP system I've used or seen. Had I come across 123insight in my previous role I would have changed and saved megabucks! Staff can now quickly give me the data that I need in the format I want. It gives us opportunities that numerous other ERP systems I've worked with didn't."
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