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By comparison , Perry contacted 123Insight ’ s reseller in Northern Ireland , QMS Insight , and attended an Evaluation Workshop . He found the format a complete opposite to the other systems he had reviewed ; “ There was no hard sell . Most other companies were promoting their systems with dashboards , whereas I was more interested in system functionality , which is what they showed me .”

The decision was made to move ahead with 123Insight , which was made easier as funding was granted from InvestNI , covering 40 % of the training and implementation costs .

Perry preferred 123Insight ’ s subscription over the traditional up-front purchase ; “ Some people see a one-off purchase as being beneficial . In my experience , this is not the way to do it . As 123Insight ’ s subscription also includes upgrades as well as support , there have been numerous benefits that we ’ ve seen since . With a traditional system we wouldn ’ t have got the updates unless we paid for them . Skipping updates can also be counter-productive , as it can be more painful to upgrade .”

Having implemented ERP in previous manufacturing companies , Perry had a good understanding of what needed to be done . He and one other person set about examining their data and processes and worked with QMS Insight on an implementation plan . He also mapped out all their processes and workflows on paper . Perry said : “ The experience I took from a previous implementation was that it was all about ensuring your data was in good shape . Using 123Insight ’ s Data Import Toolkit , I knew the format that the data needed to be in , so we set about cleaning it , ensuring that we only took in relevant information . QMS Insight was also very proactive in making sure that we understood everything correctly . Once you have all your processes working on paper the transition to a system is so much easier . The added benefit of 123Insight is that it ’ s easy to see the relationship between the key modules , such as customer / supplier database , stock , SOP , POP , WOP and BOMs . The speed at which new data could be set up and the visibility through the various reports was excellent .”

The company went live just two months after selecting 123Insight . Despite the company relying on many legacy systems for years , the transition to the new way of working was quickly and universally accepted ; “ We had four staff involved in the go-live process , and from the first minute they were very enthusiastic . It made things so much easier . It was unbelievable .”

Immediately , the company saw greater visibility and control across all areas . The process of generating purchase and works orders drastically reduced . Perry noted : “ Before 123Insight , I had two people each spending 39 hours a week raising works orders and purchase orders . I can do that myself now in two hours on a Monday morning .”

Once purchasing was under control , stock holding was the next area that benefitted . As a result of more strategic purchasing , better visibility of forward orders and parts history and only ordering what they needed , BPE was able to reduce stock by 25 %. Perry said : “ BPE always maintained a tight control of cash flow but because of lack of visibility in the existing system , inefficiencies were inevitable . If someone orders 100 , we ’ d make 105 . With 123Insight , everything became more discreet and all the inefficiencies went away . As a result , we were able to take away a lot of excess inventory . With better forward visibility this also helped our suppliers , as we were no longer placing small orders with urgent lead times . We never previously performed stock takes , so outages were commonplace . Stock wasn ’ t controlled , so if an operator needed more material due to a scrapped part , he ’ d just take it . Every day there were problems . Now , once a week would be a worst case scenario . Overall , our stock accuracy is always above 98 % now .”

Perry also liked 123Insight ’ s ability to consolidate items . It allows demand to be grouped into a single purchase order , based

Previous page : Brian Perry , Operations Director , Boyce Precision Engineering

WITH A TRADITIONAL SYSTEM WE WOULDN ’ T HAVE GOT THE UPDATES UNLESS WE PAID FOR THEM . SKIPPING UPDATES CAN ALSO BE COUNTER- PRODUCTIVE , AS IT CAN BE MORE PAINFUL TO UPGRADE .