Industries

Hill's Panel Products (HPP) needed a truly integrated financials and logistics solution in order to manage the growth of their business activities.

By implementing the Distribution and Manufacturing module, HPP have switched to utilising Sales Orders for their production planning. The switch has resulted in the ability to manage complex orders much more efficiently, removing the need for a huge number of Bills of Materials.

A single Sales Order may include diverse items from across their product range. For example, fittings from the fittings warehouse; cut and edged panels in standard and non-standard sizes; board supplied full sheet or cut, part-finished or not, and a variety of door types. Using additional fields functionality enables them to record such information as components, styles, door production information, etc.

HPP run their own transport and distribution operations. Load planning is a vital issue for them due to their extremely varied range of products and extensive customer list. De Facto ERP enables them to manage load order and drop order with maximum efficiency.

HPP opted for De Facto’s Business Intelligence system in order to gain information from their shop floor which is linked to data already stored in their De Facto ERP. Previously having to use a standalone product to pull information together, HPP are now able to use BI to easily measure which product groups occupy the most manufacturing resources. Utilising the BI module has enabled HPP to significantly cut costs in this area.
 
Since the implementation, HPP are also able to build extremely quick ad-hoc reports that can run without taxing the performance of their servers as all the data cubes that collate the information are refreshed to schedule overnight. 

Operating multiple product-specific warehouse areas within their sites, communication and effective management of resources is vital. Warehouse Management System (WMS) filters enable the viewing and utilisation of only those products particular to an individual functional area of a warehouse.

Having enabled the staff to manage their own operations at their own level, the full range of items in the Sales Order is then brought back into view for transport planning purposes. 

The De Facto WMS solution has had multiple benefits for HPP. Previously manual processes are now entirely electronic based with considerable automation. Production has become more efficient, along with load and drop planning. Changes in business processes have been implemented, enabling the switch from 'made for stock' to 'made to order', with consequent gains in efficiency and turnaround.

Having already witnessed dramatic improvements in the way their business operates thanks to De Facto ERP, Hill's Panel Products (HPP) was confident that De Facto would make a success of their website too.

The new online presence would need to be impressive enough to make HPP stand out in a competitive market – and the website that De Facto’s Online Services team delivered achieved exactly that. 

Our web developers and designers went above and beyond expectations, producing an outstanding website that has proved exceptionally profitable for the company.

One of the key aspects that sets HPP’s website apart is its unique ‘builders’. These allow any customer to design a bespoke product in a step-by-step fashion. The system then cleverly produces a pictorial representation of what the final product will look like, based on the customer’s precise requirements.

For example, HPP’s easy-to-use sliding door builder gives customers the freedom to pick the exact measurements, shape, finish and a variety of other specific details for their sliding door. The customer’s vision is then realised in front of them as the system presents an image of their finished dream door.

The builders provide customers with a memorable, enjoyable experience not available on your average E-Commerce website.

Meanwhile, seamless integration with De Facto ERP facilitates the smooth flow of data between the website and the core database. Information regarding sales orders, customer details and order histories is updated on a real-time basis, ensuring no time is wasted on duplicate data entry – allowing HPP staff to better use their valuable hours elsewhere.

The website has been a big hit with HPP and their customers alike, causing a significant shift in terms of the percentage of revenue generated online. Since it went live, more than 6,500 orders have gone through the new website and HPP’s turnover this September was four times as much as turnover at the same time last year.

Staying ahead in the food industry requires strict awareness of stock to ensure products are available for despatch when required. Rapid turnaround and effective distribution management are a must and, seeing the flexibility and reliability of our comprehensive business software, Kestrel Foods chose us in order to achieve success in the food market.
 
Kestrel Foods have experienced the advantages of stock tracking, providing them with a crucial understanding of their stock position and commitments, significantly improving their picking and distribution efficiencies, ensuring the customer gets the right product at the right time.

Kestrel Foods are based in Northern Ireland and have a significant volume of overseas sales, mainly with the UK. The flexible Accounting module facilitates buying and selling internationally with its multiple currencies consolidation - making trading in Sterling, Euros and other currencies a more simple process.

The level of financial reporting available within De Facto both as standard and within configurable Financial Statements clearly benefits Kestrel Foods when running their business on an international level, from both a Purchasing and Sales perspective.

As a supplier to many large supermarkets, high visibility in production planning is crucial to Kestrel’s success in this competitive market. The system’s powerful features allows Kestrel to plan their production weeks in advance and, through increased product visibility, accurate delivery estimates are ensured as a result.  
 
Product tracking handles batch control with ease, meaning the company can critically identify specific ingredients within any final product in the case of product recalls, which can often occur when supplying to supermarkets.  
 
Before the implementation of De Facto ERP’s production module, Kestrel Foods had no true costs of their finished products. With production a major activity, identifying each and every process involved in this phase is essential to determine the true cost of final products. The system crucially handles the costing of each process within production and, as a result, Kestrel have been able to achieve accurate cost control, enabling them to see true margins.
 
Labour Booking has provided Kestrel a flexible standard facility to book labour to works orders, identifying labour costs, factory cleaning and maintenance, product checking, bagging up and any other labour processes involved in production. Kestrel can apply operations inputs into their Bill of Materials, which can then have labour booked against them during works order processing.

During its expansion, the company soon discovered that they had outgrown their existing business software and needed a system which would give them more accurate stock levels and an effective handling of production.
 
Planet Eclipse’s business involves the importation of high numbers of relatively low cost stock units from all over the world. As such, the cost of actually getting the units into the UK and to their warehouses is a significant element of their business costs. De Facto ERP has sophisticated features to handle Landed Costs. The flexible system can handle a limitless number of cost elements, typically covering transport / freight, insurance, duty and any other charges related to the goods, allowing for proper FOB and CIF values to be calculated. It also handles a wide variety of Unique Taxes, such as VAT, excise tax, duties, port charges and so on.

As different countries use different baseline Units of Measure to calculate some of these charges, De Facto ERP will automatically convert one unit of measure to another where necessary.

Planet Eclipse approached De Facto with specific system feature requirements for their accounting. Supplying outside of the UK, they were unique in that they needed to run a UK and a US structure on one system.

The flexibility within the De Facto Accounting system has alowed the building of these configurations into the system and Planet Eclipse are able to run both structures on one system. 

Planet Eclipse are a particularly manufacturing focused company. Sourcing components for their innovative paintball machinery from Thailand and other locations in the Far East, effective cost control was an essential requirement in the search for the right ERP software and for the success of their business.
 
The implementation of De Facto’s Production module has the allowed the company to plan ahead efficiently. Products are custom made to the client’s requirements, and the planning feature enables the effective management of colour sorting based on actual demand, nearer to the time of distribution.
 
Planet Eclipse has experienced better cost management as an overall benefit of the powerful Production module. The ability to monitor pricing of components and materials has enabled the company to assess the profitability of their products and see the true cost of finished products as well as margins. Improved levels of productivity have resulted in a recent re-location to a larger warehouse. 

Peakdale Molecular were experiencing major batch control problems. With a business that largely centres around producing batches of molecular chemicals, accurate and efficient batch control recording is of the utmost importance.
 
They produce large numbers of variants at a time, each of which is in some way unique. Without any modifications, De Facto ERP was able to give Peakdale the levels of stock traceability and batch traceability that are core to their business.
 
De Facto ERP was also able to deliver the efficient handling of variable units of measure, as the volumes of their compounds produced are not known in advance. Peakdale are able to manage all the unique aspects of producing screening compounds and intermediates, with the standard software.

A Document Management System was deployed at Peakdale to improve their Purchase Invoicing procedures and reduce time spent on manual filing.

Each purchase invoice received has a small barcode attached. As the invoice is processed into the Purchase Ledger module, the original paperwork from suppliers is then loaded 'en mass' into a scanner and the scanned image of the relevant invoice is automatically associated with the transaction within De Facto for future reference.