Clevedon Fasteners holds onto success

The company went live 18 months ago with SSL WinMan’s WinMan.Net ERP solution, replacing disparate legacy systems based on old technology and designed for a very small company. Interestingly, the company had been trialing a larger system from “a leading ERP developer” but, as managing director Steve Hardeman explains: “We liked the power and flexibility we saw in WinMan.” And he adds: “We didn’t want a system that couldn’t grow with us, or required costly and time consuming requests for minor customising. WinMan provided the best starting place and the best path forward.” Clevedon says it is now experiencing substantial benefits, most notably in stock control, stock visibility and manufacturing visibility. Hardeman explains that with the former systems, it could take more than a day for a quotation to be re-entered as an order. “Now, with WinMan it’s instantaneous: just the push of a button. And because it uses the same data, we avoid all the data entry errors that were possible before.” Clevedon now reports that it has a completely reliable and accurate data, accessible to everyone across the company. It says that this has also helped bring a much greater sense of cohesion between departments, with everybody now much more informed about the value not just of their own role in the company, but how their role impacts on the ability of others to do their best. And Hardeman adds that this visibility has also led directly to efficiency gains in terms of the company’s production planning and manufacturing. As many different products begin with the same raw item, which then has subsequent processes applied, the company now achieves much more optimal batch sizes and flow routing, he says. Moreover, due to the very high volumes of parts manufactured, there is always a degree of variance between parts projected and parts produced that can lead to stock control issues. As Hardeman explains: “With WinMan, not only can we manually adjust the actual amount made, we can do so in a fully traceable way which provides valuable information into any areas in the company where further efficiency gains could be made.”