Automotive supplier presses on with ERP solution

APS’s factory in Hockley, Birmingham is set up for high volume batch production and 80% of its business is in the manufacture of parts for Tier One automotive companies supplying the likes of Toyota, Land Rover, Range Rover, Nissan and Ford. Conforming to increasingly demanding industry standards had been hampered by the limitations of its 14 year old computer system. So in preparing for assessment to the latest ISO/TS16949 automotive standard, APS decided to implement the new system. The company produces mandatory daily reports for quality control and it is in the area of reporting that Paul Smith, director of APS, is expecting significant gains. “I expect the system will save us a week a month just in the preparation of management reports,” he says. “Currently we have 10 or 12 managers each spending two hours or more every month preparing reports on Excel spreadsheets, and manually checking prices and stock movements. This will all be automated in the Access system using Crystal Reports and, as well as saving time, it will eliminate the potential for error,” he says. With real-time financial reporting, the company will also be able to respond fast to changes in the business situation, while at a day-to-day level, automated e-mailing of purchase orders will save two or three daily trips to fax machine by purchasing staff. Says Smith: “We didn’t need a detailed cost analysis to justify the investment in the Access system. I think we will see massive savings in the first year and we’ll recover the cost very quickly.”