Dark engineers see the light with Vero Software

"It's the only production control software we use," says Dark's technical director Simon Latham, commenting on the e2i system, which, he says, handles everything from initial enquiry, through production, to delivery and payment. Radan and e2i, both from the Vero Software stable, have been instrumental in helping the business to grow successfully in just two years despite difficult economic times. "The Shop Floor Data Capture feature is particularly valuable, and will become even more so when we've got full barcoding in operation throughout the factory," states Latham. The e2i support team worked with Dark to link one barcoding station to the software. "We're going to integrate three more and then start back-costing to ensure we're making money where we think we are," says Latham. "Shop Floor Data Capture will record the actual time spent on each operation of a particular job. If we think a job takes ten minutes on a machine, we charge for ten minutes, so if it takes 12 minutes we need to know." And he adds that the system is already successfully taking care of everything from purchasing, to accounts, goods in, sales and administration, as well as engineering BoMs. "We produce a full route card for every job, whether it has just one operation on the shop floor, or a number of operations. Every drawing has its individual spec number which is stored against the part on e2i," explains Latham. "We print materials picking lists from e2i, so when we generate the route card we also use the drop-down menu to get the bill of materials and picking list." And turning to production, he adds: "e2i ensures our whole process from inputting the estimate through to sending the invoice is seamlessly integrated."