Fawcett Christie ERP roll-out nearly complete

Hydraulic components manufacturer Fawcett Christie, part of the Olaer group, is completing its global roll-out of Sage Line 500 ERP in Australia and the US. The firm is now looking at extensions for MRP for selected product groups in the UK, Italy and US, as well as SalesLogix CRM (customer relationship management) in Holland, while also extending its document management and electronic storage I the US, Italy, Holland and Belgium. The company, based in Flintshire, first implemented in the UK in 1998, replacing a heavily bespoked Tetra Chameleon sales and accounting system, and IT manager Ian Anderson says payback was so good, it became the corporate standard. He cites operational improvements, like inventory reductions down from £2m to £1.5m in the UK alone, and improved customer service as well as a low cost of ownership. Global roll-out began in 2003, with Olaer companies in Italy, Belgium and Holland replacing their systems, assisted by system integrator FD Systems of Cardiff. Olaer companies in Australia and the USA are scheduled to go live soon. Each implementation has been taking around six months, with templated solutions now running the full suite more or less ‘out of the box’, according to Anderson. Line 500 is being installed on Intel platforms running Windows 2003 Server edition and Microsoft SQL Server. “It’s been extremely cost-effective,” says Anderson. “Thanks to a corporate license, the cost-per-seat is sharply lower. We’re also saving money on pre-printed stationery, by outputting documents to plain-paper laser printers.”