Heatex turns on the heat with integrated system

Electric process heaters and thyristor control systems manufacturer Heatex is expecting significant business benefits – including reductions in stock and work in progress – following implementation of a Syspro ERP system from K3. . The system, which went live late last year, is delivering real-time integration between the company’s two main sites in Watton and Wymondham, Norfolk, as well as internal departments. Heatex says it also expects to be able to improve customer service in terms of product configuration and speed of turning round quotes as a result of its new web applications. £10m turnover Heatex serves the oil, gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, marine and utility industries with standard and custom-engineered products. It had wanted to provide its new warehousing and distribution centre with access to the existing financials, sales, purchasing and inventory IT, but last summer the system had been unable to cope. There was duplicate data at the Watton plant, no access to the system at Wymondham and no real-time view of the business – not least because the ‘system’ was a bespoke collection of systems and spreadsheets involving considerable manual intervention. “We were impressed with the way K3 made the effort to understand our business, and that they didn’t make extravagant, unsubstantiated claims about their system,” says Heatex managing director Peter Smithers. “The new system will eliminate the re-keying and resultant duplication of data completely. That means we will have much improved management reporting and decision-making based on a standard set of KPIs,” he adds.