Silflex first to prove Syspro Preactor ERP/APS combo

Automotive silicone hoses manufacturer Silflex is an early user. The firm says it has solved production bottlenecks and inventory control problems caused by its vast range and the rapid growth of its SamcoSport brand. The company went for Syspro with Preactor APS from McGuffie Brunton, and the result has been significant reductions in lead-times alongside improvements in production efficiency and effective capacity. Silflex IT manager Andrew Lloyd says that with Syspro ERP in the driving seat, the company has been ablee to move over to MRP for its branded products, and get the order consolidation and inventory visibility it needed. Preactor then enabled it to take care of its significant production variety and bottlenecks. “With our almost unique production processes we had to schedule an intensively manual process with concurrent jobs being worked on, and secondary constraints,” says Lloyd. But now, once the MRP is run on Syspro, new works order data is fed to Preactor, which automatically schedules the new jobs, applying rules based on all key constraints. It then produces updated and optimised production plans with their planned start and end times. “As well as eliminating what was previously a slow, labour intensive and ultimately often ineffective planning task, the reports produced by the APS system now enable us to easily review jobs, often well in advance of their start date, that might potentially become late. We can identify jobs that are contending for the same tooling, and determine the manning levels we require,” says Lloyd. “We are seeing significant improvements in lead time and delivery adherence, and the better batching and sequencing of the right jobs through production has also resulted in efficiency improvements,” he adds. Howard Joseph, sales director of Syspro UK owner McGuffie Brunton, comments: “The ability to deliver a standard scheduling and planning tool is something that is frequently requested. While the existing Syspro APS product had its merits, it was too heavy a tool for most users and required a very high degree of customisation and implementation. “Preactor gives us a world class, scaleable product which has great backing and an excellent reputation. With the commitment from Syspro to maintain and develop the integration I am sure we will see a significant take-up.” Pat McCarthy, director and general manager of Syspro distributor K3 adds: “K3 has long been a partner of Preactor and this step to fully integrate Preactor with Syspro is integral to our APS strategy. It further enhances the range of solutions K3 is able to provide, from simple graphic scheduling to sophisticated APS, shopfloor control and quality tracking.”