UK’s largest kitchen supplier goes live with SAP

David Hallett, Howdens CIO, says the system is also improving business efficiencies and providing a platform for growth, as anticipated. He explains that the firm had previously run its manufacturing controls on VMS systems that were more than 20 years old. They were no longer supporting operations and some were out of maintenance, he says. Since an earlier version of SAP was already being used in finance, the company went for SAP ECC 6.0 for manufacturing, reports Hallett. "SAP is now fully integrated within the business from the back office to the shop floor," he says. "The implementation has been a huge success, which I believe is because of the lack of changes we made to the solution, and employees have taken to the change in system easily and quickly." Hallett explains that the project was phased, with the first stage involving implementing SAP at one of Howdens' factories in East Yorkshire. The firm went for an almost vanilla implementation, and Hallett says that, once it was clear that business benefits were being delivered, Howdens rolled out the solution across all manufacturing operations. "We now have full control of exactly what is being manufactured and the SAP solution helps us control our waste and improve our service. This has a positive impact on profits and service, is more environmentally friendly and with our cost savings and robust platform we can continue to grow," comments Hallett.