WRTL set to see the light

Outdoor street and amenity lighting manufacturer WRTL, based in Tipton, West Midlands, is to move its business onto £100,000 worth of Geac (formerly JBA) StreamLine enterprise (ERP) software – the firm’s low end NT offering – with an Eden Origin front end product configurator on top. Go live is expected in July. WRTL chose the system with help from the National Computing Centre. It has bought the integrated financials, distribution and manufacturing modules, initially for 25 users, essentially to streamline management of its operations across Europe in what is a price and time deadline sensitive industry. It’s particularly interesting on two fronts. First, this is going to be a good size implementation of Streamline in the UK, looking after a reasonably large, all round, but uncomplicated manufacturing and business requirement. The company expects its user base to expand. Second, it’s another good testing ground for what’s fast becoming a de facto standard for configurators in the SME manufacturing sector – the rules-based Eden system and its interface into packaged ERP. WRTL stipulated that it needed the flexibility to build its own quotation and project models. With Eden’s knowledge-based interface, the firm can configure the sales order front end with new fields and criteria specific to it without having to customise deep into system code. Commercial director Brian Watson says: “Choosing the right software is an important business decision. StreamLine and Eden will be the platform for our future growth.” He also expects this to include e-commerce “when the business is ready to do so” – a clear hint that the company will extend the Eden Origin system for web-based product configuration by its customers.