Hozelock’s IT journey to be unraveled

This year's stellar two-day Manufacturing Business IT Conference, organised by Works Management, will kick off with an inspirational keynote from Simon Noakes, operations director at West Midlands-based Hozelock. Opportunities like this don't come along every day. Noakes, whose team has been responsible for enviable cost savings, and business efficiency and agility improvements, says he intends to detail key success factors. That's all the way from the rationale and execution of Hozelock's QAD MfgPro ERP implementation to the story behind its Kronos activity management software installation. Delegates, he says, will hear that this company's adoption of IT is part of a major continuous improvement initiative at its Birmingham site. Specifically on the shopfloor, he will explain the benefits since installing Barco Dextralog systems on its extrusion and moulding machines – including improved cycle times, driving TPM (total productive maintenance) and assisting with investment decisions. But he will also describe how Hozelock notched up equivalent successes with people and production processes. We're talking about a firm that is underpinning serious improvements not only in workforce flexibility, but also manufacturing performance – with expected but also unexpected and equally valuable achievements that might set pulses racing. Other headline speakers include: Mark Goodwin, IT director at Coba International; Sarah Cobb, business systems director at Filtrona Group; Steve Ching, IT manager, Hansatech; and John Routledge, IT manager, Drallim Industries. Each promises stories that will inform the thinking of ERP teams with upgrades or migration projects. There's nothing quite like hearing it from the horse's mouth. Nothing, that is, except seeing for yourself: which is why delegates will also be taken to world-class local factories to see excellent manufacturing business systems in action. On the list are: Dunlop Systems & Components, Hozelock itself, Newall and Worcester-based Southco. And if that's not enough, WM is laying on learning sessions, with 'deep dives' into implementing systems appropriate to several mixes of manufacturing/business styles. Being staged in the West Midlands on Wednesday 20 and Thursday 21 June 2012, the event is aimed at team leaders and project teams running, or about to run, ERP, supply chain and production system implementations, migrations and upgrades. For more information, go to:.www.wmmc.co.uk/it.