Phoenix Mecano Ltd is part of the Phoenix Mecano AG Group of companies. It comprises Rose & Bopla, Dewert and Rose & Krieger in the UK. Rose & Bopla manufactures enclosure products in a variety of shapes, materials and sizes, which are supplied to the industrial injuries industry in the UK. Phoenix Mecano makes modifications to the Rose & Bopla enclosures, including drilling holes for cable entry, inputs, keypads, painting and shielding, plus some parts manufactured and assembled in the UK. The Dewert range comprises motors for motorised chairs and beds. Dewert is a high-volume manufacturer, whose goods are supplied direct to large chair and bed manufacturers in the UK. Rose & Krieger concentrates on supply and assembly system of profiles for positioning, mounting and guarding customers’ equipment. In 1999, the ompany realised that it needed to source a more flexible and functional business software package in order to improve the efficiency of its accounting and manufacturing operations.

SECTOR: Manufacturing/Distribution

CHALLENGE: Previously Phoenix Mecano had used a DOSbased software system.

SOLUTION: Microsoft Business Solutions–Navision including manufacturing functionality, exchange rate modules with added euro template and reporting.

BENEFITS:
• Email functionality and potential links to SAP
• More up-to-date, flexible Windows®-based solution
• Better drill-downs and links
• Internal electronic HTML data transfers within the Group of companies have been enhanced
• Internal office reports can be emailed directly to each sister company
• Facilitating a move towards a more paperless process

Phoenix Mecano’s UK headquarters in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire acts as the main sales arm for the Group’s products in the UK. It is also involved in a limited amount of production activity.
“We have a small efficient machine shop that modifies the enclosures for sale in the UK,” said Paul Burnham, Phoenix Mecano’s Financial Director. “A large machine shop in Germany handles the main manufacturing, relying on SAP as its core business process software system. Our decision to purchase Microsoft Business Solutions’ Navision business software solution in the UK was largely based on the highly flexible level of integration we could make to the SAP system.”

SOLUTION: Prior to implementation of Navision, Phoenix Mecano used a DOS-based Exact software system. “We felt we should move to a Microsoft Windows-based business software package to bring us more up to date,” said Burnham. “We looked at a number of products with our colleagues in Holland
and Germany. Originally our Dutch counterparts specified Navision Financials. We then looked at the market and liked the look of the Microsoft Navision product because of its additional functionality.
It was soon apparent that the software could do everything our old Exact system could do, and more, including email functionality and potential links to SAP “Microsoft Navision was initially chosen by us because its functionality and flexibility neatly linked in with the Phoenix Mecano Group strategy and structure,” said Burnham.

Implementation then began early in 2002. Our selected Solution Provider carried out a detailed requirements analysis during February, and spoke to members of staff about the operational details and functionality of Navision. “While on site, our Solution provider gained an understanding of how we operated and what we specifically wanted to achieve with regard to integrating with SAP etc,” said Burnham. They then prepared a comprehensive scoping document. “We used this document to build everything we needed into the package,” continued Burnham. We then placed the complete order for the system May and were scheduled to go live at the end of August. This was later adjusted to September due to internal issues.”

Our Solution provider handled the complete data transfer from the existing system. All the ledgers were moved over – nominal ledger, sales ledger, plus price groups and purchase ledger. “We spent a weekend transferring the data from our old system to Navision,” said Burnham. “The previous weekend had been spent conducting a trial run. Microsoft Navision then went live at 12 noon on the Monday 25 November 2002. The implementation period was slightly longer than the company had anticipated. “However, this was simply because of internal availability of our staff,” said Burnham. “The system was delivered on budget and there were no extra hidden costs in spite of the longer completion time.”

CONCLUSION: In the 3 years since Microsoft Navision went live, the company has enjoyed many new benefits. Internal electronic HTML data transfers within the group of companies have been enhanced. Also its internal office reports can be emailed directly to each sister company. “Our sister companies monitor
what we sell, and who we sell to. So we now have the ability to report seamlessly to their managers,” said Burnham.

Phoenix Mecano staff have been impressed by the user friendliness of Microsoft Navision overall. “Exact pushed you down to the right period for posting, and it guided you in terms of what should be done first, and what stages the user should follow,” said Burnham. “However, with Navision, the database is more open. You have the option to run everything from the data field on the screen that you’re inputting and determining in which period each piece of data needs to be logged. We had some initial errors with people keying in wrong dates, but this was during the first few days when staff were getting used to the system.”

Once seamless integration was completed and once staff had become more au fait, things became easier, partly because staff were already used to using a highly structured system. “The drill-downs are brilliant, as are the links,” said Burnham. “You can clearly see what you’re doing, and can truly rely on the system
rather than having to rely on pieces of paper on the desk relating to various orders. Printing out an order sheet while working on something else used to be a time consuming and inefficient way of working. Now we can just look at the monitor, drill down easily and action everything on screen. A move towards
a more paperless process is now very much part of our company culture.”

Burnham found that the Solution provider to be invaluable in modifying the manufacturing functionality within Microsoft Navision. “For example, the materials cutting processes we are involved in on a daily basis needs a system that can ensure optimum monitoring in terms of raw materials costs and off-cut wastage. The
cutting routine is one of our most crucial manufacturing-related operations. Rose & Krieger product comes in 6m bar lengths, which need to be accurately cut to UK customers’ requirements.

Before implementation of Microsoft Navision we didn’t know how much material we were cutting and how much material was being wasted. Now we are kept fully abreast.” The supplier’s staff were also actively involved in the customisation of several other modules. “The reporting package has taken longer to
come to terms with than anticipated, mainly because it offers a different approach to that of the previous system,” said Burnham. “But on the whole, because information can be so easily cut and pasted into Excel spreadsheets and report templates, this is not a major problem,” he continued.

Another piece of customisation involved Phoenix Mecano having to calculate the VAT exchange rate. “This is because we sell in euros in the UK,” said Burnham. “In the Government reporting functions there is a set rate that changes each month. And we have to enter the equivalent Sterling figure at the appropriate monthly rate. With Exact it was catered for by manual input, changing the print layouts every month. In Navision, however, there is an exchange rate mechanism, whereby we simply enter the exchange rate each month.” The standard Microsoft Navision package comes with exchange rate modules. However, the Solution Provider added a Euro Template for Phoenix Mecano because the new system needed to calculate sales and costs in euros in the UK. “When we invoice a UK company we can now invoice with euro at the correct UK Vat office exchange rate,” said Burnham.

“Microsoft Navision makes the process of changing prices related to the value of the euro and cost changes much easier and faster. You can simply key in the percentage adjustments and within a few minutes you can work with the updated figures.”

An intranet exists within the Group, and each company can receive invoices and confirmation orders from intra-Group companies via email through this medium. However, some paperwork remains an issue between the UK and German offices. Both sites are currently moving towards utilising email attachment functionality on both the Microsoft Business Solutions and SAP systems. “As well as moving towards a more paperless culture through the use of Navision, we are aiming for more direct deliveries from Germany as well,” said Burnham. “Rather than shipping from Germany to our Aylesbury site we hope soon to cut out the double-handling aspect of some of our operations and ship direct to customers.” Sister companies throughout the Group are currently implementing Microsoft Navision, and upgrades are currently taking place in Holland, Italy and France.

BEMAC's Offices in Letchworth

“Blue Rock was the only company that I could find that I had confidence in to do the job that we required, which was to provide a very complex and feature rich support/ maintenance Navision system. I was not disappointed. The result is a first class, highly configurable product.” – Gerry Pozzani, Barron McCann Projects Manager

Barron McCann’s broad experience is channelled through three specialist business units dealing with IT Services, Information Security and Electronic Payment Systems. The company has an annual turnover of approximately £20M and employs 350+ people spread across a nationwide network of offices and service
centres.

Barron McCann was a Navision Solution Centre in the late 1990’s and sill maintains its own internal development resource. It has been using Navision as its main business system since that time and decided in early 2000 that it should expand the system to include the management of many of its other activities and in particular service management.

After an extensive research into the service management system add-ons on the market coupled with a view of other alternative systems they decided to add the Blue Rock Integrated Maintenance Suite to their existing systems and deployed the system across their 4 sites and 120 users.
“The Integrated Maintenance System’s set of objects and functionality far out strips any other Navision service system we encountered at the time or in fact since” – Gerry Pozzani, Barron McCann Projects Manager

Blue Rocks consultants, system designers and programmers have extensive experience in the service maintenance sector having developed system for a wide range of clients of all different sizes. They brought this experience to bear in both assisting to define Barron McCann’s business systems and helping them
select which modules from the wide range of IMS modules available to add to their system.

Once the modules were selected, as is inevitable in an organisation as diverse as Barron McCann, customisations and enhancements specific to their business were defined and implemented.
Consultants from Blue Rock coordinated closely with Barron McCann’s own internal management and IT personnel and a Blue Rock Project Manager managed the system commissioning process very successfully and on schedule.

“The Integrated Maintenance System is now our core business system and manages almost all aspects of the business from stock control to automatically billing our maintenance contracts. The single database and integrated nature of the system gives us a transparent and up to the moment insight into the business
allowing us to effectively manage our operations” Barron McCann has a continually evolving set of requirements. It is usually the case that a new contract or sales opportunity will require some new set of functions or reporting ability to satisfy that contract. Blue Rock working with Barron McCann’s own IT teams has always managed to deliver whatever these requirements require quickly and very cost effectively. Such requirements have included electronic transmission of service jobs, customer portals,
specialist stock handling systems and call management systems.

“The system is great, but it’s not just about the system, The Blue Rock people are always prepared to go beyond the call of duty to get the job done. There have been many occasions when their people have stayed onsite to the early hours of the morning to make sure something was right. There is a strong
streak of perfectionism there.” “The Blue Rock people are extremely skilled at what they do, can focus quickly on any challenge we give them and their reply is invariably ‘Yes we can do it, when do you want it?’” – Gerry Pozzani, Barron McCann Projects Manager

Allan Durning, Chairman of NBG (left) with Blue Rock

One billion pounds a year turnover by 2012 is the ambitious target the Executive Chairman of the National Buying Group (NBG) has set for his organisation.

Just seven months into the job running the NBG, Allan Durning is starting to put the infrastructure into place with a six-figure investment in a new computer system for the organisation and its 69 members trading from more than 200 outlets in the UK.

This is the Group’s biggest ever investment and it will see its computer systems revolutionised and the information flows to both members and suppliers change beyond recognition.

Speaking at the signing of the contract with leading builders merchants software house Blue Rock Systems, Durning said software is key if the NBG is to achieve its goals.

“Our systems are starting to creek now we have reached £750 million annual turnover – they need replacing now if we are to achieve our goal of a billion within five years.

“Supplying our members will become both more challenging and beneficial for manufacturers and distributors in the future. Those suppliers who embrace the changes and invest in this Group innovation have a very rosy future dealing with NBG members. Some suppliers have been visionary enough to want to contribute to the cost of the system prior to the market launch!

“The National Buying Group is already the leading independent group for builders merchants and with the extra benefits from the NBG Trading Hub it will be another strategic reason for independent merchants to join this progressive Group.

“The NBG Trading Hub will allow members to concentrate on running their businesses, not running the IT system. It will give relevant information in a timely way – not just a dump of reams of meaningless computer printout!”

“But this major investment will do so much more for our members and our suppliers. Blue Rock is producing the NBG Trading Hub which will give our members, for the first time, the tools to maximise their profits.

The system devised by Blue Rock will be web based, meaning that the vast amounts of insecure emails and attachments members of the NBG are currently required to generate will be dramatically reduced.

The executive chairman said the process to select a suitable supplier for such a fundamental sea-change was painstaking: “It is the biggest ever investment by an independent group of this kind as far as we know and the selection of our technology partner was absolutely crucial.

“Blue Rock won the contract in the face of stiff opposition on the grounds of what its system can deliver, its ease of use, the company’s great knowledge and experience of the builders merchant industry and, of course, price.”

Dave Baker & Terri Ruff of CJS with Glen Jewell of Blue Rock (right to left)

17 years ago we met Dave Baker at CJS for an initial demonstration of the software we supplied. His opening statement was “Right, what have you come to show me, because it can’t be better than the system I’ve already got!”

Well as it turned out, it was. And 17 years on and several software upgrades later CJS are still driving forward and wherever possible using software and technology to improve the efficiency of the business and improve customer service.

“Whenever we have come against an operational problem within the company I have always considered software and systems as part of the solution. Other firms may throw man power at the problem but we didn’t see the logic in that”, stated Dave.

“We were one of the first companies of our size to introduce scanned proof of deliveries, our system was one of the first to calculate buying quantities and purchase orders automatically, as far as I am aware ours was the first to automatically fax recommended sales orders to our client base”.

17 years on and CJS have just gone “live” on the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics – Nav but to be honest, the software is irrelevant to either Terri Ruff (MD) or Dave Baker (who is now Chairman).

“We bought into the people, not the software” continues Terri. “We have stayed with the same team that installed our original system despite the fact that they moved company and now they run their own, successful business. We are more confident than ever that we made the right decision back in 1990”.

“They know our business and that has meant that not only do they understand our requirements but also make suggestions and comments on how to improve our lives, we trust them”.

So has the latest upgrade been successful?

“It’s been hard work and yes there has been a little disruption, but this we expected. Now that we are live we have noticed immediate increases in speed but more importantly routine tasks are much easier. For instance updating our twenty five thousand lines of contract price agreements (which is an annual event) took us weeks last year, this year it took me, on my own, 20 minutes with no entry errors at all!

If we put that one feature into pounds and pence, it has helped us save approximately £1,500 in labour costs and generated £8,000 in increased profits because the contracts are updated so quickly.” Dave concluded, with a smile on his face.