When rapid expansion of its manufacturing facility created a need for improved communication between sales, production and despatch, Visual Planet, innovators in visual messaging, invested in WinMan.NET, an enterprise resource planning system. Visual Planet has customised the system so that business critical information is displayed on screens throughout its building and information updated in real time.

Technology Director Vernon Spencer explains that increased volumes of sales and sizes of orders prompted the decision to upgrade the management system.

"Visual Planet has experienced rapid growth over the last few years due to an international demand for our interactive touch foils. These are manufactured in-house and then shipped all over the world for our partners to integrate into through-window touch applications or to overlay on LCD and rear projection screens," he comments.

"Developing these foils is a skilled operation and resource intensive, so we have trained up a dedicated team of staff that are only involved in the manufacturing process and have less awareness of the bigger picture. This was creating communication issues as the sales team need timely information on order progress and capacity.

"We analysed the bottle-necks in the organisation and the solutions that were available and selected WinMan as it met our immediate requirements and could scale as we grow."

WinMan from SSL WinMan has an intuitive interface and provides full integration of stock management, relationship management, product traceability and workflow. Additionally, being built completely on .NET technology, WinMan represented a prudent long-term investment by being future proof and also offering a secure development route. The system automatically issues alerts and action requests at pre-determined process points for input from anywhere in the company which ensures that in a market where nothing less than the highest levels of quality are acceptable, every process step has to be completed and recorded.

Visual Planet has created internal communication systems for its clients in the manufacturing sector. For example for GRAM Advanced Materials Ltd (GRAM), a wholly owned subsidiary of RICOH, it created a 'Visual Factory' which showed staff how their work was contributing to profitability. This experience has meant that Visual Planet was able to integrate WinMan with its visual messaging technology. As a result the system provides all staff with the information they need, when they need it, improving efficiency and productivity at all levels of the company.

Vernon concludes: "We are delighted with the result. The sales and production teams have commented that they can instantly see how their efforts are contributing to the success of the company and we now have a system that will grow with us."