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EXACT JOBBOSS KEEPS WORLD WIDE FITTINGS ON SCHEDULE
25 July 2007
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When supplying products that are an integral part of a larger solution, the key element is reliability. For World Wide Fittings UK, part of an international Group providing hydraulic pipe fittings to major construction equipment Manufacturers, such as Cat, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of order delivery is entrusted to the Exact JobBOSS MRP system.
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JobBOSS
ensures all scheduled orders are prepared and ready for distribution when and
where they are needed, maintaining customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention.
World Wide Fittings Corporation was formed in the US in 1950 and has dedicated itself to service, quality and engineering performance in the manufacture and distribution of hydraulic pipe fittings. The company supplies over 150,000,000 pipe fitting components annually to both international markets. World Wide Fittings UK was formed in 1998 to provide UK and European customers with access to its vast inventory and superior service, allow customers to purchase several product lines from a single quality source, reducing their vendor base, freight costs, and purchasing/accounting costs.
Steve Evans, Operations Manager for World Wide Fittings UK, comments, “We have an unrivalled reputation for delivering quality products to the right place at the right time. Around 90% of our orders are scheduled up to 11 months in advance, so we are able generate an accurate picture of inventory demands and goods handling requirements. However, with sourcing taking around four months from our overseas manufacturing facility, we need to ensure we have enough stock on hand to support our customers’ scheduled and ad hoc requirements. When it comes to fulfilling orders, we have to be 100% accurate every time, there are no valid excuses in this business.”
To support its business, World Wide Fittings turned to Leicester-based Exact Manufacturing Systems to provide an MRP software solution. Steve Evans explains, “Initially we were fairly small and wanted a system at a reasonable cost that could work off the shelf. As we grew, our need to gain more control over an increasingly complex supply chain also grew. The Alliance MRP worked very well for us, particularly its capability to handle the scheduled orders. However, more recently we have seen the need to further increase our supply chain control and picking accuracy by adding automatic ID technology within the warehouse. This was not built into Alliance so we decided to look at Exact’s additional offering, JobBOSS.”
Exact JobBOSS is a powerful yet easy-to-use software tool that allows companies to efficiently schedule shop floor or warehouse activities and use all work centres to their most productive capacity. It provides instant access to up-to-date information on current activity throughout the warehouse, including job details and the order routing. With JobBOSS, companies always know the status of a job within the warehouse, including production status, cost variables and shipping schedules.
JobBOSS was implemented at World Wide Fittings in December 2006 and the company is already seeing key operational benefits. “We have started with bar code scanners in the warehouse, which we are using to identify inbound goods, picking and despatch. The information gathered by the scanners is integrated with JobBOSS so that the main scheduling system is immediately updated. This gives us much greater visibility within the warehouse and has already increased our control and accuracy over all aspects of order fulfilment,” says Steve Evans.
He continues, “When we receive orders and order schedules from our customers, this information is input directly into JobBOSS. The system automatically calculates all the elements required to accurately fulfil this order, from ensuring we have the stock available, to picking right through to delivery. It is also integrated with our Sage accounting system so it can automatically generate delivery notes and invoices. The system allows us to see the real-time status of each order and lets us drill-down through each item to ensure we have complete visibility and control over the entire process. These automated and streamlined processes significantly increase our productivity and are helping us to generate greater profitability through more efficient operations.”
Having this level of information readily available and easily accessible provides World Wide Fittings with a new dimension of control over its business. “JobBOSS allows us to see the costs of parts, assembly and labour throughout the supply chain, which means we can identify the costs of each process. We can quickly establish the profitability of each product line and where there is potential to increase margins. As an ISO 9001-2000 registered company, ensuring quality throughout our processes is of paramount importance and JobBOSS is really helping us do this,” he adds.
Exact JobBOSS has also transformed World Wide Fittings’ telesales operation, as Steve Evans explains, “When we put something like a part number into the system, it can immediately tell us everything we need to know about it, such as product description, location and quantity. We can then drill down into the part to establish the vendor and costs as well as the specific pricing and discount structures for customers. This gives telesales a massive advantage in terms of having hugely relevant and accurate information on hand and available to inform customers. It also means we don’t allocate stock to new customers that has already been scheduled for other customers. It is a very powerful system that significantly improves our relationship and service to our customers.”
World Wide Fittings has also been happy with the support it has received from Exact. “The people at Exact have been very helpful, knowledgeable and supportive. They understand our business and have been able to deliver a system that is in tune with our requirements. They have also always been available to ensure we are well trained to use the system and have had the back-up and support we have needed to ensure we get the most from it.”
Steve Evans concludes, “We are still very much in the early stages of using JobBOSS and really are only taking advantage of a fraction of its capabilities. However, we understand that the most important element is to plan out the solution and make sure that the software meets the demands and requirements of our specific processes. JobBOSS is excellent at making sure we do this by imposing best practices on our operations and helping us to drive efficiency throughout the organisation. We are already benefiting from less re-entering of data and much faster and accurate movement of goods in, out and through the warehouse and are looking forward to driving many more benefits in the future.”
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