Interconics Contract Electronics ERP Video Case Study

00:00:06 - 00:00:33 "As a contract electronics manufacturer, we deal in ever-changing bills of materials from customers. WinMan has a particularly nice function of maintaining a core part number but then allowing you to record multiple revisions of that part number. In addition to that, those bills of materials have hundreds of thousands of parts that you need to have traceability on: where did you buy it, what have you used it on? Quite often we need to provide that information to our customers."

00:00:40 - 00:01:09 "We're a group of companies supplying products to the electronics industry, specifically to original equipment manufacturers. When the business acquired Interconics, we had a decision to make about which business system we wanted to use. The Techpoint Group already uses WinMan within one of its businesses, and so we looked at the benefits from standardising on a single platform and where that would advance both the business we're using it for, but also from a group level."

00:01:10 - 00:01:34 "Particularly, we looked at things like the ease of implementation, consolidation of reporting, consolidation of accounts, and sharing of databases across the businesses. Especially where we had functions that were centrally based, it would allow them to operate on a centralised model even though the business systems were decentralised."

00:01:35 - 00:01:59 "We already had a model set up for how we wanted to define chart of accounts, products, and bills of materials, so we were able to implement that very quickly. What that also allowed us to do is focus on the bits that were different here and how we needed to tweak the system to accommodate local requirements while still supporting group reporting."

00:02:00 - 00:02:28 "We're always looking to how we can improve the business. WinMan is quite critical to that because it gives us the data of how we're performing and which areas to focus on for the elimination of waste. The system has full MRP capability, so we can see full demand, run scheduled orders, and run forecast orders. At any time, we're in full control of stock and our future commitments."

00:02:29 - 00:02:51 "Traceability is a big thing for our AS9100 aerospace accreditation. WinMan's ability to track a component from initial purchase right through the system, from a finished board right back to the supplier, allows us to provide that traceability to our customers."

00:02:52 - 00:03:15 "We use an MES system to track what's going on on the machines and what times they're taking. Our next stage is to combine our MES data with our WinMan system so we can see what's going on on the shop floor, allowing us to make daily, if not hourly, decisions on how we run the factory."

00:03:16 - 00:03:54 "WinMan supports lean operation by automating manual processes like creating shipments and invoices. The next stage is looking at the procurement side. We're going to utilise WinMan's API capabilities to link through to a specialised electronic component sourcing product. We can generate the purchase orders and controls we need within WinMan without manual key entry."

00:03:55 - 00:04:30 "As Chief Operations Officer, I've got to look at how we scale as we take on new acquisitions. The real benefit with WinMan is that it's a product I can roll out irrespective of the size of the business. It has the functionality to support a small five-man team as much as a 100-person team. Having WinMan as our central ERP means I can access information and make judgements very quickly.