Warehousing 15
applications that can accommodate
new process requirements that support
multiple customer needs, as the business
changes and grows with time. There is
also a growing requirement for WMS that
provide complete real-time inventory
visibility for all the facilities in the supply
network, regardless of their location or size
and which provides the ability to manage
standardized processes across the whole
extended fulfillment network, regardless
of the processes employed in individual
faculties. Consider a retail store and the
challenge of capturing real-time inventory
status. This is demanding within a single
store, let alone networking all stores’ WMS
together and then creating a true “visibility
web” by connecting all store WMS to all
distribution centres’ WMS.
Selecting the right WMS is therefore no
longer a case of ticking the boxes based
on ad-hoc requirements or standard Whereas some businesses may still see and invest in more advanced, future
warehouse practices, but a critical WMS as a short-term means to improve proofed WMS features will be best placed
decision that needs to be assessed in the supply chain efficiency and reduce costs, to reap the benefits offered by new
wider context of your long-term business those that take a view of their logistics market opportunities such as the growing
goals and supply chain execution strategy. operations as a competitive differentiator multichannel retail sector.
From Hard Iron to Software users liked the dashboard feature and we started getting requests
from every department for custom dashboards. We have around 40
Since the 1920s, Thomas Dudley Ltd has been manufacturing high users but probably about 50 different custom dashboards and this
quality grey and SG (Spheroidal Graphite) iron castings at their fully demand was driven entirely by coming to terms with the flexibility of
mechanized foundry in Dudley in the West Midlands. Although UK the new system and requesting a dashboard to suit a particular job
manufacturing has suffered during recent years, Thomas Dudley has role or task.”
been seen by many as a shining example of how UK manufacturing By the start of 2006, with the data migration complete and in-
can still compete in a global market by aggressively adopting new tensive user training under way, Boyes’ team started to implement a
technology and business practices. number of innovative ideas based on the power of the new software.
The introduction of the new ERP system in 2006 and the move One such project was a Web services-based automated quality
away from UNIX to Windows presented an opportunity to re-engineer control system that weighed a finished assembly and parts layout,
business processes at Thomas Dudley. “We had been using Tetra for digitally photographed and catalogued the image to a correspond-
more than 6 years and the sheer volume of data and complexity of ing file, before booking it into stock and adding it to a customer
the structure was quite daunting,“ explained Simon Boyes, Business consignment — all at the push of a single button at the manufactur-
Systems Manager for Thomas Dudley, “and migration was not like ing station. “Because we were now working in a standard Windows
for like but was complicated by the new data required to implement environment with built-in SQL and XML capabilities, we were able to
advanced features in Epicor for Manufacturing.” Last year was a busy integrate data capture and process into a single system.”
one for Boyes and his team: “We designed new processes, migrated In another project, Thomas Dudley created an automated
data from Tetra to Epicor, tested it and more often than not, had to electronic transaction system for one of its major customers using
tweak the conversion process and migrate it again. Then once one XML via FTP uploads to manage stock levels, reordering and manu-
area was done, we would move onto the next and repeat the process.” facturing planning. “We have 14 projects currently under way that
One of the most powerful new features is the dashboard that utilize the new functionality to streamline or improve a process and in
allows each user to have a completely customizable view suited some cases to radically change how we deal with a task or customer
to their operational needs. As Boyes explained: “For example, a relationship — all with the aim of reducing cost or improving the
foundry planner’s dashboard is completely different to a plastic pro- interaction with our suppliers or service we offer to our customers.”
duction planner’s dashboard. We were surprised by how much the For further information, please visit www.epicor.com.
Launch 2007 Supply Chain Digital
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