NTN Bearings UK has chosen RedPrairie’s Duty Management system to help improve its imports management.
The company, which is part of NTN Corporation – manufacturer of precision ball and roller bearings and automotive equipment – has reduced administration time by 80 per cent since installing the system.
Andrew Roberts, information & logistics manager, NTN, said: “We needed a solution that would manage the full declaration processes and calculations for all removals from our warehouse, including stock values, that is capable of handling up to 300,000 different part numbers.”
The system provides reliable and accurate data, better control over data, improved reporting and audit trails for Customs and helps ensure that only the exact duty and VAT due is paid.
This means that the day to day processing can now be handled by other staff, freeing the time of the department manager.
The project is part of NTN Europe’s major IT investment programme, implementing SAP across all European locations, as well as the development of new web-based applications and web sites.
“We used to handle all our removal transactions manually through a report generated from our sales system, and this was time consuming. The process took approximately 24 hours per month, and was prone to error due to the manual processes involved,” said Roberts.
The system also provides regular upgrades containing the latest HM Revenue & Customs legislation changes.
Future plans include developing the use of the system by adding extra functions to control imports and exports, and to automate the process further to save more administration time.
