Kingsland Wines & Spirits, who manufacturers and supplies labels to major UK supermarkets, has invested £100,000 in its System21 enterprise resource planning software.
The investment has been made with Geac, a global enterprise software company, to help the company take full advantage of a new manufacturing and supply chain culture involving Manufacturing Requirements Planning (MRPII).
Replacing a tradition of holding two days of safety stocks, the new MRPII-based environment will be geared towards just-in-time production, purchasing and delivery. This will be based on using vendor schedules and also providing suppliers with the production plans from its bottling plant in Manchester.
Mike Stanbridge, a manufacturing consultant at Geac, said: “You cannot force MRPII as it requires a fundamental cultural change. Kingsland Wines & Spirits has really adopted the right approach to MRPII by adopting a methodical and gradual two year programme based on peer-to-peer training. It is vital to take your time if long term benefits are to be realised. After all, fundamental user resistance can scupper any best practice initiative.”
Kingsland Wines & Spirits estimates that £50,000 will be saved in reduced stock holdings and fewer breakages in the first year, generating a full return on the Geac investment by mid 2007.
Tim Horton, CIO at Kingsland Wines & Spirits, said: “Although we are mid-way through a one and a half year initiative, 90 per cent of the MRPII effort is spent right at the beginning when you need to be committed to improving data accuracy. Although hard work, it is vital as the benefits can then really start to flow. As a result of our efforts we expect our lead times to come down quickly from 24 to 12 hours in 2006, and in 2007 we will approach same day ordering and delivery. MRPII is truly that powerful.”
