Growth-focused engineering firm tools-up with mySAP All-in-One
When Queensland precision engineering firm Ferra realised on-going growth required a major overhaul of its financial, planning and production software systems, it called in SAP...
In today's highly industrialised world, there is an insatiable demand for manufactured components.
Everything from machinery and aircraft, to cars and buildings, is constructed using millions of highly customised items. Supplying these to specification, on time and within budget, is a very complex task.
Queensland-based precision engineering firm Ferra has been meeting the challenges of this market for around 12 years. With more than 100 employees, the firm designs, manufactures and delivers a vast range of metal components to customers in the automotive, aerospace, defence, telecommunications and medical sectors.
The company has three operating groups: high-speed machining, high-pressure die casting and engineering services. As well as its Australian customer base, the company serves clients in the United States, Japan and Europe.
About 12 months ago the company realised that, if its strong growth rate was to be sustained, a major upgrade of its financial, planning and production software systems would be required. Ferra general manager Marc Meili says the company had been using a home-developed Access database for its core administrative functions, but this was showing signs of strain.
"It had been built and customised over a period of about 10 years. While it had become quite sophisticated, it was still just a database," he says.
Extracting information for analysis or to create management reports was a very time and labour-intensive undertaking. The company had no way of obtaining a real-time view of how its operations were running. Inventory tracking was undertaken manually leading to data duplication and potential errors, and the company had no way of monitoring the activities of subcontractors.
"Ferra was moving increasingly into the aerospace sector which has more complex supply chain processes. We realised we needed a more sophisticated business management tool," says Meili.
Ferra appointed an independent project manager to evaluate a range of potential software packages and eventually a shortlist was created. After thorough examination and testing, the decision was made to implement mySAP All-in-One.
"After looking at the SAP offering, we were pleased to see it had been designed specifically for a medium-sized firm such as ours," says Meili. "We also looked at our list of existing and potential customers and realised many of them had implemented SAP systems. Our position is that we always want to partner with the world's best, and SAP certainly fits into that category."
A three-month SAP implementation program was devised during which business data was ported from the company's existing database into mySAP All-in-One. A degree of customisation was required as some of Ferra's systems did not match the standard structure of the software. The company also opted to alter some of its existing internal processes.
Meili says some of Ferra's manufacturing processes were very complex and changes were needed to cater for some unique requirements. In hindsight, more time should have been allowed to bed everything down, however the system did go live on the planned date.
Implementation and customisation work was carried out by an SAP skilled mid-market partner, Extend Technologies. Extend Technologies worked closely with Ferra staff to ensure all were comfortable with the new SAP system and could "hit the ground running" when it went live.
"Ferra had a clear set of objectives in place and a realistic approach to adopting new technology," says Extend Technologies' managing director, Max White.
"They were enthusiastic to set up a steering committee which assisted smooth facilitation of project scope changes, monitoring of performance as well as providing guidance and direction in this tight timeframe," says White.
"We walked out on a Friday and back in on the Monday and started using SAP. It is now supporting virtually all our business functions including sales, pre-production planning, distribution and accounting," says Meili.
"The immediate benefit realisations being achieved by Ferra will see project costs repaid within 12 months instead of five years. This is an overwhelming result and proves the efficiencies that can be generated by SMBs when using mySAP All-In-One," says White.
Electronic data interchange links have been expanded and established with a growing number of customers to streamline the order and fulfilment processes. This has also served to improve internal operations and raise efficiencies for Ferra.
"Implementing SAP has helped us to fine-tune the kinds of business we should be focusing on. SAP is designed for repetitive business, rather than one-off projects, and this is the kind of thing we are increasingly moving towards as a company," says Meili.
"The biggest challenge now was to ensure the company was using the capabilities of SAP as extensively as possible," he says.
"There are features and functions that we can use once our experience and understanding levels have improved. We are also planning a second phase later this year which will involve the introduction of further functions such as employee timekeeping as well as quality and project management."
Ferra is focused on growing its customer base internationally and mySAP All-in-One has provided it with a solid platform to support its future growth.
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