Johannesburg, 01 Apr 2009
Lapack, the Germiston-based manufacturer of an extensive range of plastic containers and closures for the personal care, home care and food industries, sets great store by using technology wherever possible. The company's latest venture in technology has been the upgrading of its Sage Accpac accounting software to a state-of-the-art Sage ERP X3 system, through business and technology solutions provider and implementer Lorge.
It's not easy to set up a manufacturing resource planning (MRP) system in the plastics industry, according to Lapack director Mark Smith. “This has been a completely new experience for us, complicated by the fact that the plastics industry is never static with new demands and quality requirements.”
The polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polypropylene (PP) bottles, jars, spray bottles and other crystal-clear containers have been manufactured since 1980 under the Ultrapack brand. The sheer variety of the containers and their end-uses means Lapack has to contend with a highly complicated inventory.
“Having made the decision to go with the Sage ERP X3 software, we are finding that it is much easier getting into a paperless environment than we thought,” said Smith. “Lorge has trained our staff, the system is much faster and we're finding it user-friendly in the extreme, through its ability to present users with graphical processes to follow and employ the right functionality to achieve the desired result.”
All users of the system have rapid access to the specific areas of the system that they individually need to use, and Smith adds that staff have bought into the program and quickly became comfortable with it. “It is so advanced, yet so simple that it has made life easier for everyone involved. The changeover and integration went smoothly without any problems,” said Smith.
The MRP functionality of the Sage ERP X3 program poses the biggest challenge, but will provide the most benefits. It includes online order placement, and will automatically check stock and place an order accordingly. The program then facilitates planning of the new job, stipulates the correct machinery and then books the job on the next available machine.
“This gives us total control and our final goal is to set up the system so that the customer is able to monitor the progress of his order online,” says Smith. “The built-in customisation tools of Sage ERP X3 also allow us to tweak features to meet individual customer needs.”
The overall goal for Lapack is to achieve just-in-time manufacturing. “We don't see this as a holy grail because we're already, after a relatively short time, achieving significantly better integration with both suppliers and customers.”
The online functionality of the software enables Smith to access the system via the Internet wherever he may be. “I'm able to view the complete picture from a laptop or smartphone, see what jobs are on what machines, check raw materials stock levels and the status of completed jobs, whether they've been delivered on time or if there is a delay, what the cause is.”
Sales staff are also finding life easier, because they can access the system when they're out on the road or with a customer, and can check stock and place orders immediately.
Smith believes Lapack has so far only scratched the surface and that the organisation has yet to really comprehend just how powerful the program is. “What we have got for our money is phenomenal, there's just so much real value in it. The learning curve has also been easy and gradual and it is very affordable.”
The plastics packaging industry is highly competitive and Smith says every little cent counts so that efficiency is king. To achieve the highest levels of efficiency, management needs to have a full picture and overview of the entire operation day-to-day.
“The Sage ERP X3 allows us to follow every order and ensure that all stock is used. We can also monitor staff performance, track the cost of every item manufactured down to the last cent, monitor by-products and recycle waste such as mould trimmings, which also improves our efficiency.”
Martin van Blerk, Lorge's principle consultant, commented that the software's ability to conduct detailed capacity planning is critical to optimising production from all of Lapack's injection-moulding, stretch blow-moulding, blow-moulding, silk screening, multicolour UV printing and on-pack labelling machinery. “The software has structures that will not only improve efficiency but will provide a platform for future growth.”
Softline Accpac vice-president of strategic sales, Keith Fenner, says Sage ERP X3 supports all of the planning, scheduling and production control activities for either process or discrete manufacturing. “It adapts easily to different manufacturing modes, including make-to-order, configure-to-order, assemble-to-order, make-to-stock and mixed-mode environments and it fully integrates with sales, CRM, purchasing, inventory and finance components.”
Share