In less than a decade, Lorient Australia has grown to become one of the leading manufacturers of fire, smoke and sound containment products for the door industry in Australia.
Demand for Lorient products has seen export services rise and the company has expanded into Dubai, Hong Kong and the UK.
Lorient Australia has two manufacturing sites in Australia with offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and employs more than 50 staff.
According to Tony Tapper, Managing Director of Lorient Australia, the company's product lines and configurations have grown from 500 to more than 5 000 in the past five years.
"When product configurations increase so significantly in a short period of time, it puts a strain on your business - not only in terms of managing the manufacturing and production flow, but also internally through inventory management tools," Tapper says.
"We were using MYOB to manage our inventory and the system simply could not handle the growth of the product configurations. We needed an inventory management tool that was designed specifically for manufacturers, not a financial package that needed to be adapted.
"The way we used to order was pretty simple. If you didn't trip over it in the manufacturing site you needed to place an order for more material. We had no control over our inventory and we had surprises every month."
Before selecting an inventory management tool (ERP system), senior management at Lorient developed a critical list of requirements which included:
* A system designed specifically for manufacturers
* A system for inventory control and management
* Visibility for all sites - domestically and internationally
* The ability to track raw materials, components and finished goods
* Bill of Materials - including flexibility for multi-levels
* Work in progress capabilities
* Modules for accounting
"Accounting and General Ledger were not as crucial to our selection, as you can easily add General Ledger to a manufacturing system but not the other way around," Tapper says.
SYSPRO was chosen as the most efficient, flexible and adaptable mid-market ERP system available. Its outstanding flexibility accommodates an extensive range of production methods, enabling manufacturing and distribution companies to efficiently plan, manage and forecast business operations in an increasingly dynamic and competitive marketplace.
Lorient Australia is using a number of SYSPRO modules including Inventory, Purchasing, Sales Orders/Analysis, SRS Reporting Services, Bill of Materials, Work in Progress, Factory Documentation, General Ledger and Product Configurator.
"The way we used to order was pretty simple. If you didn't trip over it in the manufacturing site, you needed to place an order for more material. We had no control over our inventory and we had surprises every month," says Tony Tapper, Managing Director of Lorient Australia
The SYSPRO Bill of Materials supports up to 15 levels, has an intuitive tree-view display with operational Gantt Charts, analyses BOM and 'what-if' costs and compares BOM costs to current inventory costs.
The SYSPRO Work in Progress module supports mixed-mode manufacturing environments and tracks and manages material and operational costs per job. It identifies overloaded work centres, automatically creates jobs from sales orders, quotations and MRP, and links purchase orders to jobs to expedite receiving.
The SYSPRO Inventory Control module provides effective control of supply and demand. It offers powerful queries including transaction history and graphics and provides flexible pricing and costing options. Standard functionality includes serial-tracking, multiple warehouses and bin numbers. Inventory Optimisation and Forecasting modules are also available.
Lorient Australia went live with the Bill of Materials and Inventory modules immediately and then implemented the General Ledger and financial modules at a later stage. After training from SYSPRO Victoria, the go-live transition was handled internally by two staff and was seamless.
Already, Lorient is reaping the following benefits:
* The company now has a target Stock Variance KPI of 1% and is running at 0.4% due to the accuracy of SYSPRO
* Annual stock-takes have been eliminated, Lorient now does perpetual stock-takes
* Controlled manufacturing and inventory costs
* Visibility at all levels of manufacturing
* Accurate, flexible and easy-to-use inventory management system
* Predictable Work in Progress and Bill of Materials
* Alerts and flags on any variances, and the ability to track variances
* Multi-level trial kitting identifies materials shortages
* Supports planning parts, kit parts, phantom parts and sub-contract operations
* Tracks component levels of effectivity dates
* Flexible reporting
* Full BOM costing reports
* A virtual warehouse where all the components, ingredients and raw materials are kept
"With SYSPRO there are no surprises. We know what is going to happen month in and month out, and our inventory is controlled so well that I know exactly who is doing what every moment on the day. I often joke with the staff that SYSPRO is like Big Brother and it is watching everything they do," Tapper says.
"SYSPRO works for us, rather than us working for the system and I recommend this inventory management tool to anyone in manufacturing."
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