Updating its ERP system to maintain 3D models, manage stock levels and keep sales documents in order was a daunting prospect for family run BKW Instruments, based on the outskirts of Manchester in the UK.
The company provides a huge range of parts and systems for an equally diverse range of industries. From oil and gas pipelines to paper and pulp facilities, customers rely on it to provide them with the pressure, temperature, valve and analytical instrumentation solutions they need to operate, often at short notice.
Process instrumentation marketing flyer
The BKW team needed the new system to fit within its existing Syspro ERP set-up, and to tackle three key tasks: to quote and despatch instrumentation within 24 hours; to design, assemble, test, fill, calibrate and despatch entire systems within three to five days; and to automatically replenish stock.
As BKW operations and IT manager Adam Baker explains, connectivity was also a factor. With work going on around the country, as well as at the company’s warehouse site, a secure web-based platform would let employees across the company access its ERP system, even those employees out on the road.
DriveWorks Pro provided the solution to the challenge, enabling Baker to create a custom configuration to tackle these issues and to provide additional benefits on top.
Diaphragm seal product configurator from BKW
“The application we’ve developed enables us to organise and speed up everyday business processes and tasks,” says Baker. “Sales enquiries are logged and entered into the system within 30 minutes. This process used to take around three hours to complete. Our internal sales team also create quotes twice as fast as before, resulting in a 100 per cent increase in productivity,” he says.
“We now design, assemble, test, fill, calibrate and despatch a range of core products such as diaphragm seal assemblies and differential pressure transmitters within five days, a process that used to take three to five weeks to complete.”
Logistics automated carousel stock picker
Meanwhile, BKW is on top of its warehouse stock with items often shipped the same day, thanks to an automatic re-order approval workflow. “It enables our internal sales team to log enquiries and produce quotes quickly and efficiently,” says Baker. Overall, he adds, BKW has seen this lead to the faster turnaround of orders and the faster delivery of products.
Yet perhaps the biggest advantage of the software lay in what wasn’t needed: heavy coding. Baker explains: “For us, the most important thing about DriveWorks is the ability to create custom bespoke software utilising visual wizards.”
This has allowed the company to build and customise its own application quickly and easily, in-house. “We now have more time to focus on our workflow and business analytics rather than programming,” says Baker.
DriveWorks Pro aids BKW Instruments speed up everyday business processes
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