About CSM
Headquartered in Amsterdam, Dutch company CSM is the worldâs largest manufacturer of bakery products. From its UK headquarters on Merseyside, the business manages six factories, supplying wellâknown major highâstreet supermarket chains.
The sixth and most recently acquired factory came into the CSM fold in January 2012, when the business bought a baked goods manufacturer in Surrey out of administration.
âWe bought the business on the Friday, and began running it the following Monday,â recalls John Main, Head of Planning and Logistics at CSM UK. âOur priorities: stabilise the operation, ârightsizeâ staffing levels, restore its customersâ sense of trust in the businessâand return it to profitability.â
The challenge
Straightaway, it was clear that this plan presented some difficulties. Most obviously, the newlyâacquired business had levels of product traceability that fell far below CSMâs standards. Labourâintensive spreadsheetâbased systems were rife, including a spreadsheetâbased system for calculating and recording product âbest beforeâ dates. Hence customers had become wary of broken promises regarding corrective action.
The obvious solution presented difficulties as well. Standardised on Microsoftâs Dynamics NAV as an ERP system, CSM feared widespread degradation of response times, if it simply added the new factoryâs transactions to the system.
âWe knew that we needed Dynamics NAV on site for finance, purchasing, sales order processing and inventory management,â sums up Gareth Read, Business Process Manager at CSM UK. âWhat worried us was the productivityâsapping effect of adding an enormous number of new factoryâfloor transactions to the systemânot just at the new plant, where we wanted to improve productivity, rather than worsen it, but elsewhere within CSMâs UK organisation, as well.â
The solution
The
answer, oddly enough, became clear that very first Monday morning, when an
employee demonstrated the MESTEC âManufacturing Smart Boxâ system that had been
installed on the factory floor.
âCompared to performing transactions within Dynamics NAV, it seemed very simple
and easy to use,â recalls Main. âWhat was surprising was that it wasnât used
more extensively. The answer seemed obvious: use the MESTEC system to capture
transactionsâincluding those that it wasnât presently capturingâand then get
the system to update Dynamics NAV, via an electronic interface.â
The only problem? When installed, the MESTEC Manufacturing Smart Box system
could handle virtually all of the required functionalityâbut not the act of
capturing the point of physical despatch to the customer, and the link to the
assigned âserial shipping container codeâ (SSCC), which would provide full
traceability from despatch right back to raw material ingredients.
âWe reached out to MESTEC and asked the question,â sums up Main. âCould the
system be extendedâand quickly?â And the answer wasnât long in coming
back. âWeâd
actually been thinking of adding despatchâspecific functionality already,â says
MESTECâs Managing Director Jeremy Harford. âWhen CSM asked us for it, it gave
the project the impetus to turn it into reality.â
The results
Halfway through the twelveâmonth turnaround plan that CSM had put in
place, it was clear that developments were shaping up well, says Main.
Productivity had risen sharply, the traceability objectives had been met, and
customer confidence was returning. And progress has continued since, he enthuses.
âAt the end of the line, a QC code and âbest beforeâ date are allocated,
thereâs full traceability through the warehouseâand at the point of despatch,
the MESTEC system creates an Advance Shipping Notice (ASN) to send to the
customer, containing sku, description, quantity and SSCC,â he explains. âAnd at
the beginning of the line, the system is capturing the original raw material
receipt, âbest beforeâ code, pallet code and quantity: it really is an endâtoâend
solution.â
Whatâs more, not only has the goal of avoiding degradation on the Microsoft
Dynamics NAV system been fully met, but operatives have been freed from working
with labourâintensive and errorâprone manual systems.
âThe MESTEC system has been designed from the ground up for factoryâfloor data capture,
with simple, clear, easyâtoâuse screens,â sums up Read.
âChanging an ERP system is costly and risky: using a system that is fitâforâpurpose
reduces both the cost and the riskâand compared to manual systems, greatly
boosts productivity.â
Indeed, adds Main, present plans now call for MESTECâs Manufacturing Smart Box
to be rolled out at other CSM UK sites, commencing with a cake factory in 2013.
âOverall, we reckon that our investment in MESTEC has delivered a threeâmonth
payback, as well as helping us to deliver a better customer experience,â he
sums up. âWeâve got a better, lowerâcost and more productive businessâand
happier customers as well.â