Real-time business intelligence with EFACS at Ilchester Cheese
Ilchester Cheese
Customer Profile
The Ilchester Cheese Company was formed in the early 1960’s and was the first British Cheese company to blend cheeses with other ingredients.
The Challenge
As Ilchester Cheese grew over recent years, so did the realisation that the existing management information system was not developing in a way that would meet the company’s changing needs.
The Solution
Systems Manager, Steve Bagwell drew up a shortlist of potential ERP system suppliers, eventually getting down to two. Exel’s EFACS package was chosen.
The Benefits
Since installing EFACS, IIchester Cheese has had much greater control over operating specifications used on the shop-floor with strict procedures for making and accommodating any changes to the product.
Real-time business intelligence with EFACS
Since 1962, The IIchester Cheese Company has continued to grow and is now the UK’s leading speciality Cheese Company and also the leading exporter to over 20 countries around the world.
Systems Manager Steve Bagwell explains how IIchester Cheese sees their future with EFACS.
At some time in their lives, most people will have eaten cheese produced at the Somerset site of Ilchester Cheese. The Company makes a vast range of speciality cheese and today it is sold in the UK and in over 20 countries around the world.
Since January 2004, Ilchester Cheese has processed 4400 tonnes of cheese and produced 25 million packs. This has been the company’s most successful year, with sales to 31 March 2004 up 7.5% on the previous 12 months.
While many companies claim that their products are unique, IIchester Cheese is indeed a unique blend which incorporates a “secret recipe”. The area in the factory where this ingredient is added is strictly off-limits. That’s why the company claims that “nothing tastes like IIchester Cheese”.
Formed in the early 1960’s, IIchester Cheese was the first British cheese company to blend cheese with other ingredients. At the IIchester site, opened in September 1992, the company has over 100 staff and a board of directors said to have a pro-active, open mind towards IT.
As IIchester Cheese grew over recent years, so did the realisation that the existing management information system was not developing in a way that would meet the company’s changing needs.
Systems Manager Steve Bagwell drew up a shortlist of potential ERP system suppliers, eventually getting down to two. Following various site visits and consultation with future system users, Exel’s EFACS package was chosen.
Steve Bagwell says: “We went for EFACS for various reasons, not least that we preferred Exel because as a company they were more akin to our culture. They are a ‘stand-alone’ company, they have one product, and they care about that product and its users. They are a good, honest and straightforward home-grown British company who are genuine innovators with a ‘can-do’ attitude.”
“But what really clinched it for us is that, like our products, EFACS is genuinely unique in that its toolkit enables real customer bespoking – in fact, they positively encourage you to customise it to your needs, so we can basically do whatever we want with the system as long as we follow certain guidelines and the core system remains unchanged.”
“The toolkit is phenomenal, especially since I’m not a programmer yet I’ve been able to make changes quite easily. In Adapt, the language is so simple to understand and the Easl language is straightforward too. It’s such a simple screenwriting toolkit. Both tools are a gift to those of us who aren’t
programmers.”
One of the major benefits of choosing EFACS has been the ability literally to sit with programmers and discuss making modifications to the system in line with Ilchester Cheese’s specific needs.
“Right from the implementation stage,” says Steve Bagwell, “I saw real-live IIchester requirements being written as I sat there and I was encouraged to write some myself. It’s a major bonus that the consultants are also the trainers, it’s extremely unusual to have the same people sometimes answering the phone, doing demonstrations and offering support and it makes a huge difference to us.”
Since installing EFACS, IIchester Cheese has had much greater control over operating specifications used on the shop-floor, with strict procedures for making and accommodating any changes to the product. A series of triggers ensures no changes are made to the bill of materials specification without the full knowledge and approval of the relevant departments.
If there were any BOM changes made by the purchasing department, unlikely in the product’s ingredients but more likely in the packaging, the technical department has to accept it first as a legitimate change to the specification before the sales department can sign it off. Once approved, the change finally goes back to purchasing, they give it the go-ahead, and only then is it possible to activate new works orders for the altered product.
EFACS modules currently used by IIchester Cheese include engineering, product costing, purchase order processing, sales, planning, material control, production, accountancy, EDI, BACS, system management and review.
Communicating with the SQL server, EFACS handles financials, stock management, despatch, intake, production planning, KPI and much more.
Ilchester also uses the Analysis Services application, which is delivered with SOL Server, to create OLAP cubes. These are queried using pivot tables and charts, technology which is also there to be used when Microsoft Office is installed.
The result is real-time business intelligence in as much or as little detail as required. The company simply didn’t have such easy access to this kind of information before and would have to rely on dot matrix paper reports.
Says Steve Bagwell: “Having this intelligence means that we can now make better decisions about the future course of the company and can see the effect that those decisions will make and have made. This process used to be much longer and far less reliable.”
The other main benefit has been the adaptability, flexibility and “open culture” of the EFACS system and of Exel as a company.
“We are able to push the boundaries all the time”, says Steve, “and that is entirely down to the flexibility of the toolkit. It has also enabled us to ensure we are recording accurate data which we can later analyse and make best use of. Also, because we can use standard software such as Microsoft packages that we can link into EFACS and we are able to feed up-to-date data back into the system in real-time, it makes our MRP more accurate and we can buy raw materials more intelligently. The system enables us to close those loops.”
He adds: “There is a substantial comfort factor in that EFACS sits in front of an SOL Server database. To this end, I can say that it is highly unlikely we will move to another ERP system because as well as the overall functionality and flexibility, the technical and customer support has been outstanding. We see our future with EFACS.”
