EFACS barcoding reduces dispatch time and errors for shower tray manufacturer

DLP Limited

Customer Profile

Customer Profile DLP’s original company was set up 14 years ago on the Isle of Man manufacturing shower trays. Then the company employed 5 people, but now has grown to over 65.

The Challenge

We found it hard to find the right software to facilitate our manufacturing process so in the past have always tried to develop in house software.

The Solution

With EFACS, the company can now scan goods onto the trailer directly to generate a shipment for each trailer which then goes on to create the trailer shipment list and sales invoices automatically.

The Benefits

“Since implementing bar coding, we have greatly reduced the number of dispatch errors where the consignment would not agree with the shipping instructions.” states Charlie.

DLP design and manufacture both shower trays and shower screens, as well as designing shower seats, grab rails and other accessories.

EFACS barcoding reduces dispatch time and errors for shower tray manufacturer

We found it hard to find the right software to facilitate our manufacturing process so in the past have always tried to develop in house software.
“I searched for MRP systems on the Web and not only was EFACS the first result to come back they showed that they had experience of working with a shower company elsewhere in the UK.” states Charlie Lindsay DLP’s IT Manager. “Although we don’t, and probably never will, use the MRP side of EFACS to its full potential, EFACS provides all the bar code data capture that we require, as well as being user friendly and configurable to our specific needs.”

EFACS has allowed DLP to have one system to control stock, purchase orders, sales orders, works orders, and accounts, rather than the 3 separate non-integrated systems as was previously the case. There were limited data imports and exports between the systems which could be vulnerable to data corruption.

The creation of the new-style works orders from one A4 page per process to one label per process, has reduced the paper usage from 1000 sheets to only 140 sheets per day. This provides vast improvements, not only for an employee to have less paperwork to deal with, but also for the updating of works orders status. These are scanned into the system and this updates each operation with the time taken and which operator completed their task.

Previously one task would require 4 scans, the new works order requires just one and consequently, efficiency has been greatly increased. The new bar-coded works orders have already saved approximately 4 man hours per day. The company previously had to rely on Excel spreadsheets for generation of reports which can now easily be run out of EFACS or new reports generated through Crystal.

One significant improvement has been the bar code scanning of goods at dispatch stage for loading onto trailers. This process was previously controlled by hand written lists. These lists had to be checked, any errors resolved, then added to a trailer list on the system. With EFACS, the company can now scan goods onto the trailer directly to generate a shipment for each trailer which then goes on to create the trailer shipment list and sales invoices automatically. This has speeded up the process by approximately 2 hours per trailer. This does not take in to consideration the time taken for the data to be exported to the separate accounting system.

“Since implementing bar coding, we have decreased shipping discrepancies to a point where consignments have been 100% 9/10 deliveries.” states Charlie.