Customer Success Story

The Manufacturing Institute

Business challege

Implement a totally integrated solution for the delivery of sales, marketing, training, education, consultancy and finance

Solution

Epicor for Service Enterprises software in conjunction with other Web-based tools such Microsoft SharePoint to deliver a browser-based solution for front and back office processes

Business Benefits

• Provides real-time reporting from any browser-based terminal
• Generates accurate accounting and auditing to comply with governmental projects
• Removes large number of paper-based processes, which has improved efficiency
• New workflow processes improve transparency of business

As a non-profit organisation, over 13,000 manufacturers have benefited from the proven, hands-on productivity and skills improvements that The Manufacturing Institute delivers. In just two years, The Manufacturing Advisory Service North West delivered by The Manufacturing Institute has, with its team of lean manufacturing experts, helped North West manufacturers achieve over £20m of real productivity improvements.

The Manufacturing Institute also works extensively with the European Region Development Fund and the government-backed Agenda for Change Programme. The Manufacturing Institute’s partners include British Aerospace, Kelloggs, ICI, Siemens as well as several leading educational establishments such as the University of Manchester and the Open University.

TMI had grown organically since its foundation in 1994 and had adopted a number of paper-based and spreadsheet systems to support its core SageLine accounting and Commerce contact management software. 

At the start of 2004, senior management felt the need to improve business process visibility, accounting and reporting. As Adam Buckley, Business Systems Manager for The Manufacturing Institute, comments, “The organisation has grown rapidly over the last two years and we need to have systems in place that will allow us to effectively manage the increasingly complex projects and workflow resulting from the changing dynamics of the organisation. The success of this major project for The Manufacturing Institute will have a profound effect on our ability to deliver government projects we are committed to in the most cost effective manner.”

To this end, The Manufacturing Institute formed a cross-functional team to look at business process re-engineering alongside the deployment of a new business system. By mid-2004, this committee of representatives from the training, accounting, sales, consulting, human resources and information technology departments at The Manufacturing Institute considered 13 software candidates based on a 300 point weighted selection criteria over a four month period.

The selection criteria looked at product functionality, stability, usability, installed base and the ability of the vendor to execute and support the system with a shortlist including Maconomy, Deltek Vision, Siebel, SharpOWL and Changepoint by Compuware.

By the end of 2004, Epicor for Service Enterprises was deemed the unanimous winner by the selection group, as Buckley explains, “A Web-based solution was a key requirement and although we did have a modest budget, cost was not the main driver. The Epicor solution provided the best fit in terms of product functionality and breadth of solution. We also needed a system that we could implement in a timely fashion that we could also support and evolve over time, and only Epicor met all the bid criteria.”

In January 2004, the implementation of the Epicor for Service Enterprises project began with the migration of The Manufacturing Institute’s back office accounting from SageLine to Epicor Financials. This phase also created a new front end for project management, and for the first time created a direct real time link from project creation into costing and accounting. Legacy data from 2002 to 2005 was imported into the system and the accounting process was re-engineered to increase efficiency and maintain the correct reporting and auditing traces to fulfil its governmental funding remit.

The second stage was the most taxing and potentially the most beneficial in the creation of a training module designed in conjunction with Epicor consultants. The training module allows resources such as instructors, venues and teaching materials to be allocated to classes and events. In turn, the system interacts with Crystal Reports to generate student materials such as joining letters, registers, badges, attendance sheets, and related course materials. At the other end, the training module links to accounting to allow detailed costing, budget and billing to be maintained for each course.

The training module went live in July 2005 and paved the way for commencement of the opportunity and bid management system to help find new clients and maintain relationships with existing ones. Although a non-profit organisation, The Manufacturing Institute is run along business lines and uses revenue to both subsidise the delivery of its products and services as well expand the depth and breadth of available training and consultancy services.

The Opportunity Management module in Epicor for Service Enterprises tracks potential clients from unqualified status through stages of interest and up to order placement. The system then automatically hands off the client file via workflow to the accounts department to perform credit checks and account billing. This client file is then used in order fulfilment and as part of the project or training course delivery tools.

“One of the reasons we selected Epicor for Service Enterprises is that it allows us a great deal of flexibility in how our system modules interact with each other and allows us to make modifications more effectively. As a Web-based application, this allows us to instantly implement changes to any application used by every user in every location without upgrading local software, which is usually the case with client/server technology.”

With these three core modules up and running The Manufacturing Institute has created a graphical interface of business metrics in real-time using a combination of Epicor Business Intelligence Suite and Microsoft SharePoint software.

Buckley comments, “The ability to quickly derive key business intelligence was a major consideration for us, and Epicor for Service Enterprises’ ability to deliver online analytical processing (OLAP) visualization was a considerable benefit. We also decided to implement the Epicor Business Intelligence Suite as it enables line managers to quickly look at several key metrics such as sales, resources, revenue and other headline numbers on a single screen with the power to drill down into the data for more precise analyses.”

This approach provides management with an intuitive dashboard of key performance indicators from any of the three key modules. The way in which the solution has been deployed allows remote access to all aspects of the key performance indicators as if the user were stationed in the office attached to the local network.

“The biggest change within The Manufacturing Institute is in the working culture. There are no longer ‘black holes’ within the organisation’s processes and the system gives us an unparalleled transparency on almost every aspect of the business as it stands at that minute and not based on data that is no longer current.”

“We now have standardised processes for almost every part of The Manufacturing Institute and creating or evolving a process is relatively simple. In fact, the implementation helped us to highlight and correct bad practices or inconsistencies as well as beneficial but often unnoticed tasks that are now standardised within our workflows.”

Ten months into the implementation phase, The Manufacturing Institute has so far deemed the project a major success. “Although the project still has two phases to complete before the end of the year, namely implementing our Marketing and Academic Course modules, the business benefits so far are substantial.”

“We have significantly reduced the paper chase and improved the efficiency of our processes, we have removed the dependences on office working and our staff now has the flexibility to work from home. We now have high visibility on all our courses, projects and resources all with costing and budgetary information directly linked.”

“For an organisation that gets a large portion of its funding from the UK and European governmental agencies, accountability and audit ability are essential and we are now able to meet all of the recommended best practices guidelines for organisations with a similar remit.”

Early November 2005 is the planned implementation for the Marketing module, which will allow The Manufacturing Institute to track its advertising campaigns in conjunction with the Opportunity Management module to show the effectiveness and ultimate cost of marketing per new client. Towards the end of November, an academic Course module is due for implementation and will assist The Manufacturing Institute in managing its delegates on Degree and Diploma courses run in conjunction with associated universities and colleges that span up to two years.