Independent outdoor clothing specialist SealSkinz Ltd has gone live with an integrated best of breed enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution from K3 Syspro (K3) to support the company's 20% annual growth. The new SYSPRO 6.1 solution includes both Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) solutions and replaces an outdated warehouse management system which was integrated with separate accounting software. The solution will provide SealSkinz with greater sales and commercial data support and analysis.
SealSkinz has grown from a business employing just 24 people to a 70-person organisation in just a few years and required a company-wide system to support this growth. The additional MRP solution was also needed to streamline the inventory process and plan delivery schedules, a practice that was previously done using manual spreadsheets. Rather than pay to upgrade existing systems, SealSkinz overhauled its entire IT infrastructure and invested in a 'bigger, better system.'
Alistair Tait, General Manager at SealSkinz Ltd explains: "We had outgrown our previous system and it was not providing us with the sales and commercial data support that we required. What we needed was one bigger, better system complete with MRP and APS that would streamline our entire business operations and replace the need for manual, paper-based processes."
SealSkinz examined three different ERP solutions in great detail but it was a combination of the available modules in SYSPRO and the expertise and knowledge of K3 staff that made SYSPRO the obvious choice. K3 brought together experts from its Managed Services, CRM, APS and Operations divisions in order to create the best fit solution for SealSkinz and deliver a system that would provide greater transparency of data, enhanced sales and forecasting analysis and improved pricing accuracy.
A late request for an additional Advanced Warehouse Management (AWM) solution did not defer K3 from meeting the planned go live date and achieving implementation in just a few months. It was the skill and personal approach of the people involved throughout the entire sales and implementation process that most appealed to SealSkinz.
"The three systems we looked at were all capable of doing the job we needed but the way SYSPRO could support additional functionality made it the better long term solution. Our ERP investment was also an investment in the provider and we had total confidence in the K3 team from the first moment we met them. They worked with us throughout the implementation process and made us aware that bringing together all the modules we required was a big job, but a challenge that was achievable.
"K3 also made sure our operations did not suffer on changeover and our in-house project team worked all weekend with K3 to ensure that we could switch our old system off on a Friday evening and turn SYSPRO on the next Monday morning. We are pleased that we made the right choice investing in SYSPRO from K3."