Lawson ANZ Signs Contract with Surteco in Strategic Enterprise Software Deal
Lawson Software announced today it has signed a contract with leading plastics manufacturer, Surteco Australia, for the rollout of the Lawson M3 Suite across Surtecoâs entire business.
SYDNEY, Australia (May 08, 2007) – Lawson Software announced today it has signed a contract with leading plastics manufacturer, Surteco Australia, for the rollout of the Lawson M3 Suite across Surteco’s entire business.
The company – a specialist in furniture surface technologies and a major Australian manufacturing success story – made the decision to implement a new enterprise software platform to foster the integration of its business information systems. The goal of the implementation is to support the company’s growth plans and profitability of its Australian operations.
“Surteco is a unique company in its space and a triumph in the Australian manufacturing sector, said Marc Taylor, managing director, Surteco. “Although we face similar challenges that other Australian manufacturers come up against, such as a high cost labour market, we have established and maintained a highly successful onshore manufacturing operation.
Taylor added, “We produce only the highest quality products whilst still maintaining competitive edge by using quality machinery, adopting sophisticated automation capabilities, and by ensuring tight controls over business and production processes. However, in order to continue achieving these efficiencies as we evolve, we reached a point where it was necessary to invest strategically in a more modern back end technology platform.
Surteco had previously utilised a disparate range of individual databases for each of its accounting, logistics, scanning/barcoding and production activities. The company recognised it had grown beyond the capabilities of its existing software systems, which offered little integration of business data or hierarchal controls, and limited scope for supporting future requirements such as multi-branch processing. Surteco decided to implement Lawson M3 Suite.
“By rolling out Lawson M3, we plan to be able to integrate systems across all areas of the business and ultimately, be able to truly manage information, Taylor said. “We plan to increase automation and optimisation of our processes within production, as well as improve visibility of activities across areas such as stock movement, inventory and sales ordering. We will also have greater hierarchical controls, the ability to drill in to and generate any business report we want, and to trace measurement of our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – which we do a lot of.
One area in particular Surteco is expecting to see significant benefits in is production planning. The plastics manufacturing industry has unique characteristics that makes careful production planning crucial, with more than 2,000 active product lines, short runs, high volume low cost orders and complicated primary and secondary manufacturing processes.
“Planning and scheduling for this is currently done manually, which can take many hours, Taylor noted. “We see it as another area within production that can be automated, which save a significant amount of time. Lawson’s Advanced Production Planning application is a sophisticated tool that will enable us to quickly analyse all orders in the back end system and optimise scheduling of production to meet those requirements, helping to reduce our stocking and resource costs and increase profitability.
Surteco will roll out a comprehensive range of modules from Lawson, including manufacturing, financials, sales, distribution and logistics applications.
The system is scheduled to go live in September 2007 following an implementation project that will involve Surteco’s IT staff, process owners and Lawson consultants.
“We have a very clear cut, well scoped project plan that will involve rigorous, parallel testing of the new system and training of process owners and users before going live to ensure a smooth transition for the company, Taylor added. “Lawson has already proven itself to be a great business partner in this project and we have been impressed by the quality and professionalism of its consultants and comprehensive functionality of the system.
Source: Lawson
