Servicing agricultural, horticultural, marine, engineering, commercial and domestic markets, Hansen Products is a leading manufacturer of polythene pipe fittings, threaded pipe fittings and high flow foot and check valves. With more than 500 finished products under the Hansen brand, the company has a strong export focus, with established exclusive distributorships in eight countries including Australia, the United Kingdom and parts of Asia. The company is also growing its presence in the Canadian market, with plans to double its output over the next two years.

The need

To manage its production planning and scheduling, Hansen had been using a nine-year-old financial system in conjunction with multiple disparate spreadsheets. The company had outgrown this accounting solution, however, and the lack of integration with the manufacturing system caused the duplication of information – making accurate inventory control and forecasting very slow. “Rather than storing information in one central system,” says Hansen financial controller Kathryn Hanham, “a lot of data had to be entered manually into various spreadsheets. For example, our raw materials were processed outside of the main system, which made planning very difficult. Our previous solution had several constraints in handling our export documentation and multi-currency requirements.” Once Hansen made the decision to adopt a new and integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, it evaluated seven potential applications before short-listing three and examining their functionality in more depth.

“The complexity of our manufacturing requirements is similar to that of larger organisations,” says Hanham. “Most importantly, we needed a system that could cope with our production scheduling and be integrated with our financials. As we start expanding into the Canadian market, we need to have strong business processes in place and be able to plan adequately, particularly with the long distribution time to Canada.

After a thorough evaluation Hanham says the company chose Microsoft Business Solutions’ Axapta based on the product’s strengths within manufacturing. “We liked the fact that it was an international product that was still at the beginning of its life cycle,” she says. “We also had a lot of confidence in Adaptable Solutions, as their managing director Duncan Cox had extensive experience implementing IT systems within the manufacturing industry.”

Implementation time

A dedicated project team comprised of Carl Hansen, managing director, Hanham, Vaughan Woodgate from Network Management (Hansen’s outsourced IT infrastructure partner) and Cox, oversaw the six-month implementation. The first phase of the project, rolling-out the financials and inventory modules, was implemented by January 1, 2003. The remaining manufacturing functionality went live two months later in March 2003 – in order to ensure that key staff were adequately trained. At Adaptable Solutions, Cox says Hansen’s commitment to the project played a key part in the success of the implementation. “The team at Hansen defined their key business requirements from the outset,” he says, “and had a clear vision for what they wanted to achieve from the new solution. Axapta provided a good fit for the company’s requirements, particularly production scheduling, and the company implemented the solution quickly to meet key objectives.”

The flexible customisation tools offered within Microsoft Axapta enabled Adaptable Solutions to easily customise parts of the system to ensure that the company maximised the product’s benefits. “It only took a few minor modifications to fine tune the system to meet our exact needs,” says Hanham. “For example, we can enter sales orders using either our product codes or our customers’ codes when they differ. Picking list changes were also made to reflect our preference for full carton quantities, and the system automatically prompts the user if a product is entered with a quantity that requires a carton to be split.”

Improved customer service Since going live, Axapta has created significant efficiencies within Hansen’s manufacturing processes, delivering tighter production planning and scheduling, and providing the business forecasting the company needs to successfully manage continued expansion into the Canadian market. Hanham says the information Hansen provides its customers is also more meaningful – enabling it to deliver a better service. “Axapta automatically generates an email to the customer to acknowledge their order when it’s received,” she says, “and another when it is dispatched. It tells them which carrier will deliver their order, exactly when it will arrive, and what product is back ordered.”

Within six months of implementing Axapta, Hansen had experienced a number of operational efficiencies. “Our financials, manufacturing, inventory and forecasting are all captured with Axapta,” says Hanham, “so we instantly experienced time savings by not having to duplicate information. Staff have been freed up from keying in data, and now can focus on more important areas of the business.” She says another key benefit is the ability to better forecast the business. “Information is processed in real time so any changes are immediately reflected in the system. We’re in a far better position than ever before to control overseas growth and distribution – and can make clearer business decisions.”

Scheduling has also significantly improved. “We’re far more efficient now and can better manage our inventory – Axapta details exactly what products we need to manufacture and assemble – and highlights any potential product shortfalls. We’ve also improved control of our purchasing as the system tells us exactly what we need to order and when.” Finally, Hansen has experienced efficiencies within its financial management. “We can email statements to distributors, generate invoices at anytime rather than being constrained by dates, and the currency conversion happens automatically.”

Continued investment in growth

Looking forward, Hanham says Hansen will focus on using Axapta to capture all business information across the company. “Eventually, we’d like to eliminate any data entry outside of Axapta – we’d like everything to be centralised and continually updated in the one system. In the meantime, we’ll keep working with Adaptable Solutions to make modifications that will enable us to take full advantage of the system.”

Microsoft Business Solutions’ David Guy says that Hansen is one of a growing number of local manufacturers adopting Axapta for its strong manufacturing functionality. “While it delivers a broad range of business functionality, Axapta is building a strong reputation within the manufacturing industry for the efficiencies it delivers for production planning, scheduling and forecasting.”

For more information about Microsoft Business Solutions contact
Anne Frith
09 362 5865
askdynnz@microsoft.com
Microsoft New Zealand
PO Box 8070, Symonds Street, Auckland 

For more information about Adaptable Solutions contact
Duncan Cox 
09 523 2405
duncanc@adaptable.co.nz
www.adaptable.co.nz

September 2003

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