Syspro makes its mark on Edward Pryor & Son

A five-fold expansion in its design-to-order business placed increasing demands on an ageing IT system at Edward Pryor & Son, world-leading manufacturer of quality industrial marking equipment.  Facing potential production planning and delivery problems as a result, the company turned to Information Engineering to provide a new and fully integrated software solution.

Founded in 1849, based in Sheffield and with worldwide distribution, Pryor is a privately owned company employing 150+ people. It manufactures and distributes a comprehensive range of marking equipment from simple hand punches for single character marking, through to computer-controlled dot and laser marking systems using two-dimensional (2D) code reading technology.  The company has customers in over 60 countries and supplies the automotive, defence, aerospace, heavy engineering and general manufacturing sectors.

In addition to its standard product ranges, which are made to stock, Pryor has an in-house facility for design-to-order solutions, allowing the marking process to be integrated seamlessly as part of the production line.  It is in this area of its business that the company has experienced dramatic growth in recent years; a trend that looks set to continue, as demands for high-level traceability increase and manufacturing industry introduces more and more automation to its production processes. 

Flexible approach

This growth at the complex end of its product range put considerable pressure on its existing IT system, which was unable to cope with scheduling a high number of components and operations to a planned delivery time. 

 
The system was actually three separate, linked packages - a combination of aging in-house software and Unix-based proprietary packages, for which support was being withdrawn, says Dean Finister, Pryors financial director.  Because it wasnt properly integrated, there were too many manual processes, as well as duplication in the data and the effort required to maintain that data.  As we didnt have an MRP system we spent a lot of time creating material requisitions.

We recognised that we needed to introduce a leaner culture to the business - and an IT system that would support that culture.  We needed a fully integrated system that would give us the flexibility to effectively manage the growth area of the business - now and into the future.  

Pryor appointed a team of four people from different areas of the business to evaluate the various systems on the market; it shortlisted five systems before opting for Syspro from Information Engineering.  We liked their flexible approach to implementation, says Finister.  They took into account the skills we already had in place within the company and they could provide a capped project in terms of implementation days - both very important factors for us.

Performance boost

Pryor is implementing a 20-user system with accounts, manufacturing, time and attendance, APS and CRM modules, along with Syspros leading edge e.net functionality which allows the company to write its own software applications for the system, using Syspro logic but without affecting the core Syspro technology or environment.  Implementation is already underway and due to be completed by December 2004.   Finister is confident the system will dramatically reduce the current high level of manual intervention and the duplication of effort, as well as improving business performance. 

Real-time information will allow us to schedule to a planned delivery time with data being fed back to shop floor operators.  And the Syspro system lets us schedule orders to more than one due date with built-in milestones, eliminating any problems with on-time delivery performance and potential penalty clauses.