NMB-Minebea UK Limited needed to meet increasing customer demand - but had no solid data on which to base its business decisions. An ERP upgrade proved to be a sound investment for the £65m+ turnover company.

NMB-Minebea is a name long associated with supplying those apparently simple but crucial bearing devices that ensure the operating efficiency of actuating rods, suspension arms and many more linkages in aerospace, automotive industrial equipment and related products. Based outside Lincoln and part of the Japanese conglomerate, the company operates from a 10-acre site that houses 250 work centres. It has a workforce of 240 and makes a range of products in batches from five to 500+ in many different specifications. In the late 1990s business had boomed, but new ways had to be found to meet demand. Delivery targets were often missed; lead times were long; and overdue orders stretched back months.

The major review of Finance and IT highlighted an issue that besets many fast-growing companies. “It quickly became apparent that management didn’t have any solid information on which they could base decisions”, said Rob Warner who led the review. A vital engine for generating key data - an INFOR enterprise resource planning ERP system was not being used properly. For years the data it contained had been poorly maintained and lack of training hindered personnel even more.

Progression
To progress NMB Minebea had to have the right data. Yet it could not afford the time, cost or distraction of looking for a new system. But why should it, when the existing ERP could be
improved? The decision was made to stay with the IBM operating system and hardware platform, partly because of its well-proven reliability, but also because it would maintain corporate standards.

In2grate, UK Master Affiliate for INFOR, and supplier of implementation, training and support was called in. The updated system had to be fully operational within a year, a demand that embraced every aspect of NMB-Minebea’s operations.

Success in motion
Warner never allowed the ERP installation to stray from business targets and become an IT project. He brought in a full-time project manager. “One of the things I was adamant about was not to hire a computer person - we wanted someone with project management experience in a manufacturing environment. And right from the start, we produced scoping documents for each of the module areas and made sure they fitted with the objectives we wanted to achieve for this company.”

Cut from 12 weeks to 5 days…
A number of other lean manufacturing business process re-engineering and quality initiatives were implemented. For example, one component’s journey through the factory has been cut from 12 weeks to five days, thanks to re-organised, leaner processes. Critical success factors, closely monitored by the company, include a new measure under the development - throughput, schedule adherence, quality (TSQ). It uses bespoke programming to produce a final score. But as in so many other areas, TSQ places its reliance in data drawn from a solid underlying foundation. “INFOR is now absolutely central to the business,” says Warner. “I think just about every decision made now is based on evidence, and the vast majority of that data comes from that system. We live and breathe by what it tells us, and we are constantly working to improve it.”

Full delivery trebled
On time in full delivery has more than trebled, from 20 per cent to over 60 per cent - and is still climbing. The overdue orders backlog has gone and is no longer an issue.