Benson Group To Extend Use Of Epicor ERP Solution At Packaging Plant

Benson Group said that through Advanced Planning and Scheduling, it has been able to achieve a much higher utilisation of its manufacturing lines, reduced downtime between jobs and ready make times, by ensuring cut and finishing operations based on the same die board are scheduled to run in sequence.

The streamlining of manufacturing processes has helped Benson Group win and retain contracts with major food manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies across the UK.

Phil Towersey, IT manager at Benson Group, said: “Epicor has been an instrumental element to achieving the success we enjoy today through greater efficiency in our processes and sites. For example, our accounts team is the same size as it was eight years ago, despite a huge increase in our revenues.

Epicor’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling solution has helped us achieve a four-fold increase in output at our Bardon site to GBP40m. We are now able to deal with changes effectively and plans are communicated to the shop floor accurately, and in a timely manner. Our manufacturing is very nimble and able to deal with change requests at 3pm on a Tuesday and reschedule jobs rapidly through Epicor to meet a Wednesday deadline. This would have been impossible with our previous solutions.”

James Norwood, senior vice president of product marketing at Epicor, said: “Benson Group’s achievements in the last eight years have been astounding. At the heart of this has been a management team’s desire to lead the way in what can be achieved in manufacturing, by looking at every aspect of a business for opportunities to be more efficient, and embracing new technology and techniques to achieve that goal.”