Other Suppliers “Lacked Key Features For Our industry”

Epicor Software Corporation, a global leader in business software solutions for manufacturing, distribution, retail and services organisations, today announced that Dennison Trailers, a designer and manufacturer of high quality commercial trailers in the UK & Ireland, has selected the Epicor® next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to upgrade a number of systems that have built up in the company’s recent history.

Dennison Trailers is a family owned business with factories in Lancaster, UK and Naas in Ireland. As well as producing a range of semi trailers for the general haulage sector and container handling industry, the company has a range of specialist trailers, including those for carrying plant machinery and tipping applications. The company has an annual turnover of approximately £28 million (GBP).

Epicor will replace dedicated finance, manufacturing and ‘clocking in’ software used by employees, as well as dozens of spreadsheets, allowing Dennison Trailers to respond better to customer requirements and be more efficient in its adherence to industry regulation.

“At the heart of our systems review was the desire to improve operational efficiency,” said Aidan Kinsella, managing director at Dennison Trailers. “Currently we have spreadsheets for tasks such as maintenance management and parts tracking, which are audited and tightly regulated. By bringing all operational areas into one application environment, we can be more efficient, have one version of the truth and be certain that we’ll continue to meet regulatory requirements as the business grows.”

Dennison Trailers reviewed three systems before selecting Epicor. Dennison highlighted the highly configurable nature of Epicor ERP, well equipped standard modules such as MRP, and the user interface, as key to its selection. Other suppliers either lacked key features or they had to be purchased as additional modules. The Epicor solution will be implemented by Epicor partner, Aspera Solutions, which specialises in deploying solutions for the manufacturing and distribution sectors.

“A major factor in our decision was the way the Aspera team engaged with our staff and ‘Dennison-ised’ the presentations so they were talking our language,” added Kinsella. “We didn’t just meet the sales team, but the operational people with whom we would be working to implement the solution.”

There will be 15 main users of the Epicor ERP solution, but all staff will be logging their hours and tracking workflows on the system. This flexibility in the Epicor licensing model for manufacturing floor users, also made the company stand-out from the competition.

“Our customers often request customisations to our products, which leads to many varients and complicated tracking requirements,” concluded Kinsella. “We believe Epicor will improve the service we can offer customers not only in the sales and manufacturing process, but also aftersales service when our customers have queries about their trailers.”

“For many of our customers, their aftersales business can be as complicated as manufacturing their products in the first place,” added Malcolm Fox, director, product marketing for Epicor. “Epicor has tightly integrated parts, batch, service tracking and quality assurance features that allow us to provide an ERP solution that meets the needs of some of the most demending manufacturing applications, including transport, electronics and aerospace.”