CASE STUDY
Because of tighter MRP, better job tracking and real-time visibility into material availability, production schedule adherence has increased from roughly 70 % to over 90 %. Simultaneously, sales order processing, which previously took two to three days, is now completed on the same day. This significantly accelerates our order-to-cash cycle and improves customer responsiveness.
From a finance perspective, monthly financial closing has been reduced by more than 50 %. This allows the finance team to spend less time reconciling data and more time on forecasting, cost control and strategic analysis.
Costing is often a major challenge in manufacturing. How has ERP changed this for you? compliance and traceability. Built-in audit trails and system controls make it much easier to meet internal governance standards and external reporting requirements.
One of the most striking aspects of this project is how lean the implementation team was. How did you manage that?
Because of my prior experience with Epicor and ERP implementations, I took on much of the configuration and integration work myself. This hands-on approach ensured that the system was designed around real operational needs rather than theoretical models. It also allowed us to move quickly and stay in control of the project timeline.
Before ERP, costing was largely estimate-based. People would look at electricity bills, gas usage and raw material consumption and then try to divide costs proportionally. There was no consistent standard for understanding the true cost of a batch, a job or even a specific product.
With Epicor, we defined clear production standards and cost standards across BOMs, routings and resources. Today, every production run captures actual material usage, energy consumption and labour time. That means we know exactly what it costs to manufacture each tile type.
This level of cost transparency allows us to protect margins, price more competitively and ensure we are delivering fair value to customers, all while maintaining meticulous financial discipline and control.
You describe yourself as having a data scientist’ s mindset. How does that influence your role today?
ERP gives you data, but mindset determines how you use it. Epicor centralises data across procurement, production, inventory, sales and finance, which allows us to build reliable KPIs and dashboards.
We actively use business intelligence tools, BAQs and SSRS reports to monitor performance in real time. Decisions are no longer driven by opinions or assumptions but rather by clear facts. That data-led approach has also strengthened
Cloud was a very deliberate decision. We did not want to spend time and resources maintaining infrastructure. Our focus needed to be on improving processes, not managing servers.
Looking ahead, how does ERP position Uniceramic for emerging technologies like AI?
AI is only effective if your data foundation is strong. ERP gives us clean, structured, historical data across two years, and growing.
We are already exploring how advanced analytics and AI can further optimise planning, maintenance and forecasting. Being on the cloud makes this far easier to adopt when the business is ready.
Finally, what advice would you give to other manufacturing leaders considering ERP transformation?
Treat ERP as a business transformation, not an IT project. Success depends on leadership, process clarity and data discipline. When you view technology simply as the enabler, you focus on the business outcomes. If you get that right, the results speak for themselves. •
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INTELLIGENT CIO MIDDLE EAST www. intelligentcio. com