INDUSTRY WATCH
W
ith a manufacturing facility
in Bahrain and offices
throughout the GCC (Gulf
Cooperation Council) including KSA,
Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, Havelock
AHI specialises in interior fit outs
and manufacturing of high quality
furniture, joinery and shop fittings
for international hotels, renowned
retail stores, supermarkets and
hypermarkets, corporate offices,
banks, and palaces.
With manual processes hindering
growth up until the late 2000s,
Havelock AHI relied on a home-grown
solution to run their business. While
the solution was effective, it was far
from efficient, in part, due to the
system architecture.
The existing solution was essentially
two disparate ‘systems’—one of
which was used to manage the
manufacturing and contracting
portion of the business (order entry,
manufacturing work orders, etc) and
the second for accounting and finance.
For an organisation whose value
proposition is offering customers
bespoke solutions, the old system
raised several challenges that needed
to be addressed.
As Aiman Mahmoud, senior IT
manager, explains: “In our business,
agility, flexibility and on-time-delivery
(OTD) are critical success factors.
Being able to offer our customers a
completely customised offering and
deliver it in a timely manner is what
sets us apart from the competition.
“This requires tight integration of all
processes from tendering and order
entry, to engineering and purchasing,
and manufacturing and delivery.
“Working with two separate systems
meant that we lacked critical visibility
and transparency across departments
which translated to lost productivity
and efficiency, and potentially
lost business.
www.intelligentcio.com
WE NEEDED A
SYSTEM THAT COULD
BE CUSTOMISED TO
MEET THE NEEDS
OF BOTH THE
MANUFACTURING
AND CONTRACTING
PIECES OF OUR
BUSINESS WITHOUT
INCURRING
SIGNIFICANT
COSTS OR LONG
IMPLEMENTATION
DELAYS.
“If that wasn’t bad enough, the system was still
very manual, a problem that made each month-
end closing a marathon process due to having to
move all operational data from the manufacturing
system to the accounting system, and then
navigate the several layers of validation to make
sure there were no errors.”
Need for a modern ERP system
Faced with these challenges, the team at Havelock
AHI realised that replacing their home-grown
solution with a modern, third-party Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) solution that would
allow the organisation to have visibility and
transparency across all departments, and
streamline and automate processes, was key to
business growth and commercial development.
When compiling the list of ‘must-haves’ for the
new ERP solution, number one on the list was the
need for the system to be industry-specific and
have a high-degree of customisation that came
out-of-the-box and ready to use.
On the subject of detailing with the process of
putting together the request for an ERP proposal,
INTELLIGENTCIO
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