Gilberts Airs Make-to-Order Production Benefits with Infor

By PRNewswire On Dec 18, 2018

Air Distribution Products Manufacturer Boosts Capacity and Reduces Training Requirement with Infor Configure Price Quote Application

Infor, a global leader in business cloud software for Enterprise and SMB companies, announced that air distribution product manufacturer, Gilberts (Blackpool) Ltd. has deployed Infor Configure Price Quote (CPQ) in an effort to help boost capacity, enhance production and improve customer service. Integrated with Infor CloudSuite Industrial, Gilberts expects to use the application to help support its initiatives to speed up the customer estimation process, expedite production, and reduce inventory.

With a complex product mix, and hundreds of thousands of variable components earmarked for a just in time (JIT) production model generating volumes of around 100,000 per annum, Gilberts required new capabilities to help drive greater efficiency and service to its customers. A long standing user of Infor CloudSuite Industrial, the air product specialist selected Infor CPQ based on its ability to process a greater number of quote enquiries with fewer resources. It also hoped to reduce training, and to obtain the ability to more efficiently process orders regardless of whether they are make-to-stock or make-to-order.

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Gilberts is already seeing benefits with a 50% line entry improvement on quotations and orders placed. In turn, this has led to faster quoting, increased capacity and greater accuracy. This higher degree of control and confidence has not only boosted productivity but training in the estimation process has reduced from around six months to just a few weeks.

“Our product range is hugely complex with prices from £5 to £10,000, and a large amount of variability,” comments Ian Rogers, Sales Director, Gilberts (Blackpool). “As the business has grown, the quotation and subsequent order processing, particularly for more bespoke products, has become time intensive and resource hungry which were at odds with our focus on Kanban, efficiency and service. Infor CPQ has allowed us to expand our capacity and deliver enhanced customer service while reducing training requirements and manual processes involved in the processing of high volumes of complex orders.”

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“Make-to-order manufacturing, particularly when combined with make-to-stock manufacturing, inevitably requires superior capabilities to reduce complexity and help ensure seamless production,” comments Simon Niesler, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Western Europe, Infor. “Through eliminating errors and speeding up the quote-to-order cycle, Gilberts is delivering improved customer experiences and is working to ensure orders impact the bottom line faster.”