Scalable Data Systems (SDS) recently supplied Fosroc with a Axapta system that integrates the two arms of Fosroc’s mining industry business – manufacturing and ventilation.

“When we approached SDS we had two software systems that worked independently,” said Fosroc finance director Phil Panozzo. “For manufacturing we had a very antiquated, cumbersome, legacy system, and for our ventilation business a basic financial system. To replace these we wanted a system that was Y2 compliant and integrated the data from both arms of the business. We contacted over five companies, short listed 20 and then closely scrutinized three.”

Panzzo said the software offered flexible technology that was layered, providing ready access to data.

“We liked its facility to produce reports from all levels of our data and its close links to Microsoft Office. It was not machine hungry and didn’t require that we had to change our existing physical hardware.”

Panozzo said Axapta has delivered an estimated 3% increase in returns on the contracting side. Micro-analysis of the company’s gross margins is now possible, as well as more effective control of project costings, and a greater focus on inefficiencies.

On the manufacturing side of the business Axapta has provided an added transparency for data review Panozzo said.

“People in product management are able to undertake detailed data analysis with ease. They can look behind the scene and determine in real time what impact various processes have on the cost of a product and react to this accordingly. It allows them to instantly see where the costs are coming from.

“Previously if we had wanted a report out of Manufacturing we had to bring in a special programmer to extract the data. Axapta, by contrast, allows us to print directly to a text file and use a Microsoft Query to very quickly and effectively extract the information we need,” Panozzo said.