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View from the Top - Part 1 |
Part 2
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PROFILE
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Keith Dewhurst.
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Company: Lex Auto Logistics.
Interviewee: Keith Dewhurst.
Job Title: IT Director.
The Subject: Lex has chosen a best of breed warehousing system to improve its distribution to customers.
PERSONAL FILE
NAMES: Keith Dewhurst.
BACKGROUND: Keith was appointed
IT Director at Lex Auto Logistics in the autumn of 1998.
He is responsible for the operational provision and
development of the company’s applications. Under his
guidance, Lex replaced its entire systems with ‘best
of breed’ packages. Keith is also a Board member driving
business process excellence and people development throughout
the organisation. He has 27 years’ IT experience in
a career that has encompassed programming, system design,
business analysis, project management, business systems
management and now IT director.
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Q: WHAT BUSINESS DRIVERS LED YOU TO A NEW
WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM?
A: Lex Auto Logistics is an outsource logistics services
provider (see Company Box). Historically our customers were
manufacturers of commercial vehicles and components manufacturers,
but in the mid 90s we recognised our services could be provided
in other markets that have an engineering dimension.
For example, our customers now include Hyundai Cars and we
are the spare parts logistics provider for the Challenger
tank.
Because of this diversification, between 1993 and 1997 we
replaced all our computer systems which were previously inhouse-developed
mainframe architecture. They were fit for purpose but they
could not deliver the new strategy.
We chose the BPCS ERP system from SSA which is our main commercial
system, Manugistics for demand forecasting and the Sherpa
technical database and publishing system. The way Sherpa works
is that all products are logged in the database and the bill
of materials from each client is fed into the database. Then
we analyse this in terms of what parts we need to store to
service that customer in the aftermarket, and all the parts
catalogues we publish come out of that, for customers to order
parts.
Until 2001, the warehouse management aspect was being deployed
out of BPCS but the view was that we had taken the product
and error rates down as far as we could – we wanted to implement
a best of breed warehouse management system to take quality
to the next stage.
We also recognised that in bidding, being without a WMS was
seen as a disadvantage. That was the softer part of the decision
to go that route.
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Conspectus 2004
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Copyright © 2004
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