In addition to Weir Services, divisions include Weir Minerals, Weir Clear Liquid, Weir Valves & Controls, and Weir Defence, Nuclear & Gas. Weir Services provide maintenance and service not only for Weir products but all major equipment brands as well, and are a leading provider of equipment maintenance, process support and asset management to meet a broad spectrum of customer and process demands.
For years, Weir Services shared an ERP system with the Group's Weir Pumps manufacturing business. The division recognised a need to implement their own ERP solution for their nine facilities in the U.K., two facilities in the Middle East, and potentially other facilities around the world. Part of the defined requirements for selecting a new solution was a reporting tool capable of delivering quick, executive-level, dashboard views of division operations and finances - internal business intelligence - to ensure Weir Services operates at optimal performance levels.
The evaluation finalists included QlikView, which was already in place at Weir Canada, Inc., a division of Weir Services serving North America, which was complementing its Movex ERP system. Following up on Weir Canada's recommendation, Weir Services investigated QlikView through QlickiT, a leading BI consultancy and QlikView reseller out of Derby, U.K. "QlickiT gave a comprehensive demonstration of QlikView and our team visited Weir Canada to see their implementation," said Nigel Tasker, General Manager IT & Business Systems at Weir Services. "We evaluated other ERP systems and reporting tools, but agreed with Weir Canada's recommendation of Movex with QlikView after working with QlickiT and having a first-hand look at the North American installation. In addition to presales, QlickiT helped with implementation, training, advice on report development, and remain available to us through an ongoing relationship."
Since the new ERP implementation in 2005, QlikView has proven its value - from the essential KPI reports to the now more than 50 reports supporting 300 users. QlikView is applied beyond ERP reporting by integrating data from Weir's Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) Management System. And because the implementation is web-based, timely reporting can be shared across facilities and geographies. "QlikView reports cover every area of our business, from finance to inventories to work orders to information that is not part of the ERP system," said Tasker. "Our ERP reporting is now fully integrated with QlikView, giving us higher levels of job performance companywide."
Using QlikView, an inventory manager can now see stock across warehouses, recognise surpluses and outages, and avoid unnecessary purchases. Receipts for stock usage can be viewed daily; non-conforming goods that fail incoming inspection can be tracked more easily; and all work to optimise inventory levels and reduce various carrying costs. QlikView is also used to identify over and under staffing and shift resources according to need. "The combination of the new ERP system and QlikView reporting has provided more process control and visibility to improve our business performance," said Tasker. "We have information readily at hand to operate at higher efficiencies."
"Before QlikView, we had no concept of end-users being able to customise their own reports. With QlikView, we create base reports with filters that allow users to drill to any level of detail they need. They can do their own customised reporting and this is certainly something that can't be done with other reporting tools," said Tasker.
Two of Tasker's 12 IT staff are dedicated to reporting tools and, with QlikView, are not experiencing the backlogs of the past. "Flexibility is key," he advises. "QlikView has the flexibility to create base reports that anticipate future needs, from which users can design their own reporting. QlikView also provides a truer picture of our ERP database content.
Clearly, we are very satisfied with QlikView and it's ability to provide information on which we can make informed business decisions".
Product names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.
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