MORPHY RICHARDS GETS ON THE CRITICAL PATH WITH DATEL
Based in South Yorkshire U.K., Morphy Richards Limited, designs, manufactures and delivers a broad range of small domestic appliances from the renowned iron, kettle, toaster, to floor care, audio/visual and hair care. Morphy Richards implemented LANSA business partner Datel’s Critical Path Management (CPM) solution to reduce product development lead times through the entire organisation.
“Datel’s CPM solution has provided us with a view over all product development projects,” says Trevor Burrows, IT & Supply Chain Director at Morphy Richards. “We have the ability to see a summary of what is late and then drill down to pinpoint the problem so corrective action can be taken. With greater visibility we now have a better understanding of why things get delayed. CPM has underpinned a fundamental change in our business process.”
With greater visibility we now have a better understanding of why things get delayed. CPM has underpinned a fundamental change in our business process.
- New Product Development Process
- The Search for an Easy to Use PLM
- The Datel CPM Solution
- The Benefits of the Datel CPM
- Plans for Ongoing Development
- Company and System Information
New Product Development Process
Based in South Yorkshire, Morphy Richards spans a 20-acre site incorporating the head office along with the main UK distribution centre. Employing around 300 people with a turnover in excess of £95 million the company designs, manufactures and delivers a broad range of small domestic appliances. Today more households in the UK have a Morphy Richards product than any of its competitors from the renowned iron, kettle, toaster, to floor care, audio visual and hair care.
Today, the Morphy Richards U.K. office is focused on product design and development with most manufacturing sourced from a variety of suppliers in the Far East. To facilitate management of this supply chain Morphy Richards has a Hong Kong office liaising locally with suppliers.
Recently, Morphy Richards evaluated and introduced new business processes over several months to meet the challenge to excel in innovation along with reducing product to market lead times. As a result, the company has introduced a new company structure focused around category teams. Each category team is made up of sales, marketing, design, and engineering personnel who are responsible for many products from design to concept to delivery.
The NPD (New Product Development) process begins with a problem or an opportunity; ideas are captured, an idea then becomes a concept which when approved becomes a project. At this stage, the team works with suppliers mainly in the Far East to produce samples that finally become a finished product.
Burrows explains that, “To bring a new product to market can take various people, across different time zones a few months dependent on the complexity of the product. Individuals all have their own method of managing information with information spanning formats such as emails, various forms, spreadsheets etc. The process was not formal or structured enough to support the business process changes identified and we recognised that there was a need for a formal, corporate system.”
To bring a new product to market can take various people, across different time zones a few months dependent on the complexity of the product.
The Search for an Easy to Use PLM
“To review our options a multi-disciplined team was set-up, this consisted of IT, engineering, design, and sourcing personnel. As a team, we reviewed several PLM offerings that were all very powerful. Although we required a corporate system, it needed to be simple and easy to use. Some of the powerful Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems we reviewed had been predominately developed for the automotive or aerospace sectors. Therefore rich in functionality but there is a difference between managing the development of an airbus to a toaster! We knew that the solution we selected would be used by a high number of people therefore it had to be very easy to use.”
Morphy Richards core IT system is the ERP solution System 21 from Infor (formerly Geac) running on the IBM iSeries. Trevor explains why this was also an important factor in the search for a solution, “At the same time as looking for a solution to meet the new product development challenge, as an IT department we were also looking for a way to move forward with application modernisation. We have existing in-house RPG skills and were looking for ways to develop these to adopt a modernised approach to our application development. I already knew about the LANSA development tools so I got in touch with them.”
“During our dealings with LANSA they became aware of our requirements for a NPD system and soon introduced us to their business partner Datel, who had already developed something similar.”
“Although Datel are focused on developing and delivering solutions to the clothing and footwear industry the Critical Path Management (CPM) solution had been designed to aid the management of a complex supply chain. The challenges of managing the supply chain for us as a domestic appliance company with design in the UK whilst sourcing production overseas are very similar to those faced by some clothing companies”
“Datel demonstrated the CPM solution and instantly we could see how it could meet our needs. The system was already 65 percent there with the potential to meet 95 percent of our needs quickly. We worked with Datel to specify and design the additional functionality, much of which now forms part of the standard package.”
During our dealings with LANSA they became aware of our requirements for a NPD system and introduced us to their business partner Datel, who had already developed something similar.
The Datel CPM Solution
Datel Critical Path Management is a powerful interactive event and task management system. The system aligns the correct resources to a process; monitoring progress and performance throughout, problems are identified enabling corrective action.
After the initial system roll out, Morphy Richards have around 50 users utilising CPM including the category teams, purchasing, scheduling, management and directors. The directors are not only evaluating progress they are also part of the project process. For example at certain stages of the NPD a director needs to give authorisation, this is now completed electronic as part of the critical path.
One of the developments was the Dashboard. The dashboard provides a management view across all critical paths. The chart presents the number of paths ahead of plan, behind plan, on plan with drill down to the individual critical path. As Morphy Richards operates in category teams, the dashboard gives a view as a business and by category team.
Burrows explains. “In line with the Dashboard the calendar function is pivotal. When an individual logs on the calendar provides them with a task list by day, week, and month. This enables them to become proactive and manage their time. We see the calendar as an individual’s dashboard.”
“Our goal is to get the users to use CPM regularly, every day. It needs to become second nature, almost like processing your email. The first thing anyone does when they arrive at work is to open email, so we have a strap line of ‘NPD everyday’. We feel this is achievable as the Datel CPM solution’s fundamental design idea is to be as easy to use as email.”
Our goal is to get the users to use CPM regularly, every day. It needs to become second nature, almost like processing your email.
The Benefits of the Datel CPM
“The business motivator to look for an IT system was to support the NPD process. We needed to shorten lead times through the organisation, as well as gaining control and visibility of this process. Datel’s CPM solution has provided us with a view over all critical paths. We have the ability to see a summary of what is late and then drill down to pinpoint the problem so corrective action can be taken. With greater visibility, we now have a better understanding of why things get delayed. CPM has underpinned a fundamental change in our business process.”
Burrows explains that one of the deciding factors in selecting Datel’s CPM was the existing web capabilities in the tools used to develop the solution. “Going forward we want our engineering team and then suppliers to have access via the internet becoming an integral part of our new product development process. Therefore Datel’s web development plans for the solution complemented our future roll-out plans.”
“Our IT strategy is to continue to develop around the critical path software developing complementary systems. The LANSA and Datel framework provides us with the logic to rapidly begin our internal developments and deployments.”
Our IT strategy is to continue to develop around the critical path software developing complementary systems. The LANSA and Datel framework provides us with the logic to rapidly begin our internal developments and deployments.
Plans for Ongoing Development
“Currently we have around 50 users on the system and as we are still rolling out the solution we see this number growing. We have on average 90 tasks to each critical path and some of these are big tasks, being mini project themselves, for example, packaging can consist of many steps. Going forward we will consider using the sub-tasks facility to obtain even greater control of the business processes.”
“Morphy Richards is traditionally a UK company. As part of our future growth plans we are looking to grow our global markets. With this growth, our new product development process will become more dispersed resulting in the critical path software being even more vital to ensuring control and visibility. The solution is already truly multi-lingual enabling us to roll out the solution in line with our planned growth,” concludes Burrows.
Company and System Information
- Morphy Richards Limited is based in South Yorkshire, U.K. Morphy Richards spans a 20-acre site incorporating the head office along with the main UK distribution centre. Employing around 300 people with a turnover in excess of £95 million the company designs, manufactures and delivers a broad range of small domestic appliances.
- For more information visit: www.morphyrichards.co.uk
- Morphy Richards runs its operational systems on a System i Model 810
- Datel’s CPM application is served on a IBM X-series X346 Xeon 3.2GHz dual processor, with the data held on the i-series DB2 Database.
- Datel Protex Limited is a leading provider of business solutions to apparel and footwear companies worldwide. Datel’s enterprise management solution Protex has continually evolved in line with the ever-changing apparel and footwear industry. Once a manufacturing system, Protex now provides competitive edge for CMT companies, as well as traditional manufacturing and sourcing companies. Datel Critical Path Management is a powerful interactive event and task management system. The system aligns the correct resources to a process; monitoring progress and performance throughout, problems are identified enabling corrective action. Datel’s head office is in the U.K. with Datel Asia subsidiary based in Hong Kong along with agent in Thailand, India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
- For more information visit: www.datelprotex.com
