Ney Ltd are involved in all aspects of the woodworking industry. They supply, install and service woodworking machinery for new, established and expanding companies right up to highly sophisticated plant installations for automated production. They also distribute materials and components for the furniture industry such as edging strip for sheet materials, decorative foils for doors, drawer fronts, dowels the list goes on.

Ney Ltd introduced Focus in 1996, which allowed multi bin locations, flexible quantity order processing and all customer related information to be available at the point of order for quick processing. It also allowed them to control Stock, Accounts, Manufacturing and Purchasing. As their business has grown they took the decision to relocate to new premises in 2003. With the move into the new building providing a lot more space they saw the chance to radically change their way of working and cater for future expansion. The criteria to which any proposal had to adhere to was as follows:-

• Maximisation of space efficiency
• Traceability and accountability at every Stage
• The speeding up of all administrative processes in the warehouse
• Automation of packing labels to avoid losing information
• Simulation of all movements in real time on the software system
• Complete transparency to the sales Office
• Give improved presentation of the despatched goods
• To be ergonomically conducive to maintenance of cleanliness and tidiness

One of the first decisions for Ney was to purchase a very narrow aisle forklift truck, which increased the storage capacity of the new warehouse. The use of such a machine made it necessary to change from a single order picking to batch order picking using an optimised route calculated by Focus.

The warehouse was split into two, one area for “closed boxes” ie full boxes on pallets and the other “open stock” for unpacked coils of edging. These coils require re-labelling once the box has been discarded. A wireless network, covering the whole warehouse, allows ‘ mini stocktakes‘ to be made at any time by simply scanning the barcodes on the products and the bins using Handheld RF scanners. The ability to rapidly rearrange stock in the warehouse and immediately update the stock control system is invaluable.

The warehouse was split into two, one area for “closed boxes” ie full boxes on pallets and the other “open stock” for unpacked coils of edging. These coils require re-labelling once the box has been discarded. A wireless network, covering the whole warehouse, allows ‘ mini stocktakes‘ to be made at any time by simply scanning the barcodes on the products and the bins using Handheld RF scanners. The ability to rapidly rearrange stock in the warehouse and immediately update the stock control system is invaluable.

Ney also produce edging strip pre glued to order which involves splitting a larger roll, applying the glue, recoiling and re-labelling. Each item being given an identifier in stock, which uniquely references the part number, the roll length (quantity), and the location. This number is encoded in a barcode, which then allows for real time stock control. In order to manage this solution items removed from boxes, split or glued are relabelled. The benefits are full traceability, quality management, ease, speed and accuracy of stock locating and picking etc.

Warehouses, based in Scotland and Ireland, are fully integrated into the same stock control system by means of a Wide Area Network. Sales personnel taking orders in any country have full visibility of stock in all warehouses and can initiate deliveries from every location.

"We bought the first Focus modules in 1996. The decision for Focus was taken because the price-functionality ratio was in the bracket we would able to spend. Also we felt that it would be better to talk directly to the manufacturer of software rather than a dealer. Since then Focus has grown with our company in terms of capacity and functionality, integrating all aspects of our business. Tailor-made modules and applications were added streamlining our operations to be fit for the future. Over the years Sensible Computing Solutions have been partners in the best sense of the word, understanding our needs, answering them with practical solutions and providing support. Our success of the recent years has very much to do with our processes done in Focus."

Mr Clemens Ney – Director Ney Ltd