Background
Based in Cambridge, Ziath is a manufacturing company that makes devices for tracking biological samples in medical applications and life-science research. With offices in the US, Japan and the Netherlands, and 30 people worldwide, they have 8–9 base products which — together with product variations — result in around 50 SKUs.
Founded in 2005, Ziath develops innovative new products designed to simplify processes in life-science organisations, from academia to the biotech and pharma industries.
"Prior to us looking for ERP there was lots of panic about things going wrong. Like — how the hell did we run out of something? We were getting an order in and although we thought our stock control was OK, we were then opening the box and finding out that the part we needed wasn't there. There was a lot of panic to get component parts. It happened all the time."
"We were using Excel, but basically we were not able to cope with that. It became unmanageable."
"If a customer had something that required return and repair, we were not able to trace properly whether they had a warranty or what was the serial number for that. We didn't have an idea for it."
— Neil Benn, Managing Director, Ziath
Challenges
- Stock control
- Tracking who had what — what we'd sold to whom
- Tracking when we sold it to them
- Serial numbers
- Consistency of record keeping
"We had no knowledge about ERP whatsoever when we decided to start looking. We knew we had a problem that needed solving."
"We started looking into ERP when we started selling more than 1 or 2 units a month. We now sell 40 to 50."
"There were a few other things that drove us to have an ERP system. One was working on spreadsheets — that became unmanageable. Second was the threat of audits from different suppliers. We knew that if they turn up and we give them a bunch of Excel sheets they probably won't be very impressed, and we were going to fail those audits."
"The fact that we couldn't track parts, we couldn't track stock — it was getting way too complicated."
— Neil Benn, Managing Director, Ziath
At what stage of business development was Ziath when you decided to invest in ERP?
"We had 5 staff and 250k GBP revenue, but we knew we had a problem that needed solving, so we started doing some internet searches and Manu came up in various of them."
— Neil Benn, Managing Director, Ziath
Focus on the process
Results — what Ziath says
"Far less unexpected shortages. We have much-improved stock control, fewer instances of the assembly person opening a box and finding out everything is in there or nothing in."
Stock control in order
"If someone says to us that they have a product with the serial number 'xyz' we can see to whom we shipped it and when it was shipped. We have traceability of when, where and what."
Serial-number tracking and traceability
"If someone gives us the serial number of a product — for instance in the event of a return and repair — I can type in the serial number and find out: does it have a warranty, what part number, etc. — especially when we have many variations on our products and where we sent it to. This has been beneficial. We record all our manufacturing operations in Manu."
Work orders & sales orders
"Because of this defined structured system, we have become better at defining the things we are doing. You must make everyone understand the change so they can add the data needed to make the system work. It helped everyone in the company to learn how to have a methodical manufacturing business, which is important in this industry."
Growth
We asked Neil if he thinks that Manu Online contributed directly to the growth of the company. His answer was:
"Yes, absolutely. Without Manu Online we would be in an utter disaster."
— Neil Benn, Managing Director, Ziath
How Manu Online helped
Automate business processes to be more efficient:
"We type a serial number in the system, and we get a full record of that product — what, when, where."
Introduce LEAN manufacturing processes to grow faster:
"We went from 250k and 5 staff to 2.5mil GBP and 30 staff using Manu ERP for the past 10 years."
Reduce inventory costs, speed up throughput, increase profit:
"The assembly guy doesn't have the instances where he goes and checks in the box and nothing is there, or everything is in there."
Connect systems such as sales, warehousing, inventory, logistics and finance for real-time visibility:
"We had a look at other systems, but they were not as good for tracking serial numbers and lot numbers as Manu."
Access anywhere with an internet connection:
"When we first came across Manu, we found it quite unusual that it was in the cloud — this was good because there weren't many cloud systems at that point."
No expensive upfront costs:
"We had a look at other ERP solutions, but the amount of customisation, the cost per year running and set-up was quite large. Plus, some of the others weren't as focused hardcore on manufacturing, so for us they weren't what we needed. Manu Online cost was good."
"Manu Online has been very good at giving us a canonical source for sales orders and work orders. We tweaked ourselves to what Manu was doing and we got great results."
— Neil Benn, Managing Director, Ziath
