Real Time Reporting and Increasing Financial Visibility through Business Process Automation
As a designer and manufacturer of machinery and components, the visibility of information and the custodianship of cost centres are of the utmost importance to Nylacast. Subsequently, it required a solution that would increase the financial visibility of international transactions, automate the construction and delivery of real-time management reports and monitor and enforce company health and safety procedures.
Primary Applications Used: XKO software
“At Nylacast we use a very powerful ERP application by XKO Software, but with the rapid growth of our business, employees were finding that they required more automated information based on exceptions.”
Richard Hopfl, ERP coordinator, Nylacast
Real Time Reporting: Automation of employee tasks and enforcing company best practices
Company Details
Nylacast Ltd. has become synonymous with innovation, quality and technical excellence in relation to cast nylon development. Indeed, the divisional integration between materials, components and technology has become a trademark for the company in providing its products to a wide range of customers.
The Challenge
- Remove employee administrative tasks
- Save time and money
- Automate invoice and report processes
- Extract, format and distribute information in real time
The Solution
- Automated real time reporting
- Implementation of business process automation software
- Invoice process automation
- Improving end-to-end reporting processes
The Results
- Information now available in real-time
- Senior managers better informed
- Health and Safety processes adhered to
- Improved decision making
The Challenge: Automating Manual Tasks
The manufacturing industry as a whole represents a sixth of the UK’s economy and directly employs 3.5 million people. Yet, with competition from abroad continually increasing, companies such as Nylacast are constantly looking for new ways to maintain their market leadership. In this instance, Nylacast was looking to leverage the true capabilities of its existing IT infrastructure by automating administrative tasks that cost the company time and money.
“At Nylacast we use a very powerful ERP application by XKO Software. However, with the rapid growth of our business employees were finding that they required more automated information based on exceptions,” explained Richard Hopfl, ERP coordinator, Nylacast. “The ability of Codeless Platforms’ BPA Platform to extract, format and distribute information, either by exception or schedule, quickly addressed the information requirements of key company decision-makers.
- Remove repetitive employee administrative tasks
- Save the oprganisation time and money
- Extract, format and distribute information in real-time
- Provide real time reporting
“The ability of Codeless Platforms’ BPA Platform to extract, format and distribute information, either by exception or schedule, quickly addressed the information requirements of key company decision-makers.”
Richard Hopfl, ERP coordinator, Nylacast
The Solution: Accounts, Health & Safety and Purchasing departments benefit from intelligent automation
All company departments are run according to business rules and repetitive administrative tasks and it is these business processes that generate company revenue. However, business growth can and does slow down a department’s ability to process purchase orders (POs) effectively for example.
The traditional approach to resolving this would be for existing employees to work longer or for the company to take on new members of staff. Yet, through Codeless Platforms’ BPA Platform, Nylacast has not only automated these processes but it has freed-up existing employees to focus purely on business development activities.
“Previously, a great deal of employee time was committed each day to identifying purchase invoices due and splitting purchase orders by division.” said Hopfl. “Now Codeless Platforms’ Workflow & Human Interaction capability does this automatically, which means these activities are completed quicker and members of staff are free to focus on revenue generating tasks.”
It is widely accepted that information is now the currency of business. Businesses with access to real-time, exception based information are better able to make informed decisions based on actual conditions and this is crucial to those members of senior management.
- Automate the purchase invoice process
- Employees can focus on revenue generating tasks
- Generate real time reporting
“These activities are completed quicker and members of staff are free to focus on revenue generating tasks.”
Richard Hopfl, ERP coordinator, Nylacast
The Result: Real Time Reporting and informaiton available
Hopfl was keen to highlight the importance of Codeless Platforms’ BPA Platform to the directors of Nylacast.
“A director’s ability to manage the business is always partly determined by the information he is provided with. Business now demands that decision-makers have real-time, exception-based information to hand and automation is the only way to ensure this is delivered all the time, every time.”
Nylacast’s finance director is now provided with real-time updates on clients exceeding their credit limits thus eradicating the need for administrators to waste time continually querying, formatting and distributing information from their ERP application. Furthermore, the managing director now has greater financial visibility of this international divisions as Codeless Platforms’ Notifications & Alerts capability dynamically sends details of raised POs directly to him via email.
Automation of Health and Safety Activities
Aside from the more common business areas in which companies use the BPA Platform to automate business processes, Nylacast has also used it to monitor and automate reporting on its health and safety activities. With today’s compensation culture it has never been so crucial to proactively safeguard against company vulnerabilities and to ensure that employees are adequately protected.
“We have health and safety procedures to protect our employees and we use Codeless Platforms’ various add-ons to enforce those procedures,” said Hopfl. “If a health and safety task is not fulfilled, or an employee fails to complete their training, the relevant safety manager is alerted. This proactive approach to health and safety safeguards company protocols and ensures employee accountability.”
- Real-time exception based information now available
- Senior management better informed
- Health and Safety activities automated
Nylacast and its future vision
The strategic automation of business processes is an ongoing activity for all companies and the drag and drop interface within Codeless Platforms’ BPA Platform makes this a pain free activity. In the case of Nylacast, its aim now is to increase the flow of critical information between the UK headquarters and its international divisions.
“The main thrust of our activity will be to replicate everything we’ve achieved in the UK within our international divisions. This will deliver us with further cost savings and greater productivity per employee,” revealed Hopfl. “Our ERP application has everything we need in terms of information but the automation capabilities of Codeless Platforms’ BPA Platform ensures that critical information is delivered to senior management when they most need it. You cannot put a price on having the right information at the right time.”
