Manage growth, control costs, and run production were the business requirements for Auckland based manufacturer, Tergo Industries Ltd, when reviewing its systems.

Tergo produces over 300 cleaning products for New Zealand and Australasian markets. The holding company, Demi Holdings Group Ltd, decided Greentree, including its Manufacturing module, was the best solution to replace the existing CBA system. Following the Group’s decision, Greentree went live in August 2003 after a quick and smooth implementation from the Auckland based Greentree Business Partner.

Over the years the team at Tergo had grown used to Dos-based CBA, but it was obvious it was increasingly restricting and slowing their progress as they were using too many ‘workarounds’. Trevor Davies, Tergo’s Chief Chemist, explains, “CBA was not user friendly as manipulating data was becoming difficult and it was no longer the ideal set up for our business. Double entry was slowing us down and we needed tighter integration with Excel.”

Very, very easy implementation

Demi Holdings Group Ltd chose a 16-user Greentree suite, largely because Greentree Manufacturing has seamless integration with the financial and distribution modules. Trevor says "the Group decided that Greentree provided an improved financial system, offered advanced manufacturing functionality, and the fact it was from the developers of CBA was important.” The shift to Greentree raised some user fears which were quickly put to rest. “There was initially some resistance to a Windows system, but already we are seeing positive changes. For example, you can have all the windows open, unlike in Dos. It’s more reliable and allows us to view so much more. Just hopping from one window to another with all the data being integrated is great.”

A critical requirement for Tergo was flexible bill of material (BOM) configuration and management. Greentree Manufacturing integrates fully with the Inventory suite, allowing the creation of an extensive multi level data repository for their products, as well as process management. Tergo are able to improve their manufacturing planning process using the analytical tools to manage product details such as configurations, costs, and resources. Trevor explains, “Designing batch sheets or production orders in the BOM system in CBA was difficult for us and did not meet our specific needs. Setting up BOMs was a tiresome job, as the system was inflexible and made it difficult to make changes. There was no cut and paste facility, which we now have in Greentree.”

"Greentree is working well. It's easy to use and is flexible to the changing demands of the business."

Very, very flexible

The flexibility of the Manufacturing suite means Tergo’s production process is no longer locked into rigid structures or BOMs. The production team has the ability to include additional materials during manufacture or replace defined materials with alternatives, ensuring production completion in the most time and cost effective way. “CBA could not manage changes to BOM effectively for us; often they would have to be set up again. Greentree easily caters for production changes, which saves us a great deal of time for each batch.” Trevor continues, “Our lab technicians are much happier with the way Greentree handles changes to batches, it makes life easier for them.”

"Greentree can be tailored to our production practice and has improved the way we do things."

Very, very well supported

The ability to include unlimited production notes to staff has been important to Tergo to ensure a smoother process and reinforce safety regimes. “To be able to customise notes for our production process has been vital. Greentree allows us to put graphics, set-up instructions, and vital safety symbols for chemicals, so the information is immediately obvious and clear to the team.” says Trevor. Greentree’s unit of measure conversion methods also are having an impact on productivity and quality control.

“The conversion rates are handled well in Greentree as we can swap between kilos and volumes depending on what module we are looking at. This allows us to set up different units of measure, depending on a supplier’s request, eliminating data entry errors and stops stock being thrown out of whack.” Trevor explains, “For example, we use dyes in our products which are bought in kilograms, but made using grams. Greentree converts the measurement and it is then specified in the production order.” Producing over 300 products from 400-500 different raw materials, this functionality is important to Tergo. Trevor says, “This would be impossible to control without a flexible and sophisticated system. Greentree can be tailored to our production practice and has improved the way we do things.”

In order to organise information Tergo will set up unlimited ‘trees’. Trevor describes, “Historically we had ‘stock categories’ to look at trends and sales. Increasingly these categories were becoming obsolete making the system messy and inflexible to change. The trees in Greentree give us greater flexibility to categorise our products and for reporting purposes.” Standard Greentree reports can be tailored to present key information. Trevor explains, “We now have so many ways to look at data, forecast production, and analyse product performance. Using trees we can select the data we want and how we want it.” Trevor predicts positive changes resulting from improved stock forecasting. “We are still getting to grips with stock forecasting and trialling tree variations to suit our practices. We are confident that, after experimenting and tinkering, we will have a more efficient system to analyse our business performance. This will lead to more timely order processing and happier customers.”

Very, very on-line

Greentree provides remote users with complete on-line access to Greentree, using the JADE smart client technology. Graham Child, the Group Financial Controller uses this remote access to review and extract live financial data for the monthly and management reports. Trevor believes the data management for reports, such as sales analysis, stock management, inventory holding, production forecasts, and sales manager comparisons, has been made easier. “We can now see decreases and increases in sales per product and seasonal changes, providing more business visibility. With CBA we could not change our report templates easily, but now we can change our reports to look more professional.” The ease of importing and exporting data with Excel “makes life easier.” Describing the drill down facility Trevor says, “The ability to drill down in the inventory system to invoices is an excellent feature. It is really user friendly. It took longer to get what we wanted in CBA as we had to perform longwinded DataFlex reports. Now we can run reports on the data easily and in the format we require.”

Very, very responsive

Greentree’s WebStore is the next step for Tergo to provide customers with online ordering, access to price books and forms for product samples. Overall, Greentree provides Tergo with the tools to help manage production and the flexibility to respond quickly to customer and market demands. "The Greentree system is working well. It's easy to use, provides a broader range of functionality, allows easy set up of rules, and is flexible to the changing demands of the business." Trevor concludes, “The support is good and Greentree has kept in touch and listened to our needs and feedback.”

About Tergo Industries Ltd

Part of Demi Holdings Group Ltd, Tergo is based in Auckland and has four branches. Tergo manufacture industrial chemicals, detergents, paint strippers, and acid derusters for heavy industrial use, government bodies, and food producers in New Zealand and Australasia.

For more information visit www.tergo.co.nz