The company works with both heavy and light Strip Mill products from 0.8mm to 20 mm thick, uncoiling, levelling and cutting it to length, followed by plasma, flame or laser cutting. C Brown also offers a bend and fold service to suit the customer’s requirements. Processing over 100,000 tonnes of sheet and plate annually, the Valued Added Division since 2012 has increased turnover by 13% year on year.
Lantek: Why did C Brown need an integrated manufacturing system?
Julian Adkins, Director for C. Brown: We had islands of software dedicated to the CNC programming of each individual machine, and this seriously affected our flexibility as, if we needed to move production to a different machine, we had to program it over again. We realized that we needed one CAM system to program all the machines, and a management system which integrated with it to run our whole business. We wanted a joined-up solution which was within budget. Lantek Integra was the only one we could find which suited our requirements.
Lantek : How do you use the Lantek software and which parts are particularly important?
Julian Adkins: We use the CRM module to manage our customer and supplier relationships in real-time and to generate new and accurate quotations, while with the Sales module we can track sales orders and the progress of manufacture. The Purchasing module lets us keep control of delivery expectations, goods received, current prices and up to date contact details for our suppliers. The Warehouse module monitors stock levels and allows us to attach documentation to each product. This is very important to us, as we need to maintain full traceability by keeping records of items such as material test certificates, material batch and supplier records, and goods received notes, allowing us to go right back to the original coil of steel.
Lantek: How does the Lantek Expert system integrate with Lantek Integra at C Brown?
Julian Adkins: The Manager system works on ‘buckets’ of capacity, so it sorts the requirements by the type of steel, S275 for example, and then again by thickness. Typically, we could have 35 different jobs running at any one time in each thickness, and there could be 100 parts in each job, all of different shapes, making it quite a complex problem to resolve. These ‘buckets’ of requirement then go to the Lantek Expert CADCAM system, where they are automatically nested into our standard sheet sizes and the CNC program generated. Material sizes range from 2000 x 1000 to 4000 x 2000. Our aim is to achieve at least 80% material utilization.”
Lantek: Has the system helped you to produce more accurate prices for your customers?
Julian Adkins: Using the nesting capabilities of Lantek Expert we can produce realistic costings for difficult shaped jobs which are hard to nest, or which require very short delivery times. For the majority of our work we can also easily calculate robust prices for our customers based on the mix of work currently being manufactured. Reflecting the true cost of manufacture in our quotations ensuring profitability on all our contracts and, at the same time, offering highly competitive prices.
Lantek: How does shop floor data collection help in capacity planning and setting of delivery dates?
Julian Adkins: Now we can provide a specific lead time for each job, rather than a generic one for all our work, as we know the current workload on each machine. Lantek Integra provides the framework which allows Lantek Expert and Lantek Manager to integrate into a transparent and automated system.
Lantek: What difference has the software made to on-time delivery and continuous improvement?
Julian Adkins: Our sales team now consistently reports high levels of on-time delivery which is good for our customer satisfaction levels. Furthermore, we can use Lantek Integra to identify common problems in our manufacturing and service and take action to prevent their reoccurrence. Overall, it is vital to the growth of our business. It helps us to identify key areas of weakness in our business model, allowing us to develop and test the most effective improvements. It is also a driving force for capital investment as it gives us the ability to find where we are making money and identify the best investment opportunities.
Lantek: How important is the Lantek software to C Brown’s business?
Julian Adkins: Lantek’s software is now effectively the backbone of our Value-Added Product trading division it has robustly grown with our increasing business and has played a vital role in our year on year growth.
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