“With SYSPRO, our data tracking ability is phenomenal. Improved visibility of sales history is also a powerful tool. Regardless of whether you add new companies or consolidate sales differently from one year to the next, there is always a way to compare sales accurately. SYSPRO provides the quality reporting and analysis of our business needs. Just about any kind of reporting can be achieved thanks to its SQL database”
Sandi Loggenberg – Cibapac’s Chief Technology Officer
Customer Profile
Cibapac is a wholly-owned South African company and leader in rigid and flexible food packaging. Cibapac is one of the largest manufacturers of PVC stretch film in South Africa, and has a major share of the expanded polystyrene tray market for fresh produce, meat, poultry and fast foods.
Cibapac’s product ranges include polystyrene fomo trays, stretch wrap film, multi-layer vacuum bags, barrier packaging and seamless casings. Clients include major supermarket retailers and food manufacturers in the meat, poultry and dairy industries. Cibapac has been a SYSPRO client since the late ‘90s, and currently operates a 48-user licence.
The Challenges
Prior to implementing a comprehensive SYSPRO ERP solution, the organization suffered from inefficiencies created by disjointed processes, primarily in its manufacturing and distribution departments.
“Historically within our supply chain, none of the functions and departments were integrated and able to communicate with each other. Stock levels were inaccurate; manufacturing didn’t really know what to produce, so they would just produce for the sake of producing. There was also little in the way of sales forecasts or demand estimates,” explains Sandi Loggenberg, Cibapac’s Chief Technology Officer.
The Solution
Through the implementation of a fully integrated SYSPRO ERP solution with multiple core modules, including all financial modules, core distribution, and manufacturing, the company was able to bring its independent supply chain processes and components into one seamless supply chain.
The Outcome
The business has benefitted tremendously from the seamless supply chain and improved efficiencies. The manufacturing and distribution departments have benefitted most, displaying maximum improved proficiencies.
Improved data tracking, streamlined inventory management and accurate accounting practices are just some of the more noticeable benefits.
Bill of Materials
SYSPRO’s Bill of Materials (BOM) module has ensured Cibapac’s complete control over their product structures. The complete bill forms the foundation for material and capacity planning, shop floor control, and accurate costing. It’s further ensured that their engineering, production, purchasing and order processing teams are all using the same information. Complex multilevel bill of materials are now able to be costed with perfect accuracy.
Easy Integration
Historically, the company ran multiple manual and separate systems. SYSPRO became the base and has helped integrate all these individual streams of information into a powerful single source of truth.
Another key benefit is SYSPRO’s ease of integration with third party systems, such as external production scanners which track the production process from receipt of raw materials through to dispatching finished goods.
“Business Objects have been phenomenal for our business. SYSPRO’s Business Objects are used extensively throughout in areas such as inventory, data collection, tracking applications, asset management, 3rd party software integration, and sales representative web-based integration. Anything on your premises can now be integrated into SYSPRO, in pretty much any form or fashion,” explains Loggenberg.
Automated Customer Ordering
SYSPRO EDI (electronic data interchange) allows a company to send information to another electronically, regardless of their independent systems. Thanks to this, Cibapac are able to receive customer orders digitally from their larger customers. Smaller Customers’ orders are also captured digitally through Business Objects. This has resulted in a fully automated and digital order collection system, reducing the company’s customer call centre to just a single seat.
Support
“SYSPRO is user friendly and not unnecessarily complicated like some ERP solutions. It’s also regularly updated, which keeps the product current and relevant,” says Loggenberg. “We have never had a problem when it comes to getting the support we need from SYSPRO. If an issue ever arises, it is dealt with quickly and professionally. They are great at identifying bugs and remedying them, and are continuously uploading patches to their servers for customers to download and run, making SYSPRO even better and more robust. They are very customer focused.”
Looking Forward
The company has earmarked the addition of SYSPRO’s Workflow to assist in the following areas:
- For requisitions where different rules apply to different users, and there are multiple levels relating to budgets, amounts and authorisations.
- Change management for bill of materials, Workflow will simplify the process used to action these changes.
- New product development – Workflow will simplify the organisation’s extensive product development process.
- Supplier and customer notifications.
SYSPRO Mobile ERP has also been earmarked as a solution for integrating multidevice communication, incorporating mobile devices, scanners etc. It will eliminate the need to write individual device-specific programmes to incorporate each unique device.
