Cincom ERP supports Norris' complete sustainability goal

Key to Norris' operations is the strategic mantra of a constant pursuit of sustainability.

Arvid Taylor, director of Sirron Holdings, Norris Industries' parent company, explains Norris's interpretation of sustainability is a holistic one and includes both maintaining their business as well as the environment.

"It's not just about carbon, it's about the entire environment including paper, water, scrap materials – anything we generate gets recycled," Taylor said.

"We aim to make sure we are sustainable from a business point of view as well."

Some of the key successes Norris Industries have achieved as results of their strategic direction include; a Hunter Manufacturing Award, Australian Design Award and NSW Sustainability Advantage Award: Bronze.

Arvid explains in order to achieve the state government accredited Sustainability Award the business had to pass a series of milestones and tests on ALL levels of the environment. 

"They focus quite heavily on water consumption and waste elimination and how you handle that," he said.

"Also overall electricity use is driving to net neutral due to investment in solar and investigating other options;  as a consequence of this we have now put in induction lighting rather than LED lighting which is far more efficient."

Crucial to attaining business sustainability is achieving efficiency by controlling costs and wastes with accurate records of all inputs and outputs.

"[Previously] we had a simple job recording system; there was no planning in it at all," Taylor said, "everything had to be controlled manually which in the smaller shop wouldn't have been a problem, we used to be able to just about run that off a whiteboard."

As the business and the requirement to manage inventory and stock grew however, so too did the need for an end to end solution.

"It became clear that an all points approach was needed to reinvigorate the business and that's when we started looking for an ERP solution."

After a thorough evaluation of relevant business solutions, Cincom's Priority was chosen as Norris Industries ERP system.

"It came down to complexity and cost,"  Cincom's Priority won the day on that basis," Taylor said.

On a process level, Norris has streamlined a variety of operations such as:

Creation of Work Orders and Purchase Orders – Norris are now using MRP and Purchase Planning within Cincom's Priority to raise orders. This has seen substantial improvement and slashed processing time

Inventory Cycle Counting – Norris, with the use of Cincom's Priority now conduct daily cycle counts for selected inventory items rather than performing an annual stocktake. This has led to process efficiencies in inventory accuracy and there is now no longer a requirement to shut down the factory for 2-3 days to perform stocktake.

Service Warranty Management – Norris now use Cincom's Priority to assign warranty service orders automatically through authorised service technicians across their nation-wide dealer network, completely eliminating the need for paper and waste.

On a more strategic level however Cincom's Priority is now the backbone of Norris Industries sustainability efforts.

"Cincom's Priority supports our sustainability initiatives by keeping an eye on costs and tracking consumption and incidents… [it also assists by] recording where we spend our money and how we spend it," Taylor said.

Cincom Systems prides itself on its reputation for building long lasting, evolving partnerships rather than a simple vendor/ client relationships. 

Norris Industries presents a great example of this partnership at work, with the business currently reviewing further modules of Cincom's Priority, offering mobile functionality.

"We are definitely looking at the unique mobile [iPad and Android] solutions that Cincom's Priority offer to help service our market more directly… Mobile Field Service and WMS," Taylor said.

Cincom's Priority Mobile Field Service solution manages the movements of service and maintenance staff on the road.

The use of mobile technology means staff can complete transactions such as ordering parts, route planning and approving with signatures, on the go.

Cincom's Priority Warehouse Management System (WMS) is a mobile solution that controls in real time the optimisation of the warehouse. WMS manages all movements and storage of materials as well associated transactions.