Butser Rubber implemented 123insight in2006 - about a year before they noticed aslowdown in business that resulted in theeconomic crash of 2008. Initially thecompany’s business focussed on bespoke,small run orders for rubber products, gasketsand metal to rubber bonded products.Motivated by the immediate flexibility of123insight, they started to diversify into largerruns of standard products. Now able to servedifferent markets, they were even winningbusiness back from the Far East. It was thisforesight that allowed the company to ride outthe crisis, as Production Manager CharlieEaston explained; “In terms of diversificationwe've gone from a bespoke company to amass production company, which means thatwe can compete in Europe and Chinabecause our production machinery andsoftware supports all sectors,whether you want 10 or100,000.”

Previously, the family runcompany relied on four staff tohandle administration for theirold system, but this wasreduced to one. Said Charlie;“ W e u s e d t o h a v e f o u rdedicated administrators whowould be processing onto ourMS Access system. At thebeginning there was quite a lotof administration to transfer tothe new system. Around thes a m e t i m e w e h a d t h eslowdown we also lost staff dueto children moving schools. We

also built our business processes into123insight, which meant we got things rightfirst time and didn’t need to replace the staff.

We r e m o v e d a l o t o fduplication, especial lybetween contract reviewand despatch. On the oldMS Access system wewould have to manuallyhandwrite the despatchlabels and notes whereaswith 123insight we canautomatically print bothfrom the system. As a resultwe went from four staff tojust one, which was quite abig jump. Recently we'vejust taken on anotheradministrator as we'retrying to aggressively growsales and we're using123insight as more of a

Charlie Easton

Production Manager

Butser Rubber increases turnover by 50% with aquarter of the admin staff and accelerates audits

Key Benefits/Changes:

� Turnover increased by 50%with 75% admin reduction

� Powerful traceability allowsfor fast audits

� ’Highly Commended’ inThe Manufacturer Awards

� Tight integration withAccess Dimensions

� CRM+ allows 123insight tobe used as a sales tool

� Excellent support

� Painless upgrades, withnew and enhancedfeatures

In 2006 Butser Rubber decided to move away from their Microsoft Access based stock and productiondatabase, selecting and being trained on 123insight in just 4 weeks. They reduced paperwork by 90%,obtained much more accurate lead times and were able to run several company divisions through thesame system. This ‘10 Years On’case study catches up with the company after a double-dip recessionand details how the company not only survived but also increased turnover and expanded into newmarkets.

Butser Rubber Ltd

Case Study - 10 years on

sales tool as well as an administration tool.”Despite the reduction in staff, turnover hasincreased by 50%.

Charlie also appreciated 123insight’s flexiblemonthly licencing, going from their initial 13down to 10 during the downturn; “With123insight we had the ability to retract and wewent from 13 licences to what we actuallyneeded at the time. As things started to pickup in 2012 and 2013 we took on new staff andwent back up to the same number of licenceswe had when we first started.”

As part of their growth plan Butser hasinvested heavily in new machinery, and in aneffort to further streamline production theyinstalled 42" displays on the shopfloor where123insight is used and are using Shop FloorData Collection to track works orders at eachstage of manufacture. Production meetingsare also held around the display so that anybottlenecks can be instantly identified anddiscussed. Added Charlie; “We used to bedriven by the paper works order or the guys atthe end of the process pulling the job throughbecause they could see it was late. When westarted to clean up our stock, reduce stocklevels and work in progress, only the worksorders that were left on the system showedon the Enterprise screen. It meant that if wekept our administration tidy then what was left

on the screen was what had to get done. Thisthen became more powerful than the paper.If someone lost a works order it didn't matterbecause we knew that job had to get doneand it wasn't a paper-pushing exercise - itwas the system pushing the paper.”

Butser replaced their Sage 50 accounts withAccess Dimensions, and the tight integrationbetween the two has allowed 123insightusers to immediately see a customer’saccount status; “With the integrationbetween Access Dimensions and 123insightyou can see on screens such as quoting,despatch and sales order entry how much aparticular customer owes you. If they areover 120 days or 90 days the system can putautomatic stops on to prevent the ordergetting processed or to trigger for somebodyto phone them. As we had a very scary timeback in 2008 this has given us the ability to bemuch more proactive in chasing money andnot allowing accounts to run out of controlsimply because nobody had asked thequestion.”

Previously the company relied on an Excelspreadsheet to track new enquiries but theyreplaced this with 123insight’s CRM+ option.“To capture enquiries we would use aspreadsheet with a unique project numberper line. If someone phoned or emailed we'dtake the next number, put in their name,number, etc. and that would be their internalreference. Once we upgraded 123insight tothe CRM+ system there was a feature calledProject Control. Within Project Control wewere then able to capture not only the uniquereference number but also the customername, start date, who was responsible,relevant tooling information, who was doingcontract reviews, legal requirements, ROHScompliance, etc. We were able to capture theentire enquiry using one reference within123insight and link it to the customer,whereas the spreadsheet never had anyinteraction with the system whatsoever.”

Case Study - 10 years on

Butser Rubber Ltd

Case Study - 10 years on

Butser Rubber Ltd

Once Butser had streamlined accounts,production and enquiry management,123insight started to become a significantpart of the sales process. Charlie explained;“The system is very useful when giving asales pitch because you can demonstratefeatures such as traceability - you can showan example of another customer's job goingthrough. You can see who exactly loggedonto the job, at which stage, how many arestill due out and if you're running at a highscrap rate. When you have a new potentialautomotive customer it’s very easy on123insight to demonstrate the control youhave over the process. This has meant thatonce we got our first big customer forseveral thousand units per day we wereable to pitch this to another customer veryeasily.”

Butser relies solely on 123insight to complyw i t h t h e i r I S O 9 0 0 1 : 2 0 0 8 q u a l i t yaccreditation standard and for customersrequiring traceability to aerospace AS9100and automotive TS quality standards.Previously audits took all day and required agreat deal of effort but now they can be donequickly and from one location; “It really is aone stop shop auditable system. We hadour audit last week and we did it all from mylaptop in our conference room. The auditorasked for the delivery note number of thesupplier and I could bring up both thepurchase order and the delivery note. We

scan it at goods inwards and attach it to thepurchase order, so the auditor doesn't haveto move from his seat - he can see fulltraceability at a right click. We can see thatthe parts were issued to a works order andwho issued them. We have our staff skillsmatr ix bui l t in to 123insight ’s userpermissions, so it only allows people thatare authorised to issue those works orders.We have great confidence that we can gofor our aerospace accreditation withoutdoing anything to our system because it’sdoing it automatically for us.”

The system is seen by Butser’s owncustomers as so reliable that they will oftencall Butser to check on something ratherthan rely on their own internal systems. “Igot called out of a meeting this morningbecause a customer lost 120 units and theydon't have line stock for Monday morning.They can't find the parts anywhere. So theyphoned us asking 'how many have you got'?I could see that we have 300 beingmanufactured this afternoon and they'llhave 300 on Monday morning. This is amulti-million pound automotive companywho can't find their stock, so they are relyingon us to pull them out of that situation.”

Support is an important aspect of anymission-critical business tool, and Butserhave been extremely pleased with theassistance they’ve received. “Support has

been very, very good. We only phone upwhen we feel that we have a genuineproblem. We believe that we can navigatethe system well enough to remove all the'where's this PDF document' sort ofquestions. When we have a problem it'sbecause something's changed in thebackground, and that's when we need a bitmore system knowledge as opposed to123insight knowledge. If people can't getthe answer straight away we normally get aphone call back within 10 minutes saying‘I've spoken to someone else’ and we getthe answer very quickly. I've known some ofthe people on the help desk for 10 yearsplus. It's not like phoning BT - you don'tneed to introduce yourself.”

The high level of support was brought hometo Butser after they had an issue outside of123insight that effectively left them lockedout of their server; “We had a major serverissue where we needed access to theserver and this was outside of office hours. Iwas very grateful to 123 Insight staff in thatthey actually stayed outside of their workinghours, on a Friday which makes it twice asimportant, to make sure that we got theinformation that we needed. I can imaginemany other companies saying 'it's 6pm andI'm going home now’, but 123 Insightactually did stay until the job was done.Even though we gave them invitations to gohome the message was 'no, we're stayinguntil you're up and running.’”

The company has also benefited fromsuggestions that they put forward to displaycolour-coded charts on the Shop Floor DataCollection screen, which immediatelydisplay the current status of each process ofa particular works order.

Although Butser previously performed theirown software updates, they opted for123insight to do the v10 upgrade. Charlienoted that had it not been for the

requirement for him to change permissionson each PC on the shop floor during theremote update it would have beencompleted in under an hour.

In 2009 Butser Rubber received HighlyCommended in The Manufacturer Awardsfor their implementation of 123insight,which Charlie cites has been beneficialwhen talking to new prospects; “We useThe Manufacturer award as quite a pushymarketing tool. When we have customerscoming in - especially the automotive ones -we use this as a benchmark of the standardthat we've managed to achieve.”

After recent ly invest ing in newmachinery Butser Rubber plans tocompletely redevelop their premises to astate-of-the-art facility and increasemarket diversity to further harden thebusiness against possible downturns.123insight’s subscription model alsomeans that Butser can always takeadvantage of the latest releases at noextra cost. Concluded Charlie; “Eventhough we're 10 years down the line with123insight we are always on the latestversion. We haven't been kept on thesystem we used 10 years ago, so whenwe show people our system it still feelsvery fresh, sharp and up to date, andthat's without any big capital outlay.”

123 Insight Limited10 Mill Court, , , , ntsThe Sawmills Durley Southampton Ha 32 2SO EJ

Tel: +44 (0)1489 860851 Fax: +44 (0)1489 861209 Email: info@123insight.com Web: www.123insight.com.

LocationLiss, Hampshire

Case Study - 10 years on

“Even though we’re 10 years

down the line with 123insight

we’re always on the latest

version... It still feels very fresh,

sharp and up to date, and that’s

without any big capital outlay.”

Butser Rubber Ltd