SyteLine solution fits plastic producer's mould

By ADAM GIFFORD

O'Brien Plastics has chosen a SyteLine 6.0 system from Frontstep to run its manufacturing and distribution business because it was the only business management software that could be installed "vanilla".

"We didn't have to change a single thing," said Peter Batcheler, general manager of O'Brien Plastics' parent company, HPM.

O'Brien Plastics is a $45 million business producing custom-moulded products ranging from light switches and power points to electrical fences and cricket helmets.

"The problem we had is when you are tooling up for injection moulding, you can run three or four different products without needing to retool," Batcheler said.

"Of the eight systems we looked at, SyteLine was the only one which allows us to automatically amortise the set-up cost across the total output."

Batcheler said the company also wanted to more accurately schedule shop-floor production and improve the spread of work across its 26 injection moulders.

The SyteLine system went live yesterday after a 90-day implementation.

Frontstep was formerly known as Symix, one of the earliest Unix-based business management software vendors.

It launched its Windows NT solution, SyteLine, in 1995, and New Zealand managing director Keith Jessop said it remained committed to the Microsoft platform.

"The next version will be on Microsoft.Net, and our ebusiness suite is already .NET."

Symix briefly had a direct presence in New Zealand, and was then sold through two business partners, butsince July Jessop has had the sole agency.

He refused to say what the turnover was expected to be, but Companies Office figures showed that in the year to June 30, 2000, Symix made a small profit on revenue of just over $1 million.