BNL

BNL Selects Epicor Advanced MES to Increase Visibility Across International Locations

Established in 1970, BNL is the world leader in specialist plastic bearing solutions. The company has more than 45 years of bearing innovation and expertise, and offers expert product development support, high-quality design, and manufacturing experience.

BNL soon realized that in order to meet its ambitious growth goals, it needed a solution that would help to increase the overall visibility of production, clarify business information, and provide real-time access to aid communication between its worldwide locations.

Easy integration

While looking into software providers, BNL discovered Epicor Advanced MES and was attracted to the solution because of the many benefits it provides. Not only does Advanced MES eliminate the need for manual data input and enable access to data in real time, but it also offers an improvement in the overall visibility of the production process, better accuracy of reporting, and is able to integrate with the company's existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Sunil Sharma, IT manager at BNL said, “We needed a MES system that would easily integrate with our existing ERP software, and Epicor Advanced MES offers just that. This means we can export the production schedule out of our existing ERP system into Advanced MES, making it a smooth and easy process. We also noticed discrepancies in our reporting with our old system, and had to rely on employees manually tracking completed tasks. Advanced MES, however, provides accurate reporting and therefore helps free up staff time and increases productivity.”

Access to better data

Since implementing Epicor Advanced MES, BNL now has real-time access to information from one central point, meaning it's accessible to all employees wherever they're based, enabling them to react instantly and-in turn-make more informed decisions. Advanced MES can also quickly and easily discover accurate overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and give BNL a live snapshot of the production efficiency of individual machines.

“Advanced MES is used in both our UK and Thailand locations, right from the shop floor to the supply chain. We have been running Advanced MES in the UK for eight years, and when we opened the Thailand factory, we also installed the system there to give the same great benefits-particularly access to better data,” continued Sharma.

Recently, BNL upgraded its Advanced MES system to the latest version, where it discovered further features that now benefit the company. This included an e-mail alarm feature that alerts staff when a machine has broken down, helping to prevent any downtime in the production process, as well as allowing BNL to implement a continuous improvement initiative to drive business growth.

Looking to the future

BNL plans to extend its use of Advanced MES and realise further benefits by implementing its statistical process control (SPC) module. This will allow the company to continue to automate processes and free up staff time so they can focus on more important tasks that contribute to the company's growth.

“Implementing the SPC module will help remove some of the current manual exercises our employees go through. We are extremely pleased with the results seen so far since implementing Advanced MES and sincerely believe the system will continue to help us grow as a company,” concluded Sharma.