ActOn Finishing

ActOn Finishing wanted to introduce state-of-the-art manufacturing software to keep track of its orders which are sent around the world from its Coventry base.
Sid said: “Often when you are running a company, you are so busy dealing with the day-to-day operations and management that you don’t get much time to sit back and think about improving the way you work.

“We wanted to be able to control our billing methods for our orders since as well as running our surface finishing company, we have a sub-contract service and deal in consumables so there is a lot to juggle.”

After finding out about Made Smarter, Sid contacted the team and arranged for Paul Sullivan, Industrial Digital technology Expert at Made Smarter for Coventry and Warwickshire, to visit to find out how the scheme could benefit them.

Ioan Lutas and Nasar Jockey from delivery partner WMG centre High Value Manufacturing Catapult also came along as part of their collaboration with Made Smarter to put together
a digital roadmap, outlining the technology changes which would make a positive difference to ActOn Finishing.

Nasar Jockey, Principal Engineer at WMG, University of Warwick,
said: “Having experienced the versatility of ActOn Blasting Machines whilst working at Rolls-Royce, it was great to see them register for Made Smarter. Sid being an open-minded,
commercially astute and digitally savvy business owner made their Made Smarter journey fairly straightforward.”

Paul Sullivan guided ActOn Finishing through the application process for a 50 per cent match-funded grant of £13,000 to purchase the innovative Cim50 software to manage their stock control as well as compile quotes and invoices.

Sid said: “Made Smarter suggested technology we could introduce and helped us to understand the benefits after we took part in a digital workshop.

“They put together a plan with milestones that we wanted to achieve because we want to
grow the manufacturing side of the business.

“2021 was one of our busiest years in manufacturing and we want to build on that.”

Nasar added: “ActOn didn’t stop at just an ERP solution but took further advantage of Made Smarter to also deploy a Solidworks PDM software to streamline information flow from their design office to the production shop floor.”

Introducing the ERP has been welcomed by staff and is allowing the company to run more efficiently in a number of areas.

Sid explained: “After talking to the Made Smarter experts, we realised some of our digital technology was out-of-date and knew we could become more efficient.

“The team has responded really well and bought into it because it is saving a lot of manual work
since we can access information much more quickly.

“For example, if the storemen want to find a particular product, they can now find it in our warehouse much more quickly so there is less time wasted.

“We were always looking to be more digital and reduce our paperwork to become more efficient but it was always something on the list to do!

“Everything now is much more automated which is a really big help since we can access the information we need at the press of a button instead of going through sheets and sheets of paper and the new system will keep up with growth in our manufacturing division.”

Nasar explained: “The Made Smarter Roadmap helped ActOn focus their efforts and sharpen their vision for moving to a Smart Factory and offer further servitisation.”