- December 21, 2024 10:08 am
- California
Exel Computer Systems plc was established in 1985, and today, the company is a leading force in providing comprehensive, AI-enabled solutions for manufacturing companies and field service providers. Exel serves an increasingly diverse customer base, which includes small, medium and large size companies. With hundreds of successful implementations and thousands of users in the UK and worldwide, Exel has a proven track record of working with some of the world’s most well-known companies.
For instance, 51-year-old Wednesbury-based Komfort Partitioning is a specialist in designing and manufacturing glass and solid office partitioning systems. The company’s experience with Exel Computer Systems’ EFACS E/8 ERP system dates to 2012 when the business first implemented EFACS E/8. A reimplementation in April 2017- prompted by a corporate restructuring that saw Komfort move forward as a standalone business rather than part of a larger group – allowed them to take advantage of extensive process mapping, with the resulting EFACS E/8 system embracing Komfort’s company headquarters, manufacturing site, two combined sales offices and warehouses in Leeds and Crawley, Sussex.
But, by late 2020, the 2012 instance of the system – by then eight years old – had become somewhat dated, and business systems team leader Laura Anderson proposed to Komfort’s board that the company move to the latest iteration of EFACS E/8.
“It just felt right,” sums up Anderson simply. “By this point, EFACS E/8 had become ‘business critical’, it was how we operated, linking all the parts of the business together.”
In May 2022, Komfort placed the order to upgrade their EFACS E/8 test environment to a complete production environment. In November 2022, the company went live with the latest version of EFACS E/8, hosted by Exel’s hosting partner. “We needed to upgrade, and a change of hosting providers – in and of itself – doesn’t yield an ROI. But we’re using new functionality, eliminating all the communication and responsiveness issues and being more resilient – so it’s been a very positive move.” And quite conceivably, she adds, Komfort may even use EFACS E/8 functionality more in due course. “Right from the start, we’ve been satisfied EFACS E/8 customers,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean that we’re not open to becoming even more satisfied EFACS E/8 customers.”
A Unique Solution
EFACS E/8 is a modern, comprehensive, flexible, browser-based ERP software solution encompassing many business functions. Built using the latest innovative internet technology, the solution incorporates a wide range of modules, including Product Management, Change Control, Manufacturing, Production Planning, Material Requirements Planning (MRP), Finance, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Field Service, Document Management, and many more.
The underlying architecture of the EFACS E/8 system, along with the integral Customisation Toolkit and Workflow features, provide Exel’s customers with a solution that will grow and adapt as their business requirements change. This ability to change and evolve without having to go back to the software supplier allows Exel’s customers to future-proof their investments
EFACS E/8 is a comprehensive and flexible business solution. The business functions include finance, sales, purchasing, stock, manufacturing, field service, contract and project control, customer relationship management, planning, workflow, document management, e-commerce, executive information, business intelligence, and touchscreen applications.
EFACS E/8 provides a web service for use by third party software to interrogate and update data within the EFACS system. Users can query and insert records into the EFACS system by utilizing SOA. An example of this technology would be a company website displaying available engineer time slots and then allowing the end user to book an engineer to carry out a visit. SOA enables streamlining a client’s business processes and facilitates increased interaction between users and their clients or suppliers.
EFACS is under constant development to enable us to provide our clients with regular updates with increased or refined functionality. EFACS is inherently flexible, so as the client’s business model/strategy changes moving forward, the system can adapt and change to accommodate or even expedite that change.
The company also offers Eagle Field Service, a comprehensive software solution that vastly improves how client field service engineers carry out their work. Eagle Field Service provides an ‘engineer scheduling’ tool to ensure the best engineer for the job is selected, taking into account things like journey efficiency/van stocks/skill level for the job, etc.
The engineer’s mobile device application provides information on the client/site/product to ensure they can work efficiently on-site. It includes a list of the day jobs and a map with an efficient route to all jobs. It allows engineers to access and upload media files and documents, which is useful when on a job and for future deployment.
Making A Better Future
Dr. John Ellis, Founder of Exel, built the business from scratch and is responsible for coding the production scheduling system EFACS was initially built around. His passion for improving UK Manufacturing processes is an ethos that Exel retained and is the driving force behind the software’s continual development.
“Exel are a British company with more than 30 years history in the development and support of business software. We are proud of our place in the long tradition of excellence in British engineering, from the Industrial Revolution onwards. Our objective is to continue to provide the best products, service and quality to our end-users and distributors, using best class business processes. The Internet enables us to provide excellence of service to our end-users and distributors internationally. To achieve the best quality and most efficient operational control into the future, we will continue our established policy of providing software engineering and support services from our base in Britain,” says Managing Director, Rue Dilhe.
Exel is quite unique in being one of the only UK software authors to provide a comprehensive, enterprise-wide solution. While Exel does have client sites across the globe, the company’s sales and marketing team focuses solely on the UK market; this allows them to provide the service and expertise required for the UK market. “We have a long-term commitment to remaining an independent, privately run company,” adds Mr Dilhe. “Exel is happy with its position in the marketplace, being the most successful UK ERP author. Exel’s philosophy of continuous development and innovation is as important to keeping it at the forefront of the market as it is ensuring client retention.”
" Our objective is to continue to provide the best products, service and quality to our end-users and distributors, using best class business processes. "
Rue Dilhe
Managing Director
