SA Tube & Honing has implemented Job Production (JobPRO) for Sage Evolution to increase efficiencies on its shop floor as well as ensure accuracy and speed in costing, quoting, production management, and job scheduling. JobPRO, developed by UniSource Software Services, is a flexible, scalable and intelligent production planning and control system for manufacturing and assembly.
Boksburg-based SA Tube & Honing employs more than 80 people and specialises in general and precision engineering as well as the manufacture, repair and supply of hydraulic cylinders, pumps, motors and control valves. It has used the Sage Evolution business management software to manage its business since 2009 and introduced the JobPRO Job Costing add-on to further boost productivity.
Sage Evolution together with JobPRO, offers SA Tube & Honing a powerful manufacturing and job costing system with complete integration of accounting, estimation and shop floor activities. The solution allows for activity-based costing – with actual labour hours on the shop floor tracked and fed back into Sage Evolution for comparison to the estimated labour.
As a result, SA Tube & Honing has a single engineering production control and accounting system in place that streamlines the entire process, from when engineers assess the repairs or fabrication a client needs, through to costing and quoting for the job, and issuing a job card. Clients benefit from rapid turnaround of quotations, while SA Tube & Honing gets accurate costing, with procurement and engineering labour linked to each job. The reduction in turnaround times has also helped the company to win more business by quoting faster.
Says Willie Lottering, SHEQ manager at SA Tube & Honing: “We implemented Sage Evolution because we needed an easy to use, yet powerful, system that would grow alongside our business. One of the significant benefits of Sage Evolution is that you can make it fit your business rather than needing to change your business to suit the software.
“Over the years, Sage Evolution has evolved alongside our company, accommodating the additional stock, complex pricing structures and increasing financial transactions that come with a bigger enterprise. It is an affordable, stable ERP system, made all the better by the fact that we can extend its functionality as we need to by adding modules such as Job Costing.”
In addition to serving as a robust back-office platform and giving management better visibility into the business, Sage Evolution supports SA Tube & Honing’s drive to give customers great service, he adds. “We like having all the reports we need at our fingertips, and the financial functionality is strong,” says Lottering.
“As a make-to-order manufacturer, SA Tube & Honing needs the tools to manage a complex production environment with quantities and bill-of-materials (BOMS) that vary daily,” says Paul Gama, CEO of UniSource Software Services. “Our JobPRO interfaces seamlessly with Sage Evolution and overcomes these challenges, allowing SA Tube & Honing to manage these variations as well as tracking actual costs and shop floor workflow activities.”
Adds Sage mid-market sales director, Ashley Pillay: “For a service oriented industrial company such as SA Tube & Honing, the right ERP platform can be a competitive advantage. By bringing all the aspects of the operating environment together, Sage Evolution gives our clients the ability to control their businesses financial situation as well as manufacturing processes and customer relationships from the palm of their hands. Sage Evolution as a core product is feature-rich and the various add-on modules available for the platform makes it a truly powerful solution.”
