From Millennium House, its three-storey head office in Denton, south-east Manchester, Farebrother carries out installation work around the UK, Europe and the Middle East; last year group sales topped £28 million.
From early 1999, the company's estimating and purchasing departments have relied on software from Barnes Computing to improve the speed, efficiency and accuracy of its operations.
Until December 2000, Farebrother's trading was split across three sites – Farebrother Group at Manchester and Milton Keynes, and a subsidiary, Exelby, at Leeds.
The Farebrother Group consists of four operating companies: Farebrother Engineering Services; Farebrother Building Services; Farebrother Projects; and Farebrother Project Management. These divisions, in addition to a principal group function, are served by a single central computer system hosted on the main server at the Denton office. The Milton Keynes office is also connected to the company's systems at Denton.
While Exelby operated as an autonomous company, its data was held centrally on the same system. Using Microsoft Terminal Server technology, Exelby office users had password-protected access to this data via a kilostream leased-line that permanently connected the Leeds and Denton offices. This was made possible by the flexibility of the Barnes software used, which makes it easy for contractors with multiple sites to access management information held on a central system.
In December last year, Exelby was sold to its management. Since then all Exelby data has been transferred to a separate computer system in Leeds.
Farebrother uses Barnes Computing's estimating package Estim8 for Windows, and its contract costing and procurement program Merlin, integrated with a standard off-the-shelf accounts package. A Windows-based accounts software package is also offered by Barnes, but the the company's software can be integrated with many third party accounting packages if required, as has been done in this case. This prevents the need to purchase new software if a company already has a system in use.
Farebrother's substantial m&e estimating department prepares all estimates with the Estim8 for Windows package.
Estimates can be produced quickly and accurately using the software. All users have access to a pricing database with over 200 000 mechanical and electrical products – this database is supplied by Barnes Computing. Both are updated weekly by posted disc or e-mail, and the system automatically adjusts the trade prices to take account of the user company's preferential discounts.
Once a contract has been won, a project file with a unique job number is created in the Merlin procurement package. All purchasing of materials associated with that project is then handled via Merlin by Farebrother's six-strong central purchasing department.
"With Merlin we no longer have to type or handwrite purchase orders," states Yvonne Donbavand, Farebrother's Group purchasing manager. Adding: "It has eliminated a lot of paperwork and gives us far greater control." While, in this case, 16 other users, including all the Group's project engineers, have access to the Merlin system, they only have authority to view information, post requisition orders or request reports. They are not able to raise purchase orders.
Electrical and mechanical buyer Denise Mills explains: "The aim is to have central purchasing, rather than individual engineers raising their own purchase orders, as this means we can keep better control of costs." Although it is possible to download materials quantities and specifications direct from Estim8 for Windows using Merlin, Farebrother prefers to re-engineer each project from scratch once the order has been placed.
"An estimated quantity is almost always different from the actual requisition order because the estimate is based on a drawing, whereas the quantities ordered are based on the actual measurements taken on site," stresses Donbavand.
From the requisition orders, one of the buying team uses the Merlin software to raise a purchase order on one of Farebrother's lists of suppliers across the UK and Europe.
The products are selected from the same database used by the estimating department, enabling every purchase order to be fully priced, taking into account the current net trade price and the company's discount.
This is where the software can save contractors even more time and money. With all the discounts and other special terms that Farebrother has negotiated stored in the single database, a buyer can quickly identify the best supplier for all the products and materials needed for a specific project.
The size of Farebrother's buying operation, and the experience of its purchasing team, mean that the company does not require fully automated procurement. But a smaller contractor could set up the software to search for the best available terms for a particular product, and raise an order on that supplier.
It is possible to send purchase orders and receive delivery notes electronically via e-mail with the Merlin software, but few suppliers are currently geared up for e-commerce. Farebrother therefore currently prints and posts most of its orders.
The company does not buy any product for stock, and all orders are placed against an individual project for delivery straight to site. When the goods are delivered, the site foreman signs the delivery note and sends a copy back to the purchasing department for entry on to the computer system.
When the invoice from the supplier arrives at head office, this too is entered onto the Merlin system, which automatically compares the original order, the delivery note, and the invoice. If all three tally, the system authorises payment of the invoice, while any discrepancies are highlighted for further investigation.
"Merlin will not allow the payment of an invoice until the delivery note has been posted onto the system and compared with the original order," confirms Donbavand, "This prevents the payment of incorrect invoices." The Merlin software also enables the purchasing department and project engineers to call up a wide range of reports. These include a summary of the overall amounts ordered to date for a project, or the quantities of specific groups of products such as cable, switchgear or lighting, letting users know how much has still to be ordered.
This enables the project engineer to identify a potential overspend, and to look for areas where savings could be made to keep the total costs within budget.
Barnes Computing writes programs specifically to meet the needs of m&e contractors, large and small. As Farebrother has found, the Merlin software can: save contractors time in the preparation of purchase orders; cut costs by always buying equipment at the best terms; and reduce the amount of paper generated for filing on every project.
In addition, the software produces comprehensive, real-time contract costing management information, based on both projected and actual costs, allowing overspends to be addressed as they happen, and not after the contract has been completed.
"Merlin saves us time and paperwork, and means we can quickly chase up orders for the project team," says Yvonne Donvaband. "It really does work like magic at Farebrother!"
Source
Electrical and Mechanical Contractor
