Allectra, a leading manufacturer of High Vacuum and UHV components, was founded in 2002 in Berlin. Allectra Limited was started in 2003 in Sussex to promote the products on a worldwide basis. The Allectra sales and service network is also supported by offices in France and a joint-venture in Italy.
Allectra manufacture electrical feed throughs, cables, mechanical components and other items including quick access doors, load locks and vacuum chambers. These components are sold all over the world.
Allectra is actively involved in the development of new products and offers both standard and special components on short delivery and at competitive prices. The product range has been developed to meet the needs of customers such as universities, major synchrotrons and high technology companies.
Allectra’s impressive business growth brought some significant challenges in keeping up with its developing business due to the limitations of its previous IT system. Implementing Lakeview’s ERP system offered a proven, complete solution that would be implemented company-wide. The new scalable technology would enable sourcing, distribution accounts, reporting and increased productivity.
In successfully managing this period of business growth, Allectra had to evaluate the effectiveness of its existing operating and reporting systems. It became clear that the existing solution was unable to operate efficiently under this increased pressure and it needed to be replaced in order to support business growth.
The increased usage of the existing system had slowed down the network considerably and it was no longer able to support multiple or remote users.
Mario Peli, sales director, Allectra, comments: “We outgrew our existing solution. It was unable to cope with our progression and we needed all of our staff to be able to log into the system at all times.”
The key challenge for Allectra was in supporting higher remote usage from its growing workforce. The previous system grew unreliable and was buckling under the pressure of increased demand resulting in reduced productivity and internal frustrations. Similarly Allectra wanted to improve the efficiency of its back-end reporting functions such as purchase orders, sales invoicing and quote generation.
Traditionally these functions were run over multiple unconnected software solutions including the manual inputting of stock information into spreadsheets.
“The existing package needed to be replaced so that we could service our customers better and run the business more efficiently,” confirms Peli.
Allectra required a complete solution that would manage the end-to-end process, from inventory reporting through to delivery and invoicing with minimum manual intervention under one system. Additionally, the new technology had to ensure multiple users were able to log on in real-time, remotely.
Allectra explored a number of other software options before it selected Lakeview as best placed to meet the increasing demands of its fast-growing business. In particular, Lakeview’s standard off-the-shelf ERP system offered a proven solution from a financially stable company with a strong track record of success in supporting businesses experiencing rapid growth.
It was important to Allectra that the chosen company was not only the software’s distributor but also its developer.
“We chose Lakeview because they were the designers of the software, allowing us to talk to the developers direct and ensure the solution really fitted our needs. The fact that, should a problem arise, we only had to pick up the phone and they would have the tools and expertise to fix it, really appealed to us,” confirms Peli.
The ERP package comes in one piece without the need for various add-on applications.
“Lakeview also stood out from its competitors because it offered a complete solution and we could see exactly what we were paying for,” adds Peli.
Visit: www.allectra.com
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Processes are rarely designed. They tend to evolve over time and end up encompassing bad practice, waste and redundancy. Applying automated systems to such foundations compounds the inefficiencies and makes them harder to change in the future.
