If Burton Daily Mail realised that by automating their stock control they would save £20,000 in the first year alone, they would have done it years ago!

Putting this huge financial saving aside, by working closely with leading bar code equipment supplier, ExPD, Burton Daily Mail now have a stock management system that cuts loss and wastage, achieves 100% accuracy and saves time.

Burton Daily Mail has grown to be a successful print production company responsible for the print of 18 titles. They have an excellent reputation, but realised that they needed to automate some of their traditional working practices to keep ahead.

The most obvious area in need of attention was stock control of the paper in the press halls. For billing and accounts, it is essential for them to be able to apportion paper usage to the appropriate title, but with so many titles in their stable, Burton Daily Mail were finding it increasingly difficult to track usage.

As Peter Glover, the Production Co-ordinator at Burton Daily Mail explained, "our old paper based system relied on the flow of dockets between the Daily Mail halls and accounts. As paper reels were delivered, handwritten quantity and location information was sent to accounts. They prepared dockets to be attached to paper reels. Production marked usage on the docket and returned it to accounts who manually recorded this information on their systems. This process was laborious and exposed to human error. There was so much double handling of the same information and it was not unknown to lose reels".

It was with this situation that Peter started to explore how things could be done differently. He approached several companies but ExPD immediately stood out as a supplier with a difference. "They were the only company that didn't immediately offer an off-the shelf package and were prepared to listen and tailor a solution to fulfil my exact requirements" said Peter.

Lengthy discussions were held between the two companies, and the brief evolved as ExPD took time to understand the business and suggest new ideas. Both companies worked tirelessly to come up with the optimum solution that would fulfil present and future needs.

In short, the system automates the end-to-end stock handling and gives 100% accuracy. As paper reels are delivered, they are scanned into the system against their storage location. When paper is used, the reel is scanned to the appropriate reel stand and title. In doing this, the previous reel in this location is automatically down dated. The system makes stock checks highly accurate and very fast. The appropriate data can be easily extracted by accounts for billing and precise apportioning to each title.

The end result is an easy to use system that is accurate, saves an enormous amount of time in both accounts and on the production floor and has cut stock loss and wastage. Indeed, Peter has calculated that after just the first year, costs have been cut by £20,000 just from man- hours saved.

Peter concludes, "When we started looking for an automated stock control system, technically we knew very little. We were looking for a company that would translate our operational requirements into a technical specification. ExPD did just that and backed it up with full installation and training. The excellent ongoing support and maintenance is second to none. I only have to pick up the phone if I have any queries and ExPD are straight on to it. I have absolute peace of mind which is one benefit I hadn't expected at the beginning".

Burton Daily Mail's Production Director Julian Knell added "we have been impressed with ExPD from the start. We are absolutely delighted with the system and we have received greater benefits than we could have hoped for. We have no hesitation in recommending ExPD to other businesses".