Food for thought…


Sanderson is a publicly owned UK provider of software solutions to the food and process industries. Recently, Sanderson successfully implemented the food manufacturing and supply chain solution Formul8 to help manage production and delivery for UK sandwich maker Food Partners.

Hungry for change


To maintain its competitive edge, Food Partners must remain quick, agile and innovative and continue to offer value for money. The company was formed three years ago following the acquisition of several smaller companies. Since then, Food Partners has relied on the inherited IT systems from each of these acquired businesses. Although these have certainly served the company well, they offered little room for growth and it was decided that a more sophisticated and centralised system would offer considerable benefits now and into the future.

Fresh selection


Neil Robertson, Group Finance Director at Food Partners, explains Food Partners’ need for improved IT: “Our legacy systems are great for processing orders, but we could see the potential for a completely new solution that would enable us to control the entire supply chain and give us the visibility to manage and drive the business as we expand over the coming years. We looked closely at other industry specific solutions before deciding that the Sanderson system was the one for us.” Formul8 integrates production, commercial and administrative processes to assist firms in managing supply chain, traceability, new product development, shop floor data collection and automation, inventory and warehouse processes. The system’s flexible open architecture means operations can be integrated from the start or added incrementally as new processes develop or established operations are adapted to meet new business requirements. This enables companies to manage their business more efficiently and achieve significant return on their investment.

Needing dough


With the solution chosen, Food Partners had to decide on the most suitable means of payment. Realising outright purchase was not the favoured option, Sanderson suggested Food Partners acquire the equipment through a Syscap lease agreement.
Steve Fisher, Sales Director for the Process Industries at Sanderson said: “Sanderson has had a strong relationship with Syscap for some years now. We choose to work with Syscap for its experience and wide range of flexible offerings – it has a solid understanding of the market and can offer financial assistance to companies of any size.” Fisher continued: “Cash flow is a key issue for many businesses. Food Partners didn’t want to use its capital to fund the investment, so with no up-front payment and perks such as payment holidays, leasing with Syscap offered an ideal solution.” Robertson soon found that his bank’s finance option couldn’t match that of Syscap. “Syscap were willing to finance the entire project cost – including software, third party services and training. Our bank could only lease some of the necessary hardware. Syscap were also very competitively priced.” Syscap’s dedicated manufacturing division has a thorough understanding of the finance options that suit the needs of this particular business sector and how to help companies make acquisitions without disrupting cash flow.

Roll out


With the finance in place, Food Partners began rolling out the implementation of the new IT system in May 2005. “There were no delays to business operations, and the realtime information we are now extracting gives us more control than we’ve ever had before and a deeper understanding of every level of the business.”

Robertson would definitely choose finance again for any further IT acquisitions: “Having financed the entire solution through Syscap, we effectively have a separate balance sheet for IT and it’s all in one place. We know exactly what our ongoing IT costs are on a month-bymonth basis, which also helps us to develop a clear understanding of the ROI we need. Syscap has offered us the same clarity over our IT finance that the Sanderson solution has over our entire supply chain.” Having visibility across the supply chain, with instant access to live data, means betterinformed business decisions can be made. For example, Food Partners uses system data to calculate material costs and variances against standards in order to tightly manage stock control, making significant improvements to bottom line profits. Analysis of material usage against set standards enables Food Partners to view the impact on sales and margins across the business. Fisher said: “The option of finance played a key part in Food Partners’ IT acquisition, demonstrating that they could utilise new technology, whilst keeping hold of capital and being able to realise instant ROI. Sanderson will continue to work closely with Syscap, as its flexible finance solutions help us to satisfy our customers’ needs as we meet the growing demand for IT.”

Commenting on the results so far, Neil Robertson stated: “The implementation of the Sanderson solution has undoubtedly been a success. Our current operations are running more efficiently, in both monetary and manpower terms. We are now ideally placed to begin executing our ambitious growth plans safe in the knowledge that our IT infrastructure will support these plans for many years to come.“