“This man was poisoned! Oh, wait, is that blood? That is blood. This man was poisoned in the chest with a knife!”
A deliciously funny line from the iconic Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, in Agatha Christie’s The Murdertime Murders, but one that also shows the importance of making the right connections.
You might wish you had a Poirot, Holmes, or Sam Spade on the job when dealing with one of the manufacturing industry’s biggest mysteries: the case of the missing profits. We’re not talking foul play, but rather a search for inefficiencies and finding solutions in streamlining key processes.
That’s where Cim50 and Cim200 step-in. These effective manufacturing add-ons for Sage financial software could help you to:
Automate time-consuming manual processes
Gain better visibility throughout your business
Resolve inefficiency issues
Reduce costs and build towards a more successful future.
It is all about ensuring your business is better connected, so when you look for solutions, they’re found quickly and easily.
Read on to discover how making the wrong connections led European police down a time-consuming and costly rabbit hole in a case full of twists and turns, and how it underlines the value of making the right ones when pushing your business to be more efficient and profitable.
The story of the Phantom of Heilbronn could help you better understand the importance of making the right connections
In 2007, a policewoman, Michèle Kiesewetter, was assassinated in the small town of Heilbronn in Germany. A DNA sweep of the crime scene determined the killer was a woman with DNA matches through the EU’s shared database with several other unsolved crimes leading back to 1993. This mysterious killer was dubbed “The Phantom of Heilbronn” or “The Woman Without a Face”.
Using DNA, European police soon linked the Phantom to:
- A series of armed robberies in France
- Multiple murders across Germany
- Break-ins and car thefts across Austria.
As more and more cases were linked to the Phantom’s DNA, the police developed a complex profile of this evasive female serial killer. She was determined to be:
- Highly intelligent and methodical
- A traveller and part of the Romani community
- A professional killer, most likely “for hire”
- A drug addict with a heroin problem
- Well-connected across Europe’s criminal underworld, commanding loyalty and fear.
Soon police had a sprawling web of connections to the Phantom, which cost millions of Euros in manpower and resources (including 16,000 hours of police overtime), until finally a break in the case led to it being solved.
In 2009, police in France discovered the burned remains of a male asylum seeker, who had previously submitted fingerprints to government agencies allowing the police to correctly identify him. The DNA matched the Phantom. This was an impossibility as police knew the Phantom was genetically female and after retesting the swab the Phantom’s DNA disappeared.
This led to a thorough police review of the Phantom investigation. They soon discovered a common denominator — every crime scene involved the use of the same brand of cotton swabs to collect samples, and these originated from the same medical supplies factory.
It was eventually determined that the Phantom’s DNA belonged to an elderly Polish factory worker, who had worked the production line where the swabs were produced. Her DNA had contaminated the swabs and found its way into various crime scenes across Europe.
The case ultimately led to massive police reforms with many closed cases being reopened and re-examined. It was costly, time-consuming, and a major embarrassment for European police agencies.
Why every smart factory needs a sleuth – and how automation plays the part
So, what is the lesson here?
As Agatha Christie once wrote: “To every problem, there is a most simple solution.”
You’ll likely want many key processes to be interconnected, but it is important that they are the right connections. The wrong ones could lead to incorrect conclusions; errors in your key processes; inefficiencies; and rising costs.
Cim50 and Cim200 are manufacturing add-ons for Sage 50 and Sage 200 software. They allow you to simplify your manufacturing processes, ensuring efficient connections are made, and that your business is on track to boost its profits.
Both options have a variety of useful features that could help you to automate and streamline processes within your business, such as:
- Planning
- Bill of Materials (BOM)
- Works Orders
- Stock Control
- Quotations
For example:
- Planning automates end-to-end processes and provides greater oversight of your manufacturing systems. It reads demand from sales orders, sales forecasts, Works Orders, and make to stock items, ensuring stock levels are correct based on reorder levels and stock records. Throughout the planning process, it’ll make recommendations and automate Material Resource Planning (MRP) and Master Production Schedules (MPS) at convenient times for your business.
- MRP within Cim200 will identify what steps you’ll need to take to meet demand. Once you’ve input sales into the system, it will review the information and corresponding due dates; forecast what stock you’ll have and what you may need to buy or make; review the BOM; and review existing orders and their impact on stock levels. This ensures you have all the relevant information at your disposal as quickly as possible and reduces potential errors or delays down the line.
- BOM pulls key information from throughout the manufacturing process to create an ongoing costing history, so that your build and purchasing costs are always accurate. It captures materials, labour, and machine overheads giving you a clear picture of all the costs involved.
- Works Orders provides capacity planning and component control that allows you to manage your in-house resources as needed and reserve component stock for jobs. The added visibility, and system notifications, ensure you are able to operate efficiently with a smaller stock holding – boosting immediate cashflow.
Planning
MRP
BOM
Works Orders
Ultimately, the connections made within the software and its automated processes will help you gain greater control, clearer oversight, and a more streamlined and efficient end-to-end production process.
The evidence is clear – It’s time to get in touch
If you are looking for ways to boost your business, increase profits, and reduce inefficiencies – Cim50 or Cim200 could be the solution.
Our experts are here to guide you through the software’s benefits, so you fully understand the variety of ways it could help streamline your business and make your life simpler.
To use another great quote from the iconic mystery author Agatha Christie: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
Don’t hesitate to get in touch, time waits for no man (or woman). Drop us an email at enquiries@solutionscloud.uk or call us at 0115 840 5075 to get the conversation started.
Your existing system may feel like a tangled web at times, but we’re here to help you simplify things and get to the root of any problems.
