When lead times on PVC-U frames were at their peak in 2020, one of the responses from fabricators who were buying in even a portion of their output was to increase their own manufacturing volumes.
For Newcastle upon Tyne based Ramage Trade Windows, which doubled its output from 130 to 270 windows per week during the pandemic, that process was made considerably easier thanks to its investment in Business Micros EvoNET software.
Ramage Trade Windows had previously bought in around half of its volumes but when it started to suffer significant supply shortages, took the decision to invest in new machinery and new software so that it could reduce its reliance on other fabricators and deliver increased certainty to its trade, retail and new build customers.
The company, which supplies Eurocell windows throughout the north east of England, had been a Business Micros Evolution software user for many years. While it was only manufacturing a hundred or so windows per week, it was easy to manage things like production batching and despatch manually, but when volumes started to increase, the Ramage team wanted to ensure that they stayed as efficient as possible.
In fact, the integration of EvoNET into the business has helped to make Ramage more efficient than ever and given the team much more control of their operation.
Director Andrew Ramage Jnr explained: “The payback on the software was almost instant. A year after it was installed, we are producing double the number of frames, but with no increase in the amount of time we spend on admin.
“We now have barcode scanning stations throughout the factory which gives us total visibility of what is being produced and we can see the status of every job via the in-built dashboard. We can batch production using EvoNET to optimise material and labour efficiency and generate reports instantly on everything from output per fabricator to quantities of remakes.”
Ramage Trade Windows has included the EvoAssist module within its EvoNET set up so that it can automatically send order confirmations and invoices to customers via text or email.
Andrew Ramage Jr added: “We have streamlined our entire operation while also reducing our reliance on outside suppliers. The addition of EvoNET means we can confidently grow our volumes still further and know that we won’t have to compromise on efficiency or customer service.
“We’ve been really grateful for Business Micros’ support throughout the entire project. The team have always been available to help – whether that’s in person or online and have more than justified our decision to choose the number one software supplier in the market.”
More info at: https://ramagewindows.com/ and https://www.businessmicros.co.uk/evonet/
