Here’s an update of what’s been going on in Abel world.
Abel has been selected as the ERP system choice for Deane Apparel – New Zealand’s largest marketer of uniforms, corporate wardrobes and work wear. Installation is underway and Abel will be installed in Deane’s facilities in New Zealand and Australia.
Abel Solutions Australia has completed the implementation of Abel into Disk Brakes Australia (DBA). DBA is an Australian owned manufacturer, designer and global marketer of automotive disc brake rotors.
Abel Solutions Australia has recently extended its presence by opening an office in Melbourne. Lucky Melbourne!
Read about how Besra Gold is using Abel to operate in several locations and communicate in multiple languages; so that the business really can focus on digging for gold! Check out the case study here.
Read about how Mastip utilizes Abel to fortify their reputation for providing fast turn around, innovative hot runner solutions to the plastics industry world wide. Check out the case study here.
Here is a brief introduction on the latest two companies to join the Abel community thanks to the implementation team at Abel Solutions. Both of these implementations are now completed or as we refer to it ‘have gone live’. Well done guys!
Olympus Pacific Minerals Inc. Olympus Pacific are a gold mining company with mining, exploration and production facilities scattered throughout South East Asia (Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines).
They chose to replace their legacy system with Abel because of the requirements to handle:
Multiple companies
Multiple currencies
Project and Activity sub ledgers
Dual language descriptions
Keep a look out for the case study that’s coming soon..
Disk Brakes Australia (DBA) DBA design, manufacture and distribute disc brake rotors. They are considered to be a premium world-wide supplier of brake rotors and when I say world-wide I mean it.. they in-fact supply to every continent in the world!
Here is what they’re using Abel for;
Controlling manufacturing and production processes
The I.T. industry is well known for its jargon and acronyms. Amongst others, a term that is frequently used during planning and development at Abel is “APICS”. If you were asked what APICS stands for, would you know?
I certainly didn’t know when I joined Abel Software; but it didn’t take long for me to be indoctrinated by my fellow teammates that Abel has been purposely designed and built on the principles and methodologies of APICS.
So where is all this going? Well I thought I would share with you what I learnt about the organization.
The story starts in 1957 where, a group of 20 production control managers got together in Cleveland and formed the “American Production and Inventory Control Society” (founding name).
Nowadays the organization is branded; “APICS The Association for Operations Management”.
APICS is the global leader and premium source of education and qualification in Production, Inventory, Materials Management, Purchasing and Logistics. The organization has 43,000 individual members and 10,000 companies worldwide subscribe. APICS offers foundation courses, workshops and certifications.
APICS defines operations management as “the field of study that focuses on the effective planning, scheduling, use and control of a manufacturing or service organization through the study of concepts from design engineering, industrial engineering, management information systems, quality management, production management, inventory management, accounting, and other functions as they affect the organization”. It’s interesting to see how of ERP “Enterprise Resource Planning” (yet another acronym) fits into the above definition. Below is a chart of the APICS certifications which show ERP business processes alongside the two certifications.
Having people that have been through one of the many courses or are APICS certified is invaluable given how important business systems are to an organization. Many of our customers who are manufacturing and supply chain organizations have employees that are APICS certified in either;
CPIM Certified Production Inventory Management – Providing the ability to understand and evaluate Production and Inventory activities within a company’s global operations and;
CSCP Certified Supply Chain Professional – Helping demonstrate the knowledge and organizational skills for developing more streamlined Operations.
As mentioned above Abel has been constructed around the principles of APICS meaning that Abel uses the processes and terminology which are recognized industry-wide.
The APICS website is worth a browse: www.apics.org. I found the Partner & Event Finder Page useful as you can search for course providers and events in your region.
New Zealand Wool Testing Authority has been using Abel™ for 14 years now and as you’ll see in the latest case study.. they still love it! Check out the case study here.
It’s great to see Abel™ customer Manuka Health in the news again. This time announcing a new product line to be rolled out across a 45-country distribution network. Check out the full article in New Zealand Herald – Boosted product has honey firm buzzing.
In case you don’t know, Manuka Health are pioneers in manufacturing innovative health products utilising native flora only found in New Zealand. Manuka Health relies on Abel to process over 400 tonnes of honey per year into consumer products. If you’d like to know more about it check out the Manuka Health case study.
Hello and welcome to 2012 from the Abel Software team.
After a well deserved break we’re all back into it. I somehow managed to wangle 3 weeks leave, after which I was well and truly ready to come back. There are, after all, no kids to look after in the office..
As always the development team has been busy over the past quarter. One of the recent challenges was to accommodate low-value currencies, such as the Indonesian Rupiah or the Vietnamese Dong. Our reward for completing this challenge was the donation to our office of $2,800 Dong which we had framed and is now hanging on our wall. Using the current conversion rate (21,020 to 1) this represents a massive $US 0.13 which ironically is inversely proportionate to the amount of effort put in by all!!
Here are a few other new features included in the latest Abel Release 5.1;
Sub Accounts/Activity Ledgers
Drafts for Emails, Tasks, and Messages
Enhancements to handle Multiple Taxation Levels
SMTP Authentication
And of course there are hosts of other little tweaks and improvements that have been made that don’t necessarily make it to the new features list, but are equally important to improve the Abel user experience.
I’m sure you’ve all heard someone say it.. As you get older the years seem to go by faster and faster, and perhaps this is the case for businesses too because this year has flown by. Did you know Abel has been in business for almost 16 years now! Of course they also say time flies when you’re having fun so perhaps it’s a combination of the two, plus of course one other essential thing.. a whole lot of hard work!
The team in the engine room (aka. ‘The Plant’) have had a very busy year adding plenty of cool new stuff and of course making countless improvements to existing functionality. In case you’re wondering what the programmers actually do I had a bit of a round table with ‘The Plant’ and they came up with a list of what the big ticket items were for the year;
Parallel and mulit-pass scheduling – ability to schedule routes in parallel within a manufacturing document.
MRP enhancements – added MRP II (Material Resource Planning).
SQL Exporter tool (build SQL tables directly from user defined mappings).
Jobbing enhancements – improved visibility, made simpler and more intuitive.
Manufacturing defects – added the ability to manage the defect process and analyse associated costs.
Foreign currency enhancements to handle countries that have a very low valued currency.
CRM messaging screens – ground up redesign of these screens adding new functionality such as: list as you type searching of recipients, multiple file attachments and new intuitive auto-linking.
With all the new functionality, enhancements and plain hard work it’s rewarding that 2011 was also a solid year in terms of new sales and organic growth of existing customers. This year has seen many new customers joining the Abel community. Abel continues to be deployed around the world with installations this year in:
China
Thailand
Vietnam
USA
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
It’s also been exciting to observe that a number of our current customers have taken the opportunity to acquire businesses, while others have expanded their product offerings locally and internationally.
We would like to thank our distributors for responding to our current and new customer’s business requirements by bringing them on-line.
Lastly, we would like to thank the people that we respect the most – “Our Customers”.
Merry Christmas and best wishes for the coming year.
Abel gives us control of the business because everything is controlled with just one tool… If I’m going to a meeting in the South Island or I’m in Europe I can log-on and see a full, most recent report instantly; it doesn’t matter where I am.
Tomasz Malarczyk, General Manager Guala Closures, Auckland
Abel gives us absolute visibility from go to whoa … They are always prepared to absorb and work through the detail and go the extra mile.
Chris Bowman, Operations Manager Manuka Health, Te Awamutu
Serving a key New Zealand export industry, Guala Closures uses Abel ERP software to provide a complete picture of the business, maintain its leadership in a highly competitive sector and make sure every bottle of wine continues to taste as good as it should. Read more »
Building a business around the proven therapeutic benefits of manuka honey, Te Awamutu-based Manuka Health has grown rapidly to serve in excess of 40 export markets. Read more »
Whether or not you know the name, you are unlikely to drive too far on any New Zealand road without seeing a truck fitted with a Fairfax canopy. Started over 35 years ago and named after the avenue in the Auckland suburb of Penrose where it began, Fairfax has built several thousand trucks and more than 500 ambulances, putting a new unit on the road every 3.7 days. Read more »
The I.T. industry is well known for its jargon and acronyms. Amongst others, a term that is frequently used during planning and development at Abel is “APICS”. If you were asked what 