Customer: Scot Bennett Engineering Ltd
Location: Northampton
Industries: Agricultural, Automotive, Medical, Aerospace, Industrial, Catering and Commercial
Contact: Rob Bennett, Director
Scot Bennett Engineering saw the need to leave their manual and fragmented business processes behind and transition to a digital system to increase turnover and manage production.
Company Overview
Scot Bennett Engineering Ltd is a family owned business, founded in 1975 by Tom Bennett, and taken over by his son and current Managing Director Rob Bennett since his father’s retirement.
They moved to their current location in late 1990; this gives them a total area of 6,000sq.ft. of production and office space. Employing twelve staff, they have an annual turnover of over £1m.
Using the latest CNC machinery, Scot Bennett make precision components for the Agricultural, Automotive, Medical, Aerospace, Industrial, Catering and Commercial Markets. They can work with a varied range of raw materials, including mild, alloy and stainless steels, brass, aluminium and plastics and can provide most types of finishes for today’s marketplace. They have rigid and exacting monitoring and inspection throughout the manufacturing process. Machines are routinely calibrated for accuracy, all of which ensures the highest standards of quality are maintained.
Rob Bennett, Director, said, “We used to have a manual job card system for managing production, together with Sage for invoicing. I used to manually write out some two hundred job cards a month, which was laborious, time-consuming and inefficient. In 2010 we decided it was time to move on!”
After moving to a new location and growing their team, Scot Bennett Engineering realised the need to move away from manual and fragmented business processes to a digital system to manage production. Since implementing Fitfactory in just 1 day in 2011, Scot Bennet Engineering have streamlined business processes and created capacity to allow greater focus on other areas of the business
Selection Process
Scot Bennett looked at several systems on the market, finally selecting two which looked suitable for their requirements, one of which was Fitfactory’s. They had demonstrations of both systems, but when they saw Fitfactory’s, Rob said it ticked all their boxes, was perfect for their business and he particularly liked the ability of being able to add on software to the system as required. It was installed in 2011.
Implementing Fitfactory
“Installation took one day and was pain-free,” continued Bennett. “They had thorough on-site training with two or three follow-up visits to ensure everything was running smoothly and there is on-going training available. The support and back-up are excellent, with a rapid and helpful response to any question.”
Impact on Business
Rob continued, “Installing the system has been life-changing! It has exposed discrepancies and made us more efficient, improving our delivery dates and methods of manufacture. Crucially it has given me more time to look at other areas of the business, which in some cases, has even enabled me to find quicker and better ways of operating. All-in-all, it has made an amazing difference and I can’t fault it – the product and support are excellent!”
Nearly 10 years on, in January 2020, Rob explains that Scot Bennett have been able to use that capacity for change to grow, “We have increased our machining capacity from 15 CNC Lathes and Mills, to 18 now, (4 vertical Mill CNC’s, 7 sliding head CNC Lathes and 6 fixed CNC lathes).”
“Since implementing Fitfactory, we have increased our ‘lights out’ automation capability and turnover increased by 40% to just over £1.4million, without hiring more staff!”