News & Events

18 March, 2016

Old meets New as William Clark’s select FUEL as their new IT Partner to deliver the latest SAP Business One Financial Management and Manufacturing System

William Clark, situated in the rural village of Upperlands at the foot of the Sperrin Mountains, is one of the world’s oldest companies specialising in the manufacture of traditional fabrics since 1736 for a variety of customers from furnishers, interior and fashion designers to users of traditional linen fabric or innovative industrial and technical fabric.

The current business strategy is divided into two main revenue streams. Firstly Manufacturing, including the production of a wide range of linen and cotton based fabrics for use in a variety of sectors. Bales of raw material are transformed into high quality fabrics of exacting specification using a range of manufacturing processes including scouring, dying, drying and finishing.

Secondly, due to its association with Evans Textile Sales wholesale and distribution base in Manchester, they offer a comprehensive range of linings, blackouts, accessories, heading tape, curtain poles and tracks. These include the luxury DB1 brand that’s manufactured by William Clark.

William Clark have been operating a semi-bespoke Financial/Manufacturing software for over 15 years and have now outgrown its functionality as the result of the continual growth by the company. At the heart of William Clark’s exciting three year business plan, is an increase in turnover by over 60% and a rise in staffing levels from 35 to 50 at its manufacturing base in Upperlands just outside Maghera.

Kevin Devlin, Production Director at William Clark commented: “William Clark have set enterprising growth targets for the next few years and needed to put in place an ERP solution that could develop as the company continues to grow. This ERP management solution also needed a stable IT Infrastructure platform to be placed on. FUEL, in our opinion, was the company that demonstrated to us the required expertise, tenacity and determination to partner us on our journey.”

Managing and keeping control of that growth is key to the company’s success and therefore great emphasis was put on the management to find the best IT infrastructure and software management solution to deliver the required results. Following a rigorous assessment of the top ERP solutions in the market, the Directors of William Clarke awarded FUEL – High Performance IT, the contract to implement a complete IT Infrastructure refresh including a new cutting edge server running the SAP Business One software. The SAP Business One solution will take advantage of the SAP HANA inMemory database, providing instantaneous reporting from the Manufacturing, Customer Service and Financial modules.  This will allow us to take our customer service to new levels while also refining our manufacturing processes to produce the highest quality product in the most efficient manner.

Joe Walsh, Director of FUEL commented: “I am delighted, having embarked on this journey with William Clark, that FUEL and the SAP Business One solution has been recognised as the solution best suited to support the directors and management team plan and build for the future of the company”.

The days of being un-able to track an initial sales enquiry through the sales cycle, the manufacturing process, the finance reporting and on to the finished order, will now be assigned to the past. With the expected increase in manufacturing activity and throughput on the shop floor, SAP Business One on the SAP HANA platform will capture live data at any point in the manufacturing process and deliver this to the production team. However, as a result of the design of SAP Business one, this live information will be instantly available to all departments throughout the company.

The clear and understandable user interface will provide a speedy adoption of the new solution by both staff and management and keep William Clark on track to achieve success in reaching their encouraging business growth milestones.