KMF Precision Metals
About KMF
KMF is the market leader in the supply of precision sheet metal solutions. The company is committed to Quality, Investment and Innovation providing contract manufacturing solutions to a diverse range of industry sectors. Formed in 1971, KMF is still under the management of the founding directors and has grown into one of the UK’s largest and most successful sheet metal manufacturing plants.
Located in North Staffordshire, KMF has an 80,000 sq ft modern production facility that operates over 24 hours, 7 days a week with in excess of 250 employees. KMF has a broad cross section of customers ranging from blue chip organisations looking for long term partnerships to sole traders looking for a reliable customised solution.
Investment in the latest technology benefits KMF’s customers through Quality, Cost and Delivery. It is this investment that has kept KMF at the forefront of UK precision sheet metal manufacture.
About the Project
In July 2009 Dakota Integrated Solutions were approached by KMF to help design & implement a manufacturing business information system to capture shop floor “work in progress” data along with other production tracking information.
KMF had specific Project Goals for the data collection piece:
- Move from a paper based production system to an automated, real-time job tracking solution available at the touch of a button
- Scalable solution with the potential for “in house”, future development
- Provision of a real time data collection deployment should give the ability to produce instantaneous Management Information reporting
- Provide an economically advantageous mobile solution whilst not compromising quality
- Ensure the deployed solution would enhance the production & manufacturing process.
A rigorous selection process ensued where KMF analysed proposals from three potential suppliers following a formal tender process, with Dakota chosen as the successful partner.
About the Solution
KMF chose Dakota based upon their proposal to design a fully scalable solution that could be further enhanced, “in house” in the future without the need for chargeable modifications. Dakota’s in house technical expertise & the creative ways in which they intended to develop the application were also crucial factors.
As part of their solution Dakota proposed to use the MCL platform as the rapid application development tool having considerable expertise in this technology, undertaking numerous MCL projects over many years. The use of MCL’s application development suite greatly aided the system design; MCL is ideal as a tool that companies with a reasonable technical background and given a small amount of basic training can learn quickly, therefore, future upgrades & modifications can be undertaken in house to develop an application running on a Microsoft CE or Pocket PC device. Also this would negate the need for KMF personnel to be skilled in any of the Microsoft .Net suite of programming languages.
Using MCL has allowed KMF to develop a real time solution that not only updates their current e2i Sybase database but can easily be migrated to a proposed future host system which operates with a Microsoft SQL database
Dakota arranged for KMF personnel to undertake a 1 day MCL workshop training course to develop the initial transactions. Also this would negate the need for KMF personnel to be skilled in any of the Microsoft .Net suite of programming languages allowing KMF to achieve their project goals.
Included within the project brief was the requirement to source & recommend the appropriate data collection hardware; hardware devices should be mobile to maximise KMF’s wireless infrastructure whilst not being over specified for the application. It was decided after consultation with the client that a fully blown, ruggedised PDA would not be required.
From all the devices available Dakota proposed the new MT2090 mobile computer from Motorola based upon a number of different factors:
- Ability to integrate with MCL application deck
- Lightweight, ergonomical design
- The MT2090 is more dynamic than a basic scanner with a mini screen & programmable features
- The MT2090 lends itself to scan intensive applications with minimum keyboard & user input
- The cost & performance of the device needed to be taken in to account.
Client Comments
Commenting on the roll out Managing Director at KMF Gareth Higgins said:
“Our brief for the data collection project was simple yet allowed enough scope for potential partners to get creative with their offering.”
He went on to say:
“Dakota proved their expertise in developing solutions relevant to our requirements & were extremely responsive when we needed them to be. With KMF’s strategy of investing in technology to support our business it was essential the data collection element was deployed without any issues, it needed to be easy for our operatives to use yet complement our production processes which the Dakota application has certainly fulfilled.”
