SPONSORED BY EXEL COMPUTER SYSTEMS
BUSINESS IMPERATIVE
The world’s fi rst carbon fi bre recycling plant has turned to Exel’s EFACS E/8
ERP system to manage its operations and simplify its stock control
CONTRIBUTOR EXEL COMPUTER SYSTEMS
Part of German-owned ELG Haniel, ELG Carbon
Fibre was founded in 2011 to create and operate the
world’s fi rst - and largest - carbon fi bre recycling
plant. In late 2018 the Mitsubishi Corporation acquired
a 25% stake in ELG. It is expected that this partnership
will increase ELG’s channels to market.
Based in Coseley, in the West Midlands, ELG takes in
scrap carbon fi bre – carbon fi bre waste, part-used bobbins,
o -cuts of ‘pre-pregs’ and laminates – and turns them into
usable carbon fi bre products for the aerospace, rail and
automotive industries.
By 2016, the growth that the business had experienced led
to a realisation that its existing systems – essentially the Sage
50 accounting suite, Salesforce CRM and a signifi cant number
of spreadsheets - were no longer adequate for its needs.
“The business had reached the size where the need for
a proper stock control system had become imperative,”
recalls ELG Carbon Fibre’s IT manager Nick Bott, who had
recently joined the company. “Plus, it was also obvious that
spreadsheets didn’t provide the proper controls, structure and
disciplines that the business needed.”
Challenge
German parent company ELG Haniel had recently begun
implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365, and in theory this
might have provided a solution. But not only
was the carbon fi bre operation very di erent
from the rest of the ELG Haniel business, says
Bott, but there were also concerns over the
likely timescale, even if a decision were taken
to go down that route.
“We couldn’t wait: the business’s growth
plans – which included multiple plants and
international operations – called for an ERP
system to be up and running quickly.”
The plan: survey the marketplace, identify
the system that best met ELG Carbon Fibre’s
needs – and implement it quickly, ideally in a
hosted confi guration, in order to facilitate the
company’s multi-plant growth plans.
“We knew that we could get board-level
approval for a ‘core’ system o ering vitallyneeded
functionality – sales order processing,
purchasing, stock control and accounting,” he
sums up. “We could then build out from there,
as needs were recognised, and the business
case for such expansion became clear.”
A comprehensive 29-page Business
Requirements Defi nition listed ELG Carbon
Fibre’s key ‘must have’ needs. In short: a
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