Brothers Drinks Cider

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Brothers Drinks Cider

“eBECS have in partnership worked with us to provide a comprehensive and very agile solution that is extremely reliable and has grown with our business”

  Matthew Showering,  Managing Director, Brothers Drinks

  • Privately-held beverages company based in the UK
  • Bottler of several national beverage brands – e.g.  Blue WKD
  • Own brand of pear cider has become a successful national product
  • Implemented Microsoft Dynamics AX 3.0 in 2005, upgraded to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 in 2008; taking 3 weeks
  • Covers entire sales, manufacture and shipping process

Why Microsoft Dynamics AX?

“One of the reasons why we chose Microsoft Dynamics AX was that it was a Microsoft Product, and that we felt that it would be supported for as long as we will need it for, and there wouldn’t be an issue with them suddenly disappearing.”  

“One of  our  concerns was they we are not a straightforward manufacturing company,  we are involved with many regulatory issues due to Customs & Excise and also many non-standard business processes.  All these concerns were dealt extremely well by Microsoft Dynamics AX.”      

“eBECS have in partnership worked with us to provide a comprehensive and very agile solution that is extremely reliable and has grown with our business”

Matthew Showering, Managing Director, Brothers Drinks

 

Key benefits:

  • Everything now in one system  – 1 version of the truth.
  • Ease of access and reporting  – Easy to get to the data and report off it, the availability of information provides more time to the management to ensure the efficiencies of the business rather than chasing information.
  • Increased visibility – integrated raw material stock management reduces stock-outs especially for labels and  ingredients
  • Automated Stock rotation – sell by dates are therefore managed much more efficiently,  ensuring oldest are always  used first
  • Integrated barcoding solution – Barcode solution is used from manufacturing through to despatch, screens easily adapted for Brothers requirements.
  • Automated picking – ensures accuracy of loading and ability to conform to Customs & Excise requirements
  • Time saving through automated traceability of ingredients in every bottle
  • Real time access – Brothers are now able to provide the answers to customer’s enquiries whilst on the phone rather than spending hours going through reports
  • Increase in Customer Service through provision of Customer Portal
    customers can satisfy their own enquiries perceived as a significant increase in customer service.

Upgrade Details

“We were upgrading from Microsoft Dynamics AX 3.0 to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 without the intermediate step of moving to Microsoft Dynamics AX4.0. The technical experience that the eBECS team has gained through the numerous upgrades that they have already performed, coupled with their structured approach, provided us with the confidence needed,”

Matthew Showering, Managing Director, Brothers Drinks

  • When Brothers implemented AX 3 they were a contract bottler, business then transformed into own brand manufacturer and distributer
  • Multiple customer and multi-sales channels involving electronic interfaces EDI/portal were being demanded from the business, this was the key driver in moving to AX2009
  • Reporting tools and ease of integration
  • Full mobile solution implemented with windows mobile and wireless over 2 sites, automated picking ensures accuracy of loading and ability to conform to Customs & Excise requirements.
  • Upgraded to AX2009 from AX 3.0 in 2008; taking 3 weeks
  • Upgrade was a fraction of the initial implementation, a total of 30 days services were used from eBECS

The speed of the technical upgrade was achieved due to the location-independent team being able to work on the solution as a virtual team off site. This enabled the elements of the solution to be rapidly upgraded and tested by the eBECS technical team with focused customer involvement. eBECS have developed their rapid migration methodology in line with their pioneering Lean software development approach based on solution prototyping – iterating towards excellence and enabling better, cheaper and faster software development.

 

“We have been very impressed by the team involved in the upgrade. The speed of delivery was impressive allowing us minimal business disruption. We expected a significantly more complex and involved project, but in reality the technology within Microsoft Dynamics AX allowed us to upgrade with ease. We have not had to rewrite customisations; just tweak and upgrade existing software” 

Matthew Showering, Managing Director, Brothers Drinks

Referenced videos

Watch the Brothers Drinks Cider video showcasing their implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Solution overview

350 year old privately-held beverages company based in the UK. Bottler of several national beverage brands – e.g. Blue WKD. Own brand of pear cider has become a successful national product
eBECS
Microsoft Dynamics AX
Mobility
Food and Drink Manufacturing
UK

Testimonial

"One of our concerns was they are not a straightforward manufacturing company, we are involved with many regulatory issues due to Customs & Excise and also many non-standard business processes. All these concerns were dealt extremely well by Dynamics AX."
Matthew Showering
Managing Director

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