British American Tobacco Standardizes on Apriso’s Global Manufacturing Platform

PRLog (Press Release) - Sep. 19, 2012 - Apriso, a leading provider of manufacturing software solutions, today announced that British American Tobacco (BAT) has elected to standardize on Apriso’s FlexNet as their exclusive Manufacturing Execution System (MES) software solution. This decision was based on BAT’s 10-year working relationship with Apriso, during which time the flexibility, scope of capabilities and depth of Apriso’s solutions have been realized first hand at six sites now live across the globe. Apriso’s solutions help BAT to effectively meet today’s rigorous production, warehouse logistics, quality and regulatory requirements.
   
This enterprise agreement ensures FlexNet will be deployed at BAT’s strategic factories to unlock even greater value as an enterprise MES platform for manufacturing operations management. BAT can now better manage their manufacturing operations on a global scale to ease continuous process improvement and improve operational agility across their enterprise.

“Apriso has proven itself as a strategic partner for manufacturing. We have already improved operational efficiency, quality and traceability within primary and secondary manufacturing processes while simplifying SAP ERP integration with shop floor operations,” said Ian Geraghty-Bellingham, Global IT Manager for Manufacturing, at BAT. “Our next step is to expand upon our successful Apriso partnership to achieve even further operational efficiency as we strive to achieve a more holistic, global approach to manufacturing operations management.”

As with all Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies, BAT faces increasing complexity ranging from SKU proliferation and innovative packaging requirements to complex regulatory labeling needs. By ensuring processes are managed at the right level between ERP and FlexNet, operations have been simplified, contributing to greater agility and quality across BAT’s operations, helping to enable improved capacity utilization.
   
“BAT clearly recognizes the value Apriso delivers on a plant-by-plant basis. With an enterprise decision to standardize on Apriso, BAT can achieve even greater process collaboration between plants to better manage as a collective whole,” stated Jim Henderson, president and CEO of Apriso.

“The tobacco manufacturing industry is undergoing a significant change, driven in part by globalization and demand shifts to emerging markets, such as the BRIC nations,” said Dariusz Kudzia, senior director of EMEA field operations at Apriso. “These industry challenges require new strategies to support Lean operations, process governance and shared best practices to drive down costs. A global standard for manufacturing operations management is vital to achieve these objectives, especially when production is dispersed across different geographic regions, to ensure brand integrity is maintained, regardless the origin of production.”