Background

Tensator is recognised as the global leader of Queue Management solutions and the inventor of the famous Tensabarrier™.

Tensator’s solutions are designed to accelerate queues, reduce waiting times, generate new marketing and sales opportunities in queuing situations and improve the customer queuing experience.

Tensator employs over 300 staff within manufacturing sites in the UK and US and sales offices in Germany, Poland, France, and Dubai. Its products are used in a wide range of queuing environments in over 170 countries including retail outlets, airports, post offices, banks and even around the Formula 1™ cars on the grid at Grand Prix!

Scope of Work

• Document requirements for a new ERP solution
• Evaluate potential ERP options
• Identify opportunities for process improvements
• Quantify the potential benefits to the business of implementing an integrated ERP solution and improving internal processes
• Make an informed investment decision
• Provide a “blueprint” for system configuration and vendor management

Our Approach

We firstly undertook a review of the processes and systems within Tensator’s UK and US sites. This enabled us to quickly identify issues with current processes and systems, and the key requirements the Company would need in future from an ERP system.

These requirements were then documented into a formal specification document and AHC managed the tendering process, culminating in 3 vendors being short-listed to demonstrate their systems to Tensator. We then liaised with the vendors to ensure that they focused on demonstrating the functionality of most importance to Tensator, and to ensure a good level of consistency in demonstration agenda was adhered to across all vendors.

Following the demonstrations, we helped Tensator to collate and review the feedback from those attending and to agree a final short-list of 2 vendors. We then supported the team in pulling together a Cost v Benefits analysis to present to their Executive Board.

The final deliverable for this phase of the project was to develop a series of process maps for the future business model, against which the system will be configured.

Challenges

One of the key challenges for this project was for a successful Company with limited resources and a growing and demanding customer base to be able to release resources to participate in the project. As a result, we took on a more active role in this project, working closely with the project team, keeping them informed of progress, whilst undertaking some of the tasks remotely in order to minimise the level of input required by Tensator.

Essentially, we were able to draw on our experience of what was actually required to arrive at a position where an informed decision could be made. Using our knowledge of Tensator, we were then able to pump prime discussions and manage the level of involvement to suit the availability of resources.