CBC Europe is in focus with IBS Enterprise

Customer Story

With the help of IBS Enterprise, UK based CBC Europe has expanded its range and volumes to capture a greater share of the expanding CCTV market.

Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) is one of the most rapid growth industries in Europe. The UK is the world’s most watched nation with more than 10,000 cameras in London alone. With its top-selling Ganz and Computar brands, CBC Europe Ltd is one of the most respected CCTV equipment manufacturers on the market today. Computar lenses and Ganz electronic CCTV products help deliver surveillance images in a wide variety of demanding situations, from multiple camera city-center CCTV systems to small, private installations.

In addition to a huge range of CCTV products and accessories, the company also distributes various electronic devices and components, LED lighting, toner and sound systems.  CBC Europe is based in London and has additional offices in Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, and Dubai. The company’s core CCTV business has grown rapidly, which has helped drive further territorial and product expansion. Keith Phillips, CBC Europe’s Facilities and Logistics Manager, explains: “The range and volume of products and accessories that we now manage has increased significantly since we first implemented IBS Enterprise”.

CBC Europe looked at a number of supply chain software vendors before choosing IBS and its integrated supply chain software suite, IBS Enterprise. The main reasons for signing the contract with IBS are its proven ability to handle CCTV-type products, and the availability of an off-the-shelf supply chain solution for electrical products distribution. In addition, IBS’ international structure in Europe and the long term scalability it offered to support our business through rapid growth means we are really benefiting from this now,” adds Phllips.

Reducing costs

When first selecting IBS, CBC Europe also needed a solution that would be compatible with its European operations, particularly for multi-language and multi-currency capabilities. “We use IBS Enterprise to manage our operations in the UK, Germany and Italy from a centralized hardware system in the UK,” says Phillips, adding, “This has allowed us to maintain a high level of control over the overall business as well as minimizing the IT costs.” The integration power of IBS Enterprise has brought CBC Europe’s operations closer together and has allowed everyone, from Germany to Dubai, to communicate using the same business language. The software has encouraged greater teamwork, cooperation, and economies of scale throughout the organization. Since implementing IBS Enterprise, CBC Europe has seen a 15% increase in revenues to 80 million euros and a healthy rise in profits.

IBS Enterprise supports time-axis planning, an invaluable and efficient planning tool used extensively by CBC Europe. When processing an order, IBS software indicates what is ‘available to promise’ for an item, per warehouse, on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Each sales order line is automatically checked against the time axis. If the delivery situation in one warehouse is poor, the distribution system can change the delivery date or suggest delivery from an alternate warehouse. This means a more efficient and effective order process which has meant an increase in customer service.

With bonded warehouses in the UK and Germany, IBS Enterprise has given CBC Europe tremendous benefits by making use of its ability to process different costs per warehouse. This has meant far less administration and better management all around. The direct shipments function allows CBC Europe to ship goods from any warehouse to any customer. This is very useful when the company encounters out-of-stock scenarios and has resulted in further improvement in customer service levels.

Another important module used by CBC Europe is IBS manufacturing software. This provides operational tools for controlled capital and lean production as well as production planning on several levels and with different time frames. The software can be streamlined for less advanced manufacturing processes. This enables CBC’s subsidiaries in the UK and Germany to make the correct planning and operational decisions at every stage of the production process.

New functionality for the warehouse

Phillips says that one of the key advantages of IBS is its modular approach, which allows the company to add specific functionality and applications when needed. “To this end, we have recently completed a project to implement an automatic identification solution in our UK warehouse and are currently working on a new eCommerce solution, using IBS Netstore, which is due for completion later this year.”

With the increase in business and inevitable increase in product lines and order fulfillment requirements, CBC Europe wanted to cut out the potential for errors in the warehouse by moving to an automated Radio Frequency (RF) architecture. “We did look at other potential RF solutions, but the IBS warehouse management and RF solution integrated seamlessly with the core systems and was clearly the most appropriate choice for us. The actual implementation was a challenge because we also took the opportunity to increase efficiency throughout our warehouse operations. This meant setting up a new product labeling system and establishing new locations. However, we achieved go live within the six-month target and we are now very much reaping the benefits,” Phillips explains.

The IBS RF solution has “massively increased the accuracy of warehouse operations and the speed and flexibility of its fulfillment operation,” he adds. It also allows us to manage our business better by providing complete visibility throughout the supply chain. “This means we have been able to provide a much better service to our customers, which has been rewarded with increased satisfaction and customer retention.”

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