" RedAnt was extremely comprehensive and we could see immediately that its implementation would be beneficial to us, however Nesting was one area we needed to address and was not at that time within the package.
RedAnt worked closely with us over a period of three months to develope a Nesting module which is now incorporated into the system.
The new nesting module has been a huge benifit within our organisation, allowing us to control and keep together all the small jobs without the labour intensive bookwork"

Apel are suppliers of components to some of the industries leaders aerospace technology including BAE,Airbus Industries.

We had been using an MSDOS based production control system for over 10 years.  When the software company decided to pull out of the software market, we needed to find a Windows system equally as good, if not better than what we had.  This was by no way an easy task and several years went by looking at the systems available on the market.  None of these came close to our current package until we came across RedAnt, developed by Stone Technology Ltd.  Its innovative approach and ease of use were immediately apparent at the first consultation. After further discussions and an in depth demonstration it was decided RedAnt would satisfy our current and future software needs.

Since implementing RedAnt some 12 months ago, the benefits have been tremendous.  The ability to cost and quote our customers very quickly then email or fax the documentation has improved response times and customer satisfaction.  Apel supply many aircraft parts to commercial airlines and the RedAnt stock control gives us the ability to check availability while our customers are on the phone.  Where stock is not available we can determine lead times to manufacture the required parts including material availability. 

We feel another major benefit of the system is material traceability from source to finished component.  It is second to none and also incorporates Supplier approvals for subcontract treatments.  Quality and Approval Inspectors have been very impressed with system features and the ease at which information is available for auditing.

The support from Stone Technology’s help desk is excellent, with regular software updates as part of our support contract.  Enhancements to the system are all driven by customer requests and where they might deter from standard practices, they can be switched on or off by the user.  Since going live with RedAnt, Stone Technology have added some useful features that Apel requested and these have always been to our specification.

We would have no hesitation in recommending RedAnt to any manufacturing company and would welcome any visits from potential new customers to our premises to view the system in action.

Philip Fallon
Managing Director
Apel Limited

Established in 1984, Rowan Precision manufactures precision turned components from 0.5mm to 50mm diameter, on Swiss CNC automatic lathes. Using mainly TORNOS CNC machines with up to 9 axes, Rowan Precision is approved to ISO 9002, with all aspects of production controlled by computerised software, networked throughout the company.

Up until five years ago the job of Production Control was managed with the use of a highly successful MS-DOS system, however as a progressive company we made the decision to replace the DOS programme with a well known Windows system.

We had little idea how expensive a mistake we were making. The true cost of buying the wrong system was enormous, in time, money not to mention the stress and frustration of dealing with a company that was unresponsive to our problems. With Production Control being critical to our operation and reaching deadlock with our current system providers, we had no choice but to look again to the market.

Following this experience we now had a very strong idea of what we required from a system in terms of functionality and back up. Subsequently a number of companies bought in for demonstration. The RedAnt system stood out as being both powerful and flexible, the attitude the development team with their customer driven approach gave us the confidence that this system would do what Rowan Precision required it to do.

The RedAnt Production Control System was very easy to implement and our staff had no problem finding their way through the software with minimal training.

Material and finished component tracking is excellent and goes far beyond the ISO quality assurance requirements.  The real time shop floor data collection has been a boost to the accuracy of deliveries and planning of jobs through the workshop.  Daily batch updates are recorded from the CNC counters and we are able to see immediately, current production totals for live jobs.  Historical times enable our sales team to quote more accurately on repeat work and enable us to offer our customers better pricing and delivery times.  As a bonus, we also produce weekly payroll information which allows us to quickly compile hours worked for each employee and produce the wages data in a shorter space of time than previous.

We have incorporated almost all of the RedAnt functionality into Rowan Precision giving us a total electronic production control system even down to viewing technical drawings and material certificates on screen.

The ability to print, fax or email any document or report is also a great feature which helps our staff tremendously in the data to day running of the business. 

We have been able to build an excellent and constructive relationship with the RedAnt Team and would not hesitate to recommend the system to any company that requires a fully integrated production control system.

Martin Barker

Director
Rowan Precision Ltd

Having successfully used Scorpion Production Control software for several years we were increasingly aware that being Dos based we would have to upgrade to a windows based system as new hardware became available and Microsoft introduced more powerful operating systems unable to fully support Dos.

Unfortunately three years ago we made the wrong choice and installed  a Windows based system which nearly proved catastrophic to our business. Within three months we made the difficult decision to throw out the new system and revert to Scorpion.

It was therefore with some trepidation that we again ventured into the market in search of a suitable replacement before deciding that Red Ant best suited our business operation and could have the flexibility to be tailored to suit all of our requirements for the future.

After many months of investigation  we purchased Red Ant and held our breath after our previous disaster. The installation, which included replacement of most of our hardware and data collection equipment was achieved speedily and with minimal disruption to our business. With minimal training we have made the transition giving us all the increased speed facilitis and advantages that are built into the new software.

Red Ant is now the core of our business providing us with the information for day to day control and a level of reporting that enables us to make accurate long term projections ,to ensure that correct decisions can be made for our rapidly expanding business.”