Hanover Displays Case Study

Hanover displays is a company in east Sussex that designs and makes signs that go on buses telling you what number the bus is and were it is going. They use two different types of design they use LED light displays and a flip dot checkerboard display, the LED light display board is very effective but uses a lot of electricity to keep the lights on all the time, the flip dot checker board display is easy to use and uses only a little amount of electricity to flip the dots from black to yellow.
Andrew Williams is the international sales manager for Hanover displays his job is to help manage the business on a day-to-day base. He also has to keep in touch with major customers in the export market normally Asian’s and help any problems they may have. Hanover displays deals with well over a thousand customers worldwide. The major customers are in Hong Kong, They buy all the time but there is only three customers in Hong Kong, there are also lots of small business in UK that buy from Hanover displays but not as often as the customers in Hong Kong.
In the sales department they do not use contact management software because Andrew feels that it is too expensive and the traditional filling system works well for them, they mainly keep In touch with their customers using telephone or email so the filling system keeps that information in it as well. Hanover displays have there own web site at www.hanoverdisplays.com it was designed and made out side the company by professionals through the web site you can email them buy products and various other things, they are very pleased with their web site and they think it will bring more customers.

In the sales department when they get an order they have to check if all the details are right then they enter the information in to the MRP system then the process starts from there. When they develop a new product they have to do a number of tasks before they release the product, they need to talk to the customers and ask them if they want to do a field test and put the new display on one of their vehicles and get some customer feedback about the display then if everything is alright with the product and all the feedback is good then they release the product after that they have to advertise it like on their web site or they could talk to existing customers then they hope for the best.
Steve is the finance manager for Hanover displays. He uses a system called sprint time to keep track of the accounts but they can not connect sprint time with the MRP system because first they will have to manually check and adjust the information going into the system secondly it takes too much time and effort to make sure two systems work joined seamlessly and even if they did it might not be worth the wile. When an invoice is received from the supplier they must say it has been received and manually check it against the sample order. Depending on the day and content, the invoice is approved.
The finance department also has a payroll system that makes printouts of pay slips and P60’s for employers. Things like financial reports come out of sprint time. Sprint time gives absence and sickness and lateness. The accounts system will also tell if the company is going well. Simon is the engineering manager for Hanover displays. In the engineering department they also use the system MRP, MRP stands for manufacture resource plans and the software cost around �50,000 and took 4 month to install it helps the company by providing tighter control on the stock, if the stock are not available it brings the whole production line to a stand still.
They can also find out if they have something in stock by looking on the software they don’t need to go walking around looking for something that turns out to be out of stock. They still use paper for MRP system prints on paper to get information to people on the shop floor. MRP produce most of the reports they use crystal reports to make a more customized refined versions of the MRP data then it is more suitable for the managers to see. Open data base connectivity (ODBC) allows them to extract data from a system like MRP.
They never get their components confused because they have 20,000 components that all have Hanover numbers. Computer backup is stored on a central file server info backed up by a dap tape there is no employer works on their disk drive it is all backed up. They use auto cad for 2d drawing, the last time they used pen and paper for drawing was about 12 years ago before auto cad was around Auto cad lets a lot more versatility with drawings copy and past email drawings to people better package than pen and paper. The designer is given a specification sheet that details perimeters that are being followed out the course of the design so they design on that guide line. Auto cad drawing files and produce copy prints and assembly drawings to go to the shop floor, all drawings is also stored on a file server.
Phil is the development manager for Hanover displays his typical day is attending meeting specification of new products help problems particular design help production. Talking customers about the products has also got to be done. They try to upgrade existing products to fit customers needs if we can’t then they will design a new product.