Falke Eurosocks South Africa manufactures fashion and sports socks for the local climate and very sporting South African culture. They also manufacture hosiery for ladies’ fashion.

The Falke Hosiery division has selected TransLution™ Software, implemented by Afrisoft Africa, to capture production data of stockings.

Bag labels for bulk storage of stockings are printed in advance and these labels are applied to empty bags. At the end of the production line (there are multiple machines on the line), matching pairs of items are packed into bags. When the bag is full, the user captures the quantity in the bag and the bag is weighed to confirm that the correct quantity has been entered.

The labels are then scanned and the appropriate item code and quantity are back flushed into SYSPRO to update the SYSPRO stock figures.

In addition to capturing production numbers, rejects and waste are also captured. Machine downtime is recorded by selecting the machine and then selecting a reason code from a drop down list.

A special user logging system was also designed for Falke. Traditionally, TransLution™ requires each user to logon to a device and all transactions are recorded against the logged on user. However, Falke has many users sharing a single device. Rather than forcing users to log on and off each time, the first scan for any transaction is to scan a user card. The transactions are then recorded against this card.

To secure this process, the barcodes on each card have hidden characters and the system does not allow user names to be entered manually. This means that there are two mechanisms to ensure that the user card is scanned and that the right user is logged against each transaction.

Most transactions are recorded on EazyTouch screens which relay information in real time. The current shift, active product, amount produced and quantity rejected are displayed on each screen. The same information is also shown for each day: Daily production, Daily Production and number of batches.

Making this type of information available to operators is an excellent way to show them the direct impact of their performance on the business.

About

TransLution™ software was developed to assist manufacturing, warehousing and distribution companies to better manage their business processes and stock handling. The TransLution™ product is particularly focussed on robust integration to customers’ existing ERP, accounting and stock management software for a wide range of transactions. TransLution™ is distributed in Africa by Afrisoft Africa (Pty) Ltd and in Europe by K3 SYSPRO.

Afrisoft Africa (Pty) Ltd was founded in 1998 to serve the specialised needs of agribusiness, manufacturing, warehousing and distribution companies. Afrisoft provides consulting services for business improvement and distributes, implements and supports TransLution™, AGRIS™ and other business improvement software in Africa.