WIRED FOR SUCCESS

Haynes Wire Company (Mountain Home, NC) produces stainless-steel medical wire and nickel- and cobalt-based wire for structural and welding applications. Its 70 employees generate over 2 million pounds of nickel based, cobalt based, and stainless steel wire products annually.

Founded in 1954 as The Branford Wire Company, the company moved to North Carolina in 1975 and was purchased by Haynes International in 2004, through its subsidiary Haynes Wire Company. Headquartered in Kokomo, IN, Haynes International, Inc. is now a world leader as the inventor, developer, and producer of quality high-performance nickel- and cobalt-based alloys.

Hastelloy and Haynes alloys are manufactured at three separate locations. Much of the equipment is designed specifically for processing high performance alloys. Bar, billet, wire, remelt materials, plate, sheet, strip and coil are produced in Kokomo, where hot working hydraulic forge presses produce round-cornered squares or slabs. The Kokomo mill consists of one million sq ft of covered factory area on 247 acres. A 4-high hot mill was part of a $100-million expansion program that rolls alloys into high-quality coils. A MKW-100 mill cold-reduces hot bands from the 4-high mill down to thin sheet.

Seamless and welded pipe and tubing are manufactured in Arcadia, LA, a smaller 125,000 sq ft factory on 47 acres. Pilger mills cold roll alloy hollows into seamless tubing and pipe. The weld mills at Arcadia provide
welded pipe and tube to the chemical process industries. Wire is also produced at a facility in Mountain Home, NC.

Because its existing home-grown system was increasingly unable to manage and provide access to the information Haynes Wire needed to effectively operate its growing and expanding business, a team was formed to select and implement a packaged and supported ERP system suited for the needs of a wire producer: AXIOM 5.1.

One of the biggest concerns with the incumbent system was a lack of information on per-order costs – a rather serious concern in such a competitive field such as the one Haynes Wire serves. On top of that, order setup was cumbersome and had to be redone for each new order. In addition, the legacy system's minimal reporting and tracking capabilities and no routing history left the company with little in the way of information tools to run the business. "The business was well managed," says Haynes International vice president and CIO Jeffrey Young, "but most of the information was only available in the aggregate. We really didn't know how costs applied to specific processes or orders."

A prime concern during the selection process was to identify a supplier that understood the wire-processing business and could provide solutions to support its complex, unique requirements. AXIS and AXIOM met these criteria. Not only did the AXIS sales and support team truly understand the wire business, its software fit Haynes Wire's requirements very well. When it got down to the final three candidates, it was the coil tracking and heat traceability throughout the system that made the difference. "AXIOM has great tag control and lot tracking," said Young. "That is very important to us, and it's the reason we chose AXIOM. Their capability was much better than the other finalists."

AXIS then implemented the system with very little modification?another key factor in Haynes Wire's decision. After struggling with custom code for many years, the company definitely wanted to stay within the functionality of a supported package system. The implementation was completed one month ahead of schedule (in eight months) and under budget. "It was very much a company project," said Young, "not an IT project. The users were the leaders in all phases of the implementation, and that's the way it should be."

RESULTS

Haynes Wire now proudly showcases its AXIOM system for customers who visit the plant. It emphasizes its high level of accountability and traceability, along with the sophisticated shop-floor reporting capabilities that provide customers with a level of confidence that is rare in the wire business. The increase in on-time shipments – from 44 percent to 95 percent – is additional proof of the system's success. The system also provided the ability to accurately capture costs and understand expenses per product and per order.

The system allows Haynes Wire to level load the shop floor and reduce lead time to produce products. This has resulted in better on-time delivery and less stress on the facility to rush material through. "AXIOM provides detailed information throughout the process that has been utilized by management to make better business decisions," said Young. "This has resulted in increased business and higher profitability."

Haynes Wire Company, Inc. 158 N. Ergerton Road, Mountain Home, NC 28758-0677, 828-692-5791, Fax: 828-697-9818, www.hayneswire.com.