The heating manufacturer's partnership
with the IT pioneer's K8 software has
helped it to leap ahead with its business.
Italian-based Ferroli began life in 1958, manufacturing
and supplying natural gas fuelled boilers to the Verona
region. Today, Ferroli employs more than 2800 people
and sells more than two million boilers a year
worldwide, alongside its extensive range of heating, air
conditioning and electric motor products.
In 2001, Ferroli UK relocated to larger premises in
Burton on Trent, Staffordshire, where it employs 90
people and has a turnover of in excess of £25m/year.

Search for a solution
When Ferroli UK was established, an SQL-based
system was selected to handle its trading, accounts
and stock management. However, it soon became
apparent that the solution was unable to fulfil Ferroli's
business needs.
Phil Seal, IT manager of the company, comments:
" Internally, our incumbent system was labelled
'unreliable' and 'untrustworthy'. There was
inconsistency in our reported figures; security features
were lacking; and the IT department had to generate
the company's invoices due to data integrity issues.
The situation was far from ideal."
By the end of July 2001, the project was fully scoped
and approved, in terms of software, hardware and
additional services - the only proviso was the system
needed to be up and running by October 2001 (one of
Ferroli's busiest periods). By the end of September
2001, Ferroli was fully operational and trading on its
new Rev 7 system.

Moving with the times
Since its implementation, Rev 7 has served Ferroli UK
well. In the meantime, *Kerridge Commercial Systems had been developing the
next generation of its software - K8. Ferroli, aware of
these developments, was keen to take advantage of
the new product.
As Mr Seal explains: "K8 features an array of
functionality designed specifically to help businesses
like ours to increase efficiencies and better manage
their operations. It is quite a leap from Rev 7.
" K8 has a full, graphical user interface as opposed to
Rev 7's text-based environment, making it easier to
use, easier to navigate and easier to train staff on."

Smooth migration
With the decision to upgrade finalised in July 2003,
rigorous planning process was devised. After business hours on 16 September 2003, Ferroli switched off its
Rev 7 system, and the next day the business was
running on K8

K8 helps Ferroli evolve
" By upgrading to K8, we have access to future product
developments - we receive updates, from *Kerridge Commercial Systems, on a
regular basis," says Mr Seal.
" *Kerridge Commercial Systems is constantly trying to better its products by
creating new and useful tools, available in each
software release, for which there are no additional
software charges.
" *Kerridge Commercial Systems had been developing new Warehouse
Management software, intended for the K8.07 release.
Warehousing is a major part of our operation, so we
were keen to explore the proposed features of the new
product.
" *Kerridge Commercial Systems invited us to actively participate in the
development process; sharing ideas on how to improve
the module."
In April 2005, Ferroli took advantage of the free K8
software upgrade and implemented K8.07. "It has
provided us with a platform on which to further grow
our business. K8's Warehouse Management module,
which is now part of the standard product, has
dramatically increased our efficiency. The integrated
HHT (hand-held terminal) functionality saves greatly on
time and on resources," Mr Seal comments.