For more than two decades, the motive power behind part of Europe’s military firepower has been developed and manufactured with help from systems supplied by SSI. After a recent systems upgrade at Roxel, the Anglo-French missile propulsion unit manufacturer, a new version of SSI’s TROPOS is propelling rocket motor production into the coming decade.

Roxel (UK Rocket Motors) Ltd, based at Kidderminster, Worcestershire, designs and manufactures rocket motors for a wide range of tactical missiles that arm the forces of Europe and the U.K. The company is a joint venture between the former Rocket Motors Division of the Royal Ordnance plc and Celerg S.A. in France.

It combines French and British experience in design, development and mass production of rocket motors, propulsion units, pyromechanisms and gas generators, providing its customers with the most appropriate solutions. Roxel builds motors to order and undertakes specific development work only in response to customer demand. However, it does some R&D in propulsion types to keep ahead of the competition.

Unusual products, familiar business needs

The company’s products make it unique among TROPOS users, but its production and management issues are typical of SSI customers’ needs in all sectors: improved physical and financial planning and control throughout the business from sales and procurement, through planning and production to warehousing and dispatch.

Its decision to upgrade also reflects the familiar need to move from legacy software and near-obsolete hardware to increased functionality and a future-proof solution.

Time to upgrade a trusted solution

Back in the 1980s, Roxel UK deployed the PROAC solution, which became the first step on its ERP journey with SSI. Later, Roxel upgraded to a solution which combined PROTOS and TROPOS VMS. This solution included PMS (project management system), CCOS (contract cost collection system) and integral PROTOS ledgers. TROPOS VMS provided real time access to various aspects of the manufacturing process.

However, in the early years of the new century these trusted components no longer represented the cutting edge of technology. Screens were green and limited to 80 x 23 characters. Results were good and reliable, but the system was slow and limited by comparison with current solutions.

By this time, TROPOS had developed into the ERP II arena with Windows compatibility and greater functionality – and it was now being deployed on browser-based technology.

Driving the change

During 2002, Roxel UK built a comprehensive business case for upgrading its TROPOS system to current standards. First, however, it examined the ERP systems used by its British and French parent companies. After careful consideration, these solutions were rejected because of their likely cost in business process change and additional training for users.

Fundamentally, the business case was built on the imminent obsolescence of the hardware and the software – which potentially exposed the company to unnecessary risk.

Roxel’s TROPOS Project Manager Phil Mock says: “We were among the last users of the PROTOS/TROPOS VMS combination. It was still supported, but we were on the terminal release. It was running on servers which were 10 years old, and there was concern about obtaining parts, if that became necessary. So the original business case focused on risk avoidance, rather than major savings in the business.”

However, the company recognised the greater usability of a Windows-based system. It could see management benefits in the improved data access that the new version of TROPOS offered. The growth potential of a new TROPOS system – into areas such as shop floor data capture – was another plus factor for Roxel.

Phil Mock says: “We have invested years of knowledge into the TROPOS system – we would have lost that by going to a different system. By upgrading we could protect that investment, keep our business process re-engineering to the bare minimum and introduce a system that caused no disruption to the business.”

Nine months to plan and implement

The new TROPOS system went live on July 1, 2003, making Roxel the first SSI customer to deploy TROPOS Web Client. This followed a nine-month planning and implementation project, involving a team of seven led by Phil Mock. In the month before go-live, Roxel trained over 200 potential users, with the training focusing on use of the new browser front end. Careful preparations paid off. “We went live on a Tuesday, and by the Wednesday the phone calls from users needing help had stopped,” he says.

“We migrated and checked some 300,000 data records over the weekend before go-live,” says Phil Mock. “We kept every record that we wanted to bring over. We are still using the old system as an archive, but that is less risk to the company as only two or three people a week log in, whereas it used to be 50 a day.”

SSI consultant Chris Smith says because Roxel UK staff were expert users of TROPOS VMS and PROTOS, implementation concentrated on transaction-level differences between the old and new systems. “There were some limitations in the old systems – but they were no longer limitations in the new, “ he says.

With the TROPOS upgrade and the resulting increased volume of Web traffic, Roxel had to beef up network connections to its on-site Web server. This was an opportunity to link some previously standalone PCs into the network. Users are widely dispersed around the Kidderminster site, so Roxel opted for long range Ethernet (LRE) equipment – which shares existing telephone circuits – instead of the more costly fibre-optic cabling into every building.

Phil Mock says: “We bought six new PCs because there were people who did not have one. Otherwise, all we had to do on the hardware side was to buy a Web server.”

New planning module keeps projects under control

SSI had developed a new TROPOS module – PPAC (project planning and control), which replaced the project management and contract cost collection systems in PROTOS. Chris Smith says: “PPAC is key to what they do. They have 23 project managers controlling different aspects of production or R&D, so they are heavy users of the project management system for watching costs.”

Phil Mock says: “We had built our business processes around the old PMS module. We have kept most of the functionality, but it’s now much better for getting information out of. It’s also much easier to use with the role-based application that was developed to go with it.”

Roxel UK uses the upgraded solution for its purchasing, manufacturing, project management, sales and invoicing – using Coda for the financial ledgers

The right decision for Roxel

Choice of the upgraded TROPOS solution has proved to be a good decision for Roxel. Phil Mock says: “It’s a much better tool. We’ve gone for a completely Web-based front-end but we did not need to change any of our processes. The functionality is much the same in the new system – there’s just a lot more of it."

“It’s been very popular with users and our management have been pleased with it. We use the Cognos reporting tools and have managed to do some pretty good things with those. We run all our reports on a schedule and they are published with a front page pdf catalogue that people click on – that opens a pdf version of the report. "

“It’s much easier to use and help is easier to find. Fewer people are making mistakes because it is easier for them to look up what they should or should not be putting into fields, rather than guessing."

“It’s opened up a whole range of new opportunities for us. The technology is up to date. We are starting to talk about getting shop floor date collection work under way, and other things that we wouldn’t have bothered to invest in on the old VMS system."

“The Web is where everything is going. As long as we keep up with new releases of TROPOS and our infrastructure can support them, I can’t see any reason why we have not made the right decision – for at least a decade, if not longer.”