Peak Agile — Krzysztof Matuszewski, Senior Project Manager for ERP and Microsoft Dynamics 365

The business still depended on analogue lines across multiple legal entities, with different broadband providers and systems behind them — and no single record of what was actually in use.

• Audited every dependency on analogue technology across the group and established what each line was genuinely used for
• Specified alternative connectivity for remote locations, including Starlink and 5G where fixed lines were not viable
• Split the programme into phases so it could be delivered with limited resources against long supplier lead times

A two-year programme, delivered in three stages, to put every Cranswick site on one HR and payroll platform. I defined the scope and goals with senior stakeholders and ran the plan, timelines and resourcing in MS Project and Jira.

• Stage one: HR XD deployed across all factories
• Stage two: People XD payroll rolled out group-wide, unifying and standardising payroll procedure
• Stage three: workforce management — manager approvals, roster management and payroll processing on one platform
• Retired three disparate legacy tools: Chris21, Timeware and Genetec
• 22 sites, two years, delivered on track and within budget

Engineering needed a system built for their workflow; finance needed everything to stay inside Navision. The Shire API was extended to meet our integration requirements so both could be true at once.

• Engineers could raise purchase orders, manage inventory and assign maintenance jobs in their own platform
• Introduced across all 24 factories
• Control over 10,000+ distinct engineering parts and hundreds of pieces of manufacturing equipment
• Gave the group visibility across sites and better supplier leverage through combined purchase orders

The existing shop-floor application ran only on Windows Mobile, which was discontinued — so the platform had to be rebuilt rather than upgraded.

• New web-based application for Honeywell CK65 handheld computers
• Migrated every function built over the previous six years onto the new platform
• Required replacing or upgrading 360 devices across 12 factories
• Delivered in six months; hardware alone worth roughly £0.5 million

Replacement of the legacy WatchGuard VPN with Fortinet across every manufacturing site, including the internal IT policy and infrastructure changes needed to support it.

• Researched and selected the solution against business requirements
• Coordinated with IT managers at each site
• Negotiated cost-efficient long-term licensing and supplier terms
• Deployed to roughly 3,000 machines across 24 locations, with training and support channels to keep the migration smooth

Introduced OCR into the financial system to streamline purchase-invoice processing and take manual document handling out of the loop, for rollout across 24 factories.

• Target of 200,000 pages read per month at full rollout
• The largest single factory accounts for roughly 80,000 of those pages

The hardware in use had a high failure rate in a wash-down factory environment, so rather than keep replacing it I delegated and sponsored the development of a purpose-built alternative.

• 12-inch stainless-steel terminal with a resistive touchscreen and IP65 rating
• Resolved the recurring reliability problem at source

The rollout started under another project lead. After a successful introduction at one site I took ownership of the whole programme.

• Separated the previously introduced ERP from custom Microsoft NAV 2009 onto the unified CMEX platform
• That separation removed the need for a bespoke NAV instance per site, which had been blocking any upgrade
• Rolled out across 10 sites, with the NAV 2018 upgrade completed at 8 of them

Assigned as Product Owner of the in-house ERP integrated with Microsoft Navision 2018. I gathered requirements with senior stakeholders, built the business case, set the delivery timeline and milestones, documented the system and established new support lines.

• Rolled out across 21 sites over three years
• Tens of new features introduced; the platform expanded continuously
• Capturing 400,000 transactions daily, giving end-to-end traceability and reporting through SQL and Power BI
• Owned the development schedule and oversaw every project where the ERP was introduced

Started to meet the requirements of a £50 million contract with a high-end customer, working with the technical team to improve process control on the lines.

• Automatic setup of production-line machines from different suppliers — X-ray machines, labellers, weight checkers, barcode verifiers — driven by the selected production order
• Replaced staff manually selecting the correct program on each machine
• Achieved by building a passive API from our in-house system to expose the data third-party systems needed
• Introduced across 15 finishing production lines

Sites and factories were re-keying the same information into separate ERP systems. The project enabled direct data exchange between them.

• Eliminated repeated manual work between systems, sites and factories
• Gave every party involved proper visibility of stock
• Reduced goods-receipt time from 10 minutes to 1 minute
• Delivered purely as new functionality inside the existing system — no additional hardware spend

A part-funded research project inviting outside companies to solve problems current technology could not address, using AI image reading to strengthen product traceability and inspection.

• Required a firm grasp of the technology already in use and experience handling sensitive operational data
• Built the infrastructure and established the secure data exchanges the trials ran on
• Supported evaluation of vendor solutions against real production data

The group acquired a number of businesses over the years, each needing to be brought onto common systems and standards.

• Identified the systems and processes already in place, then planned the alignment with the rest of the group
• Replaced financial systems, introduced or replaced ERP, and standardised application functions
• Introduced group payroll and the infrastructure needed to support the new standards
• Typically six months per business, often with investment made along the way to raise the acquired site's potential

The business let cold-storage space to Greggs, which meant two companies' systems had to work together.

• Built a file-exchange integration between their systems and ours to automate quality control, stock management and ordering
• Extended our software to provide a third-party interface without exposing sensitive internal data to customers

Integrated the internal ERP directly with the baking and cooling process for pastry products.

• Captured 50 distinct key data points from the process
• Replaced every manual document in that area

Responsible for preparing and opening a new poultry facility in Suffolk — the largest project the company had undertaken, at £60 million.

• Ensured the newly released MEX system integrated correctly with the ERP and the Marel Innova/PDS systems
• Owned the scope of shop-floor hardware and its installation, including supporting infrastructure
• Set up robot batchers, multi-head weighers, weight-price labellers, X-ray machines and outer case marking systems
• Configured and tested every program needed to produce all SKUs across 17 lines, including full Innova setup before launch
• Joined the project midstream — a significant challenge and the steepest learning curve of my career to that point

Led the implementation of the ERP/MEX system on the factory floor, delivered in two stages.

• Stage one: 28 terminals in the main production room collecting over 36 key data points, a total investment above £250,000
• Enabled full traceability and stock management for 120 metric tonnes of production per day
• Stage two: 17 further terminals at the start of the line, capturing material usage including work-in-progress and finished goods
• Extended traceability across the whole production process for all key ingredients

Worked with SOTI to introduce a remote device control and management platform for the group's mobile estate.

• Over 200 mobile scanning devices, each costing around £1,500
• Deployed across 20 factories, giving central support and control over devices previously managed site by site

Tasked with creating the company's own ERP system alongside a developer, on the strength of my experience with the existing ERP and MRP platforms.

• Designed the system and defined its key features
• Ran testing and established the development timeline
• This became the platform later known as CMEX

Integration of the MRP system with newly purchased Seydelmann manufacturing hardware worth £5 million.

• Linked internal and external systems to automate production orders on the factory floor
• Simplified production for factory staff while improving traceability and process control
• Covered a four-stage production process across 16 manufacturing points

Worked with senior operational staff to enable and introduce the MRP system on Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

• Resolved issues in data collection and processing as the system went live
• The factory produces around 150 SKUs across multiple control points and distinct material processing steps

An in-house Android application replacing paper QA documents with custom forms linked to the ERP and a digital repository, developed with the QA and technical teams.

• Intended to become the business-wide standard for quality documentation
• Implemented at 4 of 11 sites
• Development ran slower than planned and the directors chose to let factories select their own system, so the standard was never enforced group-wide
• Kept on this page because the lesson — that slow delivery loses the mandate, whatever the merits of the product — shaped how I sequence rollouts now

Upgrade and introduction of 12 control points with end-to-end system traceability, on Microsoft Navision with the group's own extension.

• One of the first factories in the business to run this system end to end
• Supported testing, change requests and stakeholder reporting
• Provided on-site support, trained users at every level and wrote the SOPs and BAU support documents
• Installed and calibrated hardware, analysed data and troubleshot issues as they arose

Replacement of the existing FOP system with the group's custom Navision build, in a 24/7 operation.

• Ran the gap analysis between the FOP system and our NAV version
• Introduced new stock-taking functionality on the mobile platform
• Implemented a new mispick detection and verification process
• Managed a £100k budget covering 5 control points with printers, 15 mobile computers, and the supporting infrastructure and networking
• Intake: receiving materials against purchase orders for traceability, supplier payment and inventory build-up. Despatch: tracking shipments with exact products and associated cost and margin

Opening of a newly purchased business and its integration into the group's systems, on a £150k budget.

• Introduced an ERP and a new finance system
• Trained 25 staff on the new ways of working
• Ensured the site opened with inventory management, traceability, financial reporting, control points and process control in place