Somers Forge
World forging leader reinforces digital composition for enhanced visibility, quality, compliance and best practice, with Inforlogic.
Industrial Manufacturing 
World forging leader reinforces digital composition for enhanced visibility, quality, compliance and best practice, with Inforlogic.
Industrial Manufacturing 
Established in 1697 Somers Forge (Somers) is the 10th oldest family run business in the UK. Famous for providing body armour and swords for the battle of Bleinham in 1704 which resulted in a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria, Somers’ heritage is entrenched in the defence industry.
Today, Somers operates a varied range of forging presses and hammers, giving it a unique capability to manufacture components up to 80 tonnes and 23 metres. With continuous investment, Somers combines the latest technology with traditional skills to maintain its leading position in a diverse global market.
Quality assurance is at the forefront of all Somers’ manufacturing processes which are accredited to AS9100 Rev D, BS EN 9100:2015 and ISO 9001:2015, ensuring all products are delivered both right first and on time.
Visit Somers Forge website
2019 saw the business undertake a modernisation programme, which included a £1.4 million investment in updating equipment and refurbishing its medium-sized press to increase capacity. The initiative also saw the forging specialist replace its legacy ERP system with new capabilities like Infor SyteLine.
Its previous platform of 20 years was heavily customised, and Somers needed a dedicated manufacturing-centric ERP system, which contained all core functionality out of the box but with scope to personalise to the specific nuances of its business. Crucially, it had to support planning, quality control, document management, inventory, and scale to underpin growth and longevity.
Infor SyteLine was the only platform to meet all of its requirements, and in 2018, the company enlisted Infor partner, Inforlogic, to develop and deploy the platform, with 2023 seeing an upgrade to the latest version.
“SyteLine contains a customisation layer whereby we can include the niche functionality necessary for some of our business dynamics,” explains Tammy Inglis, Finance Director at Somers Forge. Prior to going live, Inforlogic worked closely with us and developed the solution to accommodate the areas in which we needed greater specificity.
“Metallurgy is at the core of our business, and ensuring, proving and communicating the right composition specifications at every stage is absolutely crucial. When we receive metals, they are certified to prove the percentage of each element included, and we must have full end-to-end traceability, all the way back to the raw materials, to guarantee quality control. When you consider the different regulatory environments governing this across different countries, it’s clear why dedicated, specific capabilities are needed.”
SyteLine is a manufacturing-centric ERP platform that is really best-in-class. Complemented by Inforlogic to develop and personalise to meet the very specific nuances of our business, we have every confidence that we can run our business, supported by the most robust, resilient, agile platform, and deliver the products demanded by our customers, most stringently and efficiently.
Finance Director, Somers Forge
According to Tammy, the biggest benefit since migrating to SyteLine has been speed, with Somers’ upgrade to version 10 and more recent deployment of IDM expediting this substantially. This speed of intelligence and reporting has instilled unprecedented levels of trust and confidence in the team using it.
“We’re in a business which necessitates immediate insights regarding traceability and production schedules, fast decision making, the agility to switch to accommodate new demand, and flexibility to adapt as the market evolves.
“A great example of this was the recent energy crisis. Because our machines are energy-intensive to operate, we had to introduce a surcharge to our customers to mitigate the impact of soaring costs. We have meters attached to each of our machines to track energy usage, but through leveraging SyteLine to track and measure orders and the actual cost versus customer cost, we had an automated means of billing customers accurately and transparently to protect both margins and relationships. Considering these surcharges varied by the day, being able to monitor them in real-time was pivotal.
“Another area in which we rely on the development completed by Inforlogic is manufacturing variability. Our products are large and bespoke, and lead times can be anything from three months to two years. The estimated cost can vary, and as a result, we track live Bill of Materials (BoM) costs. SyteLine allows us to take snapshots of the live BoM cost throughout the production process to track changes. We also use this data pattern to improve our processes and inform future estimates.”
“In developing SyteLine to support these specific areas, Inforlogic has proved invaluable,” Tammy adds. “We are a small team, relying heavily on external expertise and resourcing. This model also ensures that we utilise the resource as and when needed, and this flexibility keeps the cost commensurate with the task. Downtime is not something we can tolerate, and through working with Inforlogic, we have every confidence that we don’t need to worry.”
The forging leader plans to upgrade to the cloud soon, and version 10’s architecture is a stepping stone to this migration.
“SyteLine is a manufacturing-centric ERP platform that is really best-in-class. Complemented by Inforlogic to develop and personalise to meet the very specific nuances of our business, we have every confidence that we can run our business, supported by the most robust, resilient, agile platform, and deliver the products demanded by our customers, most stringently and efficiently.
“The future will no doubt bring further challenges to our industry, but having the right digital platform means that we’re in a strong position to pivot and react to whatever headwinds might be coming down the line, pursuing growth and profitability in the face of inevitable change.”
For more information about Inforlogic or how we can help your business benefit from Infor SyteLine, get in touch or call us on 01606 720499.
10 Cheshire Avenue,
Cheshire Business Park, Northwich,
Cheshire, CW9 7UA