One web platform running quality, warehouse, freight, health & safety and contractor control - built over a decade and now supporting production excellence across multiple sites.
Spreadsheets and paper don't scale a manufacturing site. Connected systems do.
Silgan Dispensing is a global manufacturer of dispensing and packaging products, with production sites across Europe and beyond. Baker Media has worked alongside the operation for more than a decade, building the software the site runs on every day - the platform known internally as WAPP.
What began as support for a single process has grown into a broad operational platform spanning quality, warehouse, freight, health & safety and contractor control - and, more recently, a production-excellence scoring framework designed to be shared across sites. This is what deep, long-term partnership looks like in a manufacturing environment.
Like many manufacturers, the site ran its core operations across spreadsheets, paper forms, email and standalone tools. Quality records, warehouse counts, freight costs, risk assessments and contractor sign-in each lived in their own silo.
There was no single source of truth. Audits meant chasing documents, reporting meant re-keying data, and too many processes depended on the one person who knew where the file was. As the operation grew, so did the cost of that fragmentation.
Rather than buying separate packages, the site grew a single web platform where each module replaced a paper process and shared the same data. Built in PHP and MySQL, WAPP is shaped around how the site actually works - not the other way round.
WAPP isn't a back-office tool used by a handful of people - it runs across the operation, with each department seeing the parts relevant to them. Quality, warehouse, production, maintenance, HR, health & safety and management all work from the same platform.
Role-based access means a warehouse operator, a quality lead and a plant manager each get a view built around their job, while the data underneath stays connected.
Quality and compliance sit at the heart of a regulated manufacturing site. WAPP digitised the workflows that used to live on paper: risk assessments with 5 x 5 scoring and annual review reminders, controlled quality manuals, customer complaints, and daily review action plans that keep issues moving to closure.
Records are captured once, time-stamped and searchable - so an audit becomes a matter of pulling up the system, not reassembling a paper trail.
On the warehouse side, WAPP covers inventory counts through a handheld scanner app, QR-coded stock, minimum-quantity alerts that email leads when parts run low, and integration points with the site's SAP processes.
On the freight side, a dedicated dashboard tracks loads, routes, freight cost and invoices - turning what was once a spreadsheet into live cost-per-kilometre visibility that management can act on.
A dedicated Contractor Control and Booking System manages companies and their contractors, checks compliance and certification, runs a booking calendar, generates permit numbers automatically and triggers notifications - with a kiosk for sign-in and certificate capture on arrival.
It means the site knows who is on the floor, that they're inducted and covered, and that the paperwork exists the moment it's needed.
The partnership has extended well past the web platform. Baker Media has project-managed process and automation work on the factory floor - including a recycling-room project covering process design, control logic, sensor and load-cell specification, HMI design and the wiring and testing that goes with it.
Working across software and process means the digital systems and the physical operation are designed to fit each other - a rare combination for a single partner to deliver.
The most recent chapter takes what worked on one site and offers it more widely: a production-excellence scoring system that lets sites assess practices against a common standard, track KPIs, share best practice and benchmark progress.
It's designed to give a group-wide view of operational maturity - the natural evolution of a platform that started by fixing one process and grew into the way a site runs.
Work of this scale isn't a one-person job. A nine-person project team has contributed across development, process, quality and support - with Kenneth Baker leading the relationship and the technical direction throughout.
And it's never "finished". The platform is supported and extended continuously: new modules, refinements, call-outs and improvements, month after month - which is exactly why it's still the system the site runs on a decade later.
A decade of quality, warehouse, freight, health & safety and contractor systems - built, run and supported for a global manufacturer, and still growing.
Tell us the process that's holding you back. You'll get a straight answer from the person who'd build the system.