Manufacturing Firm Selects Modern ERP System To Enable Growth And Streamline Production

CLIENT OVERVIEW

THE IT INFRASTRUCTURE

The company’s primary division was running a manufacturing ERP system called M1. Other functions were managed as follows:

• Sales and Order Management - done manually through a collection of tribal knowledge and Excel spreadsheets.
• Supply Chain and Quality Management - managed by homegrown systems.
• Payroll and Certain Accounting Functions - outsourced to ADP.
• Maintenance of Machinery - performed and tracked by one individual using tribal knowledge.
• Scheduling - done by tribal knowledge and tracked with a whiteboard in the scheduler’s office.

The company’s other division is smaller in revenue and size. At the time, this division had no ERP system and ran most of its operations through a combination of QuickBooks, Excel, and tribal knowledge.

THE CHALLENGES

• Inventory was not connected to the ERP system. Some inventory was managed through a homegrown system, but it was not always accurate due to the fact that is was not connected to the M1 ERP system.
• There was no maintenance management system in place. The shop floor housed millions of dollars’ worth of machinery, which was manually maintained by one individual.
• The company lacked a manufacturing execution system (MES). As a result, there were discrepancies on production numbers that were not discovered until items were being packed for shipment.
• The warehouse was not properly organized or managed. The same material could be stored in different locations.

OUR APPROACH

Panorama was brought in to assist in the ERP and CRM software selection process. The goal was to determine whether to upgrade their current M1 system and implement it in their newly acquired division or select an entirely new system to implement in both divisions.

We conducted onsite requirements gathering sessions to determine the current state of the system and the company’s needs going forward. We then delivered requirements documentation and provided the following recommendations:

• Track inventory in the ERP system.
• Implement MES functionality and integrate it with large manufacturing equipment.
• Implement maintenance management functionality to provide alerts for routine maintenance and keep track of the lifecycle of parts.
• Improve the layout of the warehouse to increase the efficiency of locating and pulling materials for production.
• Implement barcoding and tracking functionality to ensure all material has documented locations in the event anything is misplaced by receiving.
• Articulate to the employees that a new system can help their efficiency and ability to take on more capacity.

We then delivered short list vendor recommendations and facilitated the vendor demonstration process. The company ultimately selected NetSuite and asked for our assistance with contract negotiations.