Manufacturing ERP Implementations 1.1 Manufacturing ERP implementation for Food Processing Industry Hospitality Products for Retail Café chain Providing tools to manage complex, multiple level recipes for ingredient and consumer packaged goods Address industry specific requirements to help the organization remain competitive in the food and beverage industries, including formulation and inventory management, compliance reporting, and complete lot traceability, recipe management, quality control etc. The client was using a basic accounting package, but it was not sufficient for the manufacturing operations and the inventory control was very basic. So, to support the future growth that was expected they decided to invest in an ERP best suited for their needs. They needed a system to support the company s plans for explosive growth and to provide foundation for a new management structure. BatchMaster Enterprise ERP with Solomon Financial Accounting Software. BME enhances control and provides information needed to make smart business decisions. It helped improve and maintain inventory accuracy. Tracking ingredients and finished products was made easier. With the Batchmaster Development Module, it became easy to load a recipe when a new product was created. And it has extensive reporting capabilities. This made it simpler to produce a number of reports for the Board of Directors including profit loss, balance sheet and service level report. The client has seen a 500% growth in 2 years. The implementation took about 6 months. The result was improved financial reporting and improved inventory accuracy. 1
1.2 Manufacturing ERP implementation for Food Processing Industry Bakery Replace office-type tools with ERP system Improve inventory accuracy Reduce inventory on high-cost ingredients Reduce shortages As the company grew, the existing office-type software could not handle its needs. They were using accounting software which was a collection of spreadsheets and had also built databases to control inventory store recipes, track orders, and manage product batches. They had no idea on the amount of raw ingredients, or the resources needed. They had no idea of what they had on-hand, what was committed to existing orders, or what was available to sell or ship. Updating the growing number of spreadsheets became too time-consuming. With 13 or 14 spreadsheets, it was a challenge to stay organized. The client was looking for a solution focused on process-batch manufacturing, but also needed something that was strong on bill of materials, repetitive manufacturing, and scheduling. 2
BatchMaster Enterprise ERP and Great Plains accounting software. As part of their implementation, the client had to create most of the base data from scratch. BME helped them develop an implementation plan and coached them through all the steps. As they had no raw material database, they had to enter all of the bills of material, and build cost models for all of their products. BME ERP is one of the few systems that can truly demonstrate lot traceability, from raw ingredients through the production process to finished goods. BatchMaster's lot tracking is an integral part of the HACCP program. After implementing BME, inventory accuracy dramatically improved. Managing cash flow is essential for any small business. By reducing inventory, the client has been able to free up cash. They were able to reduce inventory between 25-30 percent, especially with the expensive ingredients. This is significant as 60-70 percent of their cash was tied up in those ingredients. 3
1.3 Manufacturing ERP implementation for Food Processing Industry Meat, Poultry and Seafood Improve inventory accuracy Reduce raw material costs Eliminate frequent cycle counting and plant disruption Support regulatory compliance Elimination of banker s concerns Although the company was growing, poor inventory control was impacting profitability. They were operating just-in-case rather then just-in-time. They were buying more than required raw materials just to be on the safer side. They were conducting physical inventory checks just to ensure availability of raw goods for production. ERP software and Mobile Wireless Inventory System from Batch Master; Batch Master s functionality and food industry references made it the right choice for the client. Using Batch Master s Mobile Wireless Inventory System, all inventory transactions are scanned with wireless data collection devices, eliminating manual input errors. They started bar coding the entire inventory improving inventory accuracy by around 98 percent. They could also reduce raw material costs and eliminate frequent cycle counting which caused plant disruption. BME also supports regulatory compliance like USDA, Bioterrorism Act etc. It eliminated banker s concerns by improving inventory accuracy. 1.4 Manufacturing ERP implementation for Chemical Industry Coatings and Paints 4
Implement a complete ERP software solution addressing the special needs of paint and coating manufacturers. Provide a process centric ERP approach to remove the rigor of production scheduling, maximizing the manufacturing throughput with the best possible utilization of recourses. Enhance Quality Control which makes tracking testing results simple and will produce certificates of analysis (COA) to accompany shipments. Provide an integrated compliance reporting system to create and manage MSDS reports The biggest problem faced by the client was support from the old system. The many modifications made in the past had not been documented which was compounding the support problem. They also had data management issues. If 2 users logged on at the same time, one would crash out of the system. The system also couldn t handle the increasing volume of transactions as the company grew. There were lot of ad hoc spreadsheets and many manual subsystems sprung up. The need of the hour was an integrated system. This was also necessary to eliminate any duplicate data entry. The goal was to acquire an ISO 9002 certification. BatchMaster Enterprise ERP software. The client wanted a system that would support their company for the next 10 years. BME is designed for process manufacturing and it has all the standard modules including the complete array of laboratory functions. BME provides guidance to users through online help and tabs at the top of the screen. 5
One very important modification which was required by the client was provided by BME which gave real time view ability to the client. Serial Lot Tracking is another essential aspect, since the client didn t have any online access by lot number. This improvised the shipping process and also the accuracy of the shipping documents. With the implementation of BME ERP, the client has been able to reduce their raw material inventory by 15%. It has eliminated data entry duplication and improved quality assurance. It also provided better control over formula introduction. 1.5 Manufacturing ERP implementation for Chemical Industry Body Care Products Find Batch-Process ERP system to support growth Improve inventory accuracy Eliminate regular physical inventory counts Automate lot tracking 6
Poor inventory accuracy was affecting customer service. They were using basic accounting software and spreadsheets for managing inventory and production. As the product line grew, it became more and more difficult to keep the inventory records accurate. BatchMaster Enterprise ERP and Accpac financial; BatchMaster was chosen because it was designed for process manufacturing, and was the best fit for inventory management requirements. The client is a FDA-regulated company, so it was essential that the prospective software solution supported FDA regulations, especially regarding lot tracking. The immediate benefit was the vast improvement in inventory accuracy and elimination of spreadsheet use. BME enhanced Lot tracking and recall capability. Immediate on-hand COGS info was made available. And the biggest advantage was reduced frequency of physical inventory counts. 7