Industry: Discrete manufacturing

National College of Ireland

Business needs

Reliant on external funding from government and charitable institutions in order to support its work with pre-school children from disadvantaged backgrounds, the National College of Ireland’s Early Learning Initiative was finding that its largely paper-based tracking and progress systems were holding it back as the initiative expanded from its Dublin roots into the rest of Ireland.

“Donors were keen to see the difference that their funding was making, but preparing reports manually was time-consuming and potentially error-prone,” explains Michelle Moore, senior specialist heading the parent-child home visit programme for the College’s Early Learning Initiative.

In addition, she notes, manual report preparation was a poor use of valuable resources: ideally, the Initiative’s home visitors should be spending time working with children, rather than collating data or writing reports.

Challenge

Initially, explains Moore, the intention had been to leverage the College’s existing Microsoft Dynamics CRM system for the purpose, and simply provide additional log-on details for the Initiative’s staff.

But that wouldn’t work, it was then realised: not only were there data protection barriers to overcome, but the College’s system was aimed at adult students, rather than young children and families.

“The data that needed to be gathered was totally different,” says Moore. “The two data sets had no real overlap. Using the College’s CRM system just wasn’t an option.”

Moreover, if an IT-based solution was being deployed, there were obvious gains to be made from broadening the scope of the automation beyond purely data collection—managing the inventory of toys and books, for instance, ordering fresh stocks, and preparing visit schedules.

Accordingly, in late 2016 the College’s board authorised the publication of a Request for Proposals, to which Microsoft and eBECS responded with a proposal to Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power BI to deliver:

A Mobile App for the Home Visitors
An Administration and Scheduling Solution for office staff
Powerful reporting and insights for management and sponsors into the programs activities and results.

By February 2017 a decision to move forward with the Microsoft and eBECS proposal had been reached, and in March, work began on solution delivery.

Why eBECS?

From the outset, explains Moore, the joint Microsoft-eBECS proposal stood out in terms of its commitment to deliver a flexible and innovative solution to support the Initiative’s educational goals.

As an example, she points to the suggestion that the solution be delivered without undertaking the usual process of site visits, workshops and briefings. Instead, much of the detailed work would be undertaken through a series of meetings over Skype—a suggestion which made the joint Microsoft-eBECS proposal extremely cost-effective and time efficient.

Solution

From the Microsoft-eBECS side, a team of six was assigned to work on the project—four people from eBECS, and two from Microsoft. From the College’s side, the main contact was Moore herself, who acted as the conduit between the Microsoft-eBECS team and the Initiative’s 27 home visitors.

Many of the home visitors, she explains, are locally-based early school leavers getting into work after raising families, and a key challenge for the project was to provide a technology solution suitable for people with limited exposure to corporate IT systems.

Another goal, she adds, was moving data collection away from open questions and free-format assessments, and towards tick boxes, pull-down option choices, and hard numeric data to be collected simply and efficiently on the mobile app.

“It would take time to get right—but the result would be better data, and data that was quantitative, rather than qualitative, and which was obtained more efficiently than was the case with people hand-writing or typing long summary reports.”

By late summer, the necessary work had been completed: data collection scripts had been iteratively refined, system capabilities built, and functionality delivered. In addition, each of the home visitors had been provided with the mobile devices that the system required.

Accordingly—and right on schedule—the system went live in early September.

Benefits

Almost immediately, says Moore, significant improvements began to be experienced—improvements that have continued to flow in as familiarity with the system increases.

“Previously, it could take a week for us to get each home visitor’s notes for each visit that they had made,” she explains. “Now, if a visit is complete by 9:30am, then we usually have the summary data by 9:45am—which means that needs can be addressed more quickly, and interventions put in place more effectively.”

And with home visitors spending less time completing notes and reports, she relates, they have the capacity to take on more home visits, and help more families.

“Notes generally took around 20 minutes to write—now it’s generally five minutes or less, as there’s only one free-format field to complete. So previously, a home visitor working 30 hours a week might have been able to support 9-10 families with two visits a week, whereas they are now able to support 13-14 families,” says Moore.

The net effect, she sums up, is clear. Donors’ dollars and euros go further, and work to support more families, and help more children. And with metrics continuing to show how effective the Initiative’s interventions are in helping those disadvantaged children to reach their age-related expectations, that has to be good news.

Kent Brushes

Business needs

In late 2015, Hemel Hempstead-based Kent Brushes—founded in 1777, and the world’s oldest hair brush manufacturer—made a strategic decision to re-shore its Chinese manufacturing operation back to the UK.

It was a move that would require significant investment in woodworking and brushmaking machinery, but which would dramatically shorten lead times, reduce inventories, and make available opportunities to enhance quality.

But equally, manufacturing efficiencies would become vitally important—as would EDI, better-integrated factory scheduling, and shop-floor data collection. Moreover, the company at that point lacked the ability to offer Internet-based sales—but with shorter lead times, this would become more practical.

The obvious stumbling block to all this: Kent Brushes’ existing ERP system, which was seen as dated, inflexible, and lacking in features. Something better was required.

Challenge

By early 2016, the search for a replacement ERP system was well advanced. A number of systems had been examined, and opinion within the company was focusing on Microsoft Dynamics NAV as the way forward, implemented by a partner specialising in Dynamics NAV.

At which point, explains Steve Davis, Kent Brushes’ technical manager, the search ran into trouble: despite the obvious attractions of Dynamics NAV, the partner in question couldn’t offer a shop-floor data collection solution for it—shop-floor data collection simply wasn’t a capability that they offered.

Not to be put off, Davis began an independent search for a shop-floor data collection capability, finding a suitable solution in NAVEKSA ShopFloor, a well-regarded Dynamics NAV add-on module from Denmark. Picking up the phone, he talked to NAVEKSA—and learned that NAVEKSA’s UK implementation partner was eBECS.

“Talking to eBECS was a revelation,” recalls Davis. “It was immediately clear that not only were eBECS experts in NAVEKSA, but that they knew a lot about manufacturing, and a lot about using Dynamics NAV in manufacturing environments—which was exactly what we wanted.”

And shortly thereafter, a team from eBECS arrived on-site to demonstrate not only NAVEKSA, but a range of other capabilities on Kent Brushes’ requirements list—some of which, such as the Netronic factory-floor scheduling solution, were clearly superior to the solutions suggested by the specialist Dynamics NAV partner with whom the company had previously been talking.

“It was an eye-opener, and we quickly decided to move forward with eBECS instead,” sums up Davis.

Why eBECS?

Ostensibly, Kent Brushes’ decision to select eBECS as a partner was predicated upon eBECS’ proven capabilities with NAVEKSA, says Davis. In fact, though, it went beyond that.

“Yes, eBECS had the relationship with NAVEKSA, and knew the NAVEKSA ShopFloor add-in well. But more importantly, eBECS knew manufacturing well, and understood the additional capabilities such as factory floor scheduling that we were looking for, and had the experience to recommend the right solutions for us.”

What’s more, he adds, eBECS could readily exploit its relationships in the sector to plug gaps—with Magento, Kent Brushes’ preferred choice of content management system, being a case in point.

“We’d had huge challenges integrating Magento with our previous ERP system—but eBECS worked with a firm that specialised in just such integration. Yet again, the overall effect was to remove a lot of risk and uncertainty from the migration between systems.”

Solution

The contract between Kent Brushes and eBECS was signed in August 2016, and work began almost immediately, relates Davis.

“To begin with, the focus was on data cleaning: a lot of our customer data was wrong, with fields being used for other purposes. With Dynamics NAV, that wasn’t going to be necessary, so it made a lot of sense to clean the customer records so as to put that right.”

Consequently, the implementation proper began early in 2017. The plan: go live with the core Dynamics NAV system and a core subset of the required additional capabilities, and then add the remainder of the additional capabilities over the next few months. The Netronic scheduling solution, for instance, would form part of this subsequent implementation.

The new system went live on August 1st 2017, exactly as planned.

“There were a few issues—but there always are, with any new system,” says Davis. “In any case, it was nothing compared to the issues that we faced when we went live with our previous system, back in the late 1990s.”

Benefits

Several months on from that initial go-live, the final bedding down was being completed, and the Netronic and NAVEKSA capabilities were being fine-tuned.

The contrast is “simply amazing,” enthuses Davis. Gone are all the add-ons and fixes that had been associated with the previous system, as well as all the re-keying of data that had been required.

“The move to Dynamics NAV has given us a much better system, and a much better integrated system, which is what we need if we are to deliver on the strategy,” he sums up. “We’re transforming the business, and we need a transformed back office system to put us into a better position to move the business forward.”

LeafGuard

Business needs

In 2011, when a franchisee of the LeafGuard division of Perth Amboy, NJ-headquartered gutter and roofing manufacturer Englert Inc. unexpectedly went out of business, the LeafGuard business faced the prospect of having important sales territories unserved by a distributor of its patented covered rain gutter system.

Accordingly, the business took the decision to serve the territories itself, making it the first time that an Englert business had run its own retail operation.

Supporting the retail operation through a combination of Intuit’s QuickBooks Accounting and Crystal Reports, LeafGuard soon found that although the QuickBooks solution had been quick to implement, it lacked the full breadth of functionality that LeafGuard required.

Consequently, a decision taken in 2013 to investigate Microsoft’s Dynamics range of ERP offerings made perfect sense. But the choice of a partner to help the LeafGuard business to identify and implement the most appropriate solution was to prove less propitious.

Challenge

Initially, LeafGuard had evaluated Microsoft’s Microsoft Dynamics GP solution, after another franchisee recommended evaluating the Dynamics GP suite first. But in the event, LeafGuard decided that Microsoft Dynamics AX was a better fit, and in late 2014 began implementing it.

It quickly became clear, however, that the business’s chosen implementation partner lacked real expertise in the system, despite having successfully implemented LeafGuard’s Microsoft Dynamics CRM system.

“It was a very painful implementation, very late, and with a lot of the support coming in the form of overnight e-mails arriving from India,” sums up Tere Valcarcel, LeafGuard’s CFO.

Worse was to come, as an attempt at parallel running for the months of July and August 2015 made clear.

“It just wasn’t working,” says Valcarel. “Units of measure weren’t matching, for instance—products were being purchased or manufactured in one unit of measure, and sold in another, so very quickly our inventory balances were way out.”

What to do? LeafGuard’s IT director reached out to industry contacts, with the suggestion quickly coming back that it would make sense to look at the ERP recovery capabilities of eBECS.

Why eBECS?

eBECS’ recovery experts, it transpired, had seen such situations before—and had resolved them, and could point LeafGuard to references where such recoveries had been successful.

What’s more, says Valcarel, eBECS’ experts were on site quickly, demonstrating a familiarity with the issues that LeafGuard was experiencing, and highlighting how difficulties could be overcome.

“We accepted that the recovery process would be painful, but knew that it was important to support our people, and give them the confidence that they could get the answers that they needed immediately, rather than waiting for an e-mail to arrive from India the next day.”

Solution

The work undertaken took several forms. Fixing the configuration and customization issues, for instance, was an important first step. Also important was helping LeafGuard to roll out much-needed user training—not just in terms of headquarters employees, but out in the field, where many of the difficulties were arising.

But a critical part of the role, explains Valcarel, was simply hand-holding: being there, at the end of a phone, or connecting through screen-sharing software, and helping users to work through difficulties. E-mails, too, played a part, with eBECS able to respond in near real-time as queries arose.

All of this took six months, relates Valcarel. But very quickly, she explains, it was evident that the situation had stabilized, and that employees were becoming more confident in using the system.

And by mid-2017, she adds, the number of support calls had fallen to about one a week, and usage of the system had evolved to the point that the business was by now very familiar with what Microsoft Dynamics AX could do, and was actively looking for ways of further exploiting its power, and strengthening and improving the associated business processes.

Importantly, too, also under active consideration was integrating the business’s Dynamics AX and CRM solutions together, which would give rise to a whole new set of benefits.

Benefits

LeafGuard is in no doubt as to the ROI of its investment in the eBECS ERP recovery offering, explains Valcarel.

“We’d already made the financial commitment in the product, and incurred costs,” she points out. “The work with eBECS was about making it work, and learning what we needed to know—as quickly as possible—in order to become self-sufficient from the support point of view.”

But as a result, she concludes, the relationship with eBECS has strengthened and deepened: eBECS, she stresses, is seen as a partner which can deliver.

“What we were looking for initially was a responsive partner who could help us when we needed that help. The fact that we were extremely pleased and satisfied with that help has led to a relationship that has continued and evolved.”

Britax

Business needs

Like many businesses, global child car seat and stroller manufacturer Britax Group sees advantages in exploiting lean manufacturing techniques. The problem: how best to reflect lean processes such as kanbans and pull-based scheduling within its ERP system.

“We have some lean processes in place within our Australian and European operations, but there’s no real support for them within our existing Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 system, which limits our ability to leverage what lean manufacturing might deliver for us,” explains Ben Hancock, the company’s Fort Mill, South Carolina-based group head of ERP.

Challenge

And yet, he adds, he and his team had become aware that a more recent version of Microsoft Dynamics AX—Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012—did indeed contain support for lean manufacturing.

But how exactly did that support work? Would it be compatible with how Britax envisaged using lean manufacturing? How adaptable and configurable was it? What lean-specific reporting options were available? And how would it help Britax’s manufacturing management to roll out lean techniques across the company’s global operations?

“We realized we had a lot of questions, but few answers,” sums up Hancock. “The problem wasn’t that there wasn’t information available on lean support within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012—it was that we wanted to know, in detail, how it would work for us, and within our own manufacturing environment.”

As it turned out, a meeting with eBECS at Microsoft’s Dynamics user conference, Convergence, which took place during March 2015, was to provide a way forward.

eBECS, it transpired, was not only intimately acquainted with the lean functionality that was built into Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, but also offered a two-day ‘lean assessment’ consulting engagement, where eBECS personnel visited a manufacturer’s plant, and built a lean-enabled proof-of-concept, using Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, that the manufacturer could use as a reference point when deciding if—and how—to adopt lean manufacturing.

“Within the business, the eBECS proof-of-concept was an easy ‘sell’,” recalls Hancock. “We needed lean manufacturing, and the eBECS assessment and resulting proof-of-concept was a logical starting point. We saw it very much as a way of educating our team in lean concepts, and exploring how those concepts would work within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.”

Why eBECS?

And even though Britax had had no prior commercial relationship with eBECS, Hancock was very clear as to why the eBECS proof-of-concept was the way to go.

“The more we thought about it, the more it made sense,” he observes. “Importantly, for instance, it was eBECS’ own lean functionality that Microsoft had built into Dynamics AX 2012. So fairly obviously, as the original developer, no one would know it better. Plus, as might be expected, eBECS had an extensive track record of implementing lean manufacturing within Dynamics ERP environments.”

In short, he concludes, the decision was very straightforward.

“We needed answers—and it looked like eBECS was where to go to get them,” he sums up.

Solution

Accordingly, in late April, McCormick and an eBECS lean manufacturing consultant arrived at Britax for an intensive two days of discovery, training, and process mapping, culminating in the building of a small proof-of-concept demonstration system, using Britax’s own products, modelled with its own data.

“The first morning, we worked backwards through the manufacturing process, understanding what was going on, and talking to Britax manufacturing people, and exploring how pull-based processes might work—which was the reason we were moving through the manufacturing process backwards, of course,” explains McCormick.

Then came an afternoon of brainstorming and education, mapping the Britax manufacturing process onto hypothetical lean transactions, and exploring how Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 might reflect those transactions.

“The whole idea of this stage of the project was to see where lean made sense, and where it didn’t,” sums up Hancock. “It was soon pretty clear, for instance, there were definite advantages to lean processes in our short lead time replenishment items—packaging, plastic ‘shells’ for car seats, and materials that were on daily call-off. These were currently on MIN-MAX inventory control systems, and there looked to be a definite inventory reduction possible by moving to pull-based scheduling.”

Finally, working collaboratively together, the team built a small Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 test system, highlighting how representative order flows could be handled.

“We think of it as a ‘scale model’—something that we could use to further our own thinking, once the eBECS experts had finished and gone home,” explains Hancock.

Benefits

So where is Britax now on its lean manufacturing journey?

“Better informed,” explains Hancock, simply. “The project was very much about fact-finding, and modelling and exploring, and we know now that we need to do further work before we can go to the rest of the business with our recommendation.”

eBECS’ McCormick concurs, emphasizing that the purpose of such lean assessment projects isn’t to sell lean manufacturing, but to simply point out how it might work, and where it might deliver benefits.

“The idea is to leave the client in a better position to make the right decision,” she sums up. “Yes, the project is a success if the client decides to adopt lean manufacturing, but it’s also a success if they don’t. Our job is to show them what lean manufacturing means, and how it could work for them in a Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 environment.”

“In two days, we covered an immense amount of ground,” concludes Hancock. “On our own, we couldn’t have done it in two weeks, let alone two days.”

Electrocraft’s Microsoft Dynamics AX global roll-out in three continents

Business needs

A manufacturer of electric motors and motor controls with operations in the United States, China, Germany and the UK, America’s ElectroCraft realised in late 2009 that its legacy ERP system—a ‘green screen’ implementation of Infor’s MANMAN suite—was no longer adequate for its needs.

“We wanted to consolidate our entire operation on one system—a system that wasn’t MANMAN, or any of the other systems that we’d found ourselves running as the business had grown through acquisition,” says John Arico, ElectroCraft’s vice-president of finance and administration. “Consolidating information from across the company had become a complex challenge, and we saw that moving to one system—and ideally one instance of that system—was the way to go.”

But which ERP system, precisely? The market was crowded, with competing offerings from a number of vendors all appearing on paper to be offering a reasonable fit for ElectroCraft’s needs.

Spotting an ‘ERP shootout event’ being held in Orlando, Florida, at which it would be possible to compare and contrast the offerings of a number of these vendors, ElectroCraft management decided to fly down from their New Hampshire headquarters to attend it.

Challenge

Ahead of the event, Microsoft Dynamics AX hadn’t been the front-runner, concedes Arico. And matters weren’t helped by the fact that the session at which a Microsoft partner presented Microsoft Dynamics AX turned out to be marred by members of the presentation team disagreeing with each other.

On the other hand, some of the other solutions on offer had only patchy support for lean manufacturing, which was an important ElectroCraft requirement. Still others could only point to other sought-for capabilities as being at the planning stage, rather than currently ‘live’ features.

The turning point came towards the end of the three-day event, explains Arico. Although eBECS wasn’t formally present at the event, ElectroCraft had earlier attended an eBECS lean manufacturing webinar and the eBECS executive who had presented it had volunteered to fly down to Florida to meet the ElectroCraft team for dinner.

“One thing we’ve come to discover is that eBECS goes the extra mile, and this was our first glimpse of that,” says Arico. “The more we thought about Microsoft Dynamics AX in the context of an eBECS implementation, the more we liked the idea. Microsoft Dynamics AX appeared a better fit for our needs, and eBECS appeared a better fit for our culture.”

Solution

Accordingly, a global rollout began, with eBECS implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX first in ElectroCraft’s Ohio manufacturing facility, followed subsequently by implementations elsewhere in the United States, as well as Europe and—through an eBECS-recommended Chinese implementation partner—China.

It’s fair to say, sums up Arico, that not everything went smoothly.

“During the Ohio implementation, for instance, our internal team was overly focused on replicating the way that things worked in MANMAN, rather than on exploiting the more modern functionality of Microsoft Dynamics AX,” he relates. “While eBECS may have advised us against that course of action, I wish we had pushed back a little harder in the design phase against our resistance to change.”

On the other hand, he explains, the European and Chinese implementations were significant successes, utilising the strengths of Microsoft Dynamics AX to the full—rather than using it to try to replicate a legacy system—and the entire business has successfully migrated from the initial Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 release to the newer Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 release.

Why eBECS?

“Cultural fit,” says Arico, simply. “Their people go the extra mile to help, and they’ve worked with us as we’ve hit problems, staying on the case until the issues were fixed.”

It’s also worth noting, he adds, that eBECS at a corporate level has an excellent relationship with Microsoft, and is very willing to leverage that relationship in its customers’ interests.

“Microsoft is huge, and might just have shrugged and said, ‘Who’s ElectroCraft?’,” he points out. “We’ve been able to piggyback on eBECS’ close relationship with Microsoft, and have a better global ERP implementation as a result.”

But most of all, says Arico, it’s the eBECS people who have made the difference.

“They’re knowledgeable, professional, easy to work with, and operate as a team—globally as well as locally. And this turns out to be a mixture that’s harder to find than you’d think,” he sums up.

Benefits

For ElectroCraft, the transformation achieved by a global rollout of Microsoft Dynamics AX has been enormous, explains Arico.

To begin with, it is truly global, with complete multi-language and multi-currency support—a huge step forward from the legacy systems that preceded it.

Plus, he adds, it’s also a single global instance, meaning that headquarters has complete visibility into the operations and financial accounts of other parts of the business. Again, this wasn’t possible before, and has permitted some useful centralisation.

Reporting, too, has been strengthened, with the whole business working to a set of standard metrics, built on the same definitions.

“We’re global company, and we’ve finally got an ERP system to match,” concludes Arico.

James Heal

Business needs

By 2014, family-owned Halifax-based textile test equipment manufacturer James Heal—founded in 1872—had been using Microsoft Dynamics AX4 since 2007.

But despite this, the use of AX4 did not extend throughout the entire business, and there was an extensive reliance on spreadsheets, workarounds, and subsidiary systems in order to handle Heal’s inventory management and costing requirements.

In September 2014, having experienced rapid growth since 2010, the business was sold to an American private equity firm. The plan: build on Heal’s existing £12 million of annual revenues, and drive the company forward to sales of £20 million by 2020.

Challenge

The problem? During the ‘due diligence’ phase prior to the purchase of the business, its new owners had identified the shortcomings in Heal’s use of Microsoft Dynamics AX4, and realised that these were serious enough to pose a barrier to the targeted revenue growth.

Accordingly, within a month of completing the acquisition, plans were being laid to replace Microsoft Dynamics AX with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

“It was clear that Microsoft Dynamics AX4 wasn’t really fit for purpose,” explains Heal’s finance director Jason Malloy, who had recently joined the business. “We knew that we already understood Microsoft Dynamics AX, and we valued the longevity and strength of the Microsoft brand. What we needed was help in transitioning to a more modern system, and one that we could use throughout the entire business.”

Soon after, advanced discussions were underway with Microsoft Dynamics ERP experts eBECS.

Why eBECS?

While the business had had no prior experience of working with eBECS, the choice wasn’t that much of a surprise, says Malloy.

“Our original implementation partner was no longer on the scene, and eBECS had been strongly recommended to us,” he explains. “It was clear that they understood manufacturing, had ample experience with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, and were also engaged right across the Microsoft enterprise technology stack.”

In addition, he continues, working with eBECS provided a sense of assurance that the project would be delivered on time and on budget, and that it would also work as envisaged.

“With our previous implementation, we’d been left with a system that didn’t perform as we expected, and which had left us relying on spreadsheets, workarounds, and subsidiary systems,” he sums up. “The growth targets that we were working to were ambitious, and we didn’t want any surprises.”

The contract was signed in May 2015, and work began in June.

Solution

The original goal had been to simply switch off all the workarounds and subsidiary systems, and migrate entirely to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 in one move.

But such a move would be best achieved if timed to coincide with an accounting year end—which by now, was just four months away, relates Malloy, a decision had been taken to split the migration to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 into two phases.

“First, we’d move the functionality that was already operating in Microsoft Dynamics AX4—sales, production, and accounting,” he explains. “And then, we’d be able to focus on eliminating all the subsidiary systems and workarounds.”

And the impact of that shouldn’t be underestimated, he stresses. 90% of Heal’s sales are exported, and there is an extensive business in servicing and calibrating the company’s equipment in textile plants around the world.

With the first phase complete, work could finally start on setting up an agency portal, establishing a field service capability linked to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012’s CRM module, and building an improved sales pipeline management and analysis tool.

Benefits

The first phase of the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 migration successfully went live as planned, at the start of Heal’s new financial year, in November 2015.

“It used to take us four weeks to finalise our month ends,” enthuses Malloy. “Now it takes just five working days, as we can use the standard costs contained within the system.”

Moreover, he adds, the ready availability of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012’s reporting functionality has changed the way that information reaches end users in the business. Instead of relying on the finance function to issue reports, users can call up reports themselves.

“Self-serve reporting, when fully taken up, will be a game-changer,” says Malloy. “It frees up the finance function to add genuine value, and not just be a source of accounting and reporting overhead.”

And the ROI, he adds, is unmistakable. Even without the second phase of the rollout, which is now underway, the first phase has been genuinely transformational.

“Our investment in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 will pay for itself in less than two years, just through the cost savings achieved in Phase One,” concludes Malloy. “But more critically, without it, we would have struggled to achieve our growth targets.”

Capital Lighting Fixture Company

Business needs

Located just outside Atlanta, Georgia, The Capital Lighting Fixture Company had selected and implemented Microsoft Dynamics AX as a replacement for its existing out-of-support ERP system back in May 2012, going live in January 2014.

But even at the point of go-live, critical pieces of functionality were lacking, and other important functionality—such as the order shipping functionality—were working only very slowly.

Most important of all, the chosen implementation partner had been unable to deliver the functionality required from the Microsoft Dynamics AX customer portal, forcing Capital to locate and implement a third-party solution, just weeks before go-live.

“We’d expected Microsoft Dynamics AX to make us more efficient, and instead we were working more slowly, with a lot of workarounds,” explains Jennifer Whitmire, Capital Lighting’s controller. “Unfortunately, the partner we chose for implementation didn’t seem to have enough product knowledge or manpower to handle critical aspects of the implementation, and we needed help in getting things back on track.”

Challenge

In search of some form of solution, Whitmire and a couple of colleagues decided to attend Microsoft’s 2014 customer convention, Convergence.

As well as listening to presentations and demonstrations, the team also took time out to tour the exhibition hall devoted to Microsoft Dynamics’ extensive ecosystem of solution providers. There, they happened across the eBECS booth, and noticed that eBECS had something described as a Microsoft Dynamics AX ‘recovery’ capability.

“It struck an immediate chord,” recalls Whitmire. “We hadn’t realized it, but what we needed was a fresh partner with a Microsoft Dynamics AX recovery product—and here was eBECS with just that product. Having a conversation seemed to be the logical thing to do.”

It was a conversation that immediately threw up possibilities that seemed worth exploring, and an on-site visit ensued—a visit made easier by the fact that eBECS, too, was Atlanta-based.

After a number of internal discussions, the decision was made to engage eBECS, and recruit an information systems manager, Yves Grisard-Van Roey, to work with eBECS to deliver a Microsoft Dynamics AX system that was more in keeping with Capital Lighting’s requirements and expectations.

Why eBECS?

Before switching to a new partner, the Capital Lighting team needed assurance that eBECS really understood today’s wholesale business environment, as well as the most recent release of Dynamics AX, and the fast-changing world of integrated business technologies.

“Right from the first conversation with eBECS’ Charlotte McCormick and Darren Hogg, it was clear that they were coming up with solutions and alternatives that we hadn’t considered,” she recalls. “Plus, they were local, with good connections through to Georgia Tech, a recognised source of solid IT talent.

In addition, too, the eBECS team had a refreshingly different approach, bred from a long familiarity with deploying Microsoft Dynamics AX in a diverse set of businesses.

“Our original partner seemed to have focused a lot of time on making Dynamics AX behave like our previous ERP system, which had not only led to many of the problems that we were experiencing, but had left us with a lot of non-standard custom code, which we would now have to support,” sums up Whitmire. “eBECS, though, proposed going to back to basics, and using Microsoft Dynamics AX’s native functionality.”

Work began almost immediately, with eBECS’ ability to commit immediate resource to the project being an important consideration, given the fragile state of the existing Dynamics AX installation.

Solution

Progress was quickly made on a number of fronts, with separate workstreams targeting software, hardware, and business process issues.

On the hardware front, for instance, it was clear that server capacity had been calculated incorrectly, an error compounded by a flawed installation and off-site location. Brought back on-site, and reinstalled and correctly configured, hardware ceased to be a bottleneck.

Likewise, there was a need to address a number of software configuration issues, where a series of code optimization mini-projects gradually brought back on stream pieces of functionality that had been lost since the move from the previous ERP system. The shipping capability worked again, for instance, and Capital’s MRP capability was restored to an operational state.

More taxing were those issues where problems with code and business processes were intertwined—and in some cases compounded with a lack of appropriate training.

“Looking back, we realize that we didn’t have an adequate understanding of certain AX features and how they were designed to support our business processes,” says Whitmire.

Overall, she adds, it was a year before the various workstreams had achieved their various goals, delivering the Microsoft Dynamics AX experience and functionality that had originally been sought.

Benefits

Turn the clock forward two years, and Capital Lighting has what Whitmire describes as a normal, stable Microsoft Dynamics AX system, with normal support and optimization issues.

“We’re where we should be, with the efficiencies and savings that we had expected, and working with Microsoft Dynamics AX in the ways in which we had expected,” she sums up. “eBECS is still around, but now they’re helping us build on what we’ve got, and create improvements—a huge step forward from where we started.”

“Since our stabilization with Dynamics AX, we have created a platform for growth to achieve our business goals,” concludes Grisard-Van Roey. “With the help of eBECS we continue to expand the scope of ERP and supply chain integration to provide true value to our customers. The robustness of AX has allowed for increased revenue with minimal continued investment.”

Rochester Gauges INC

Rochester Gauges, Inc., a privately-owned company based in Dallas, Texas, is a multi-national manufacturer of gauges with facilities in Dallas, Texas; Brussels, Belgium; and Mexico City, Mexico.

Lean thinking began at Rochester Gauges with the arrival of Brad Hoffman – former Rochester Gauges Director of Operations, now General Manager, Flowserve, Inc. – about one year after the company selected Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 in 2006 as its enterprise resource planning solution to replace an outdated platform.

Lean Manufacturing was not a consideration in the design and deployment of AX 4.0 at Rochester and so shortly after arrival, Hoffman trained a team to develop and deploy a kaizen process tailored to the unique needs of the company. The team completed 27 major kaizen events from 2007 to 2009. Hoffman recalls, “Our team deployed kaizen throughout 80% of the factory, resulting in a 67% reduction in manufacturing lead times; however, as the evidence of our kaizen events continued to accumulate, it became clear we needed to use Lean solutions in AX 4.0 because the standard version we deployed could not support our Lean Manufacturing efforts.”

Simultaneously, a competitor began to offer one of the same products Rochester Gauges produced in one-half the time. Bill Battershell, Chief Financial Officer, at Rochester Gauges, stated, “The Company, at the time, was up against a wall. We needed to support Lean in AX 4.0 and a competitor was threatening one of our lines. This brought management to the table to address the issue and come up with a solution.”

Solution

In response, the leadership team at Rochester Gauges continued to deploy Lean principles throughout the value stream and began to investigate ways to support Lean Manufacturing within Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0, realizing the threat posed by competition was an opportunity for growth and change. According to Hoffman, “We quickly realized the amount of rework necessary to re-write AX code to enable us to further deploy Lean. We needed an alternative and found the solution though eBECS.”

Rochester Gauges purchased the Lean Module for Microsoft Dynamics AX from eBECS. The Lean Module developed by eBECS provided Rochester Gauges with an agile, flexible, fully integrated business solution specifically geared to support Lean Manufacturing and the unique needs of the company. The solution combines Lean and traditional manufacturing processes in one manufacturing model and provided the metrics Rochester Gauges needed to support kaizen processes – continuous improvement of its Lean efforts.

Within 6 months, Lean Enterprise by eBECS was integrated into Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 and released on one pilot line in the factory – the same line that was threatened by a competitor.

Benefits

Lean Enterprise for Microsoft Dynamics AX helps Rochester Gauges differentiate itself from the competition through better customer collaboration and responsiveness. Since adopting Lean Methodology, Rochester Gauges has reduced lead times from 50% from 8 weeks to 4 weeks.

Battershell reflects, “Management was pleasantly shocked at the reduction we experienced in production cycle lead times in our pilot cell. Our cycle time dropped from an average of 9 days before implementation to under one day and has never gone back up.” Battershell continues, “When our lead times dropped to under one day, we eliminated our buffer finished goods inventory. We maintained our on-time to schedule at 100% without the use of buffer inventories. This was done during a period of time that our production requirements went up 14%.”

In terms of customer service, representatives can confirm a ship date to the customer in far less time than the standard lead time of 8 weeks. In addition, customer service can relay an order directly to the manufacturing floor within minutes – representing a 92% improvement in work order cycle time. According to Battershell, “The way eBECS setup our AX Lean Order Schedule between our Customer Service and Production Cell is much of the reason why we are able to turn around orders as quickly as we are.”

Battershell continues, “eBECS optimized us so much, we’re like a fast food restaurant in terms of service. A customer places an order and within a minute, customer service hands it off to the production line. We’re so fast, in fact, that if a customer changes the order while on the line, production has already started it and must immediately adjust. In manufacturing, that’s a very nice problem to have.”

In terms of quality control, Rochester Gauges shifted from 100% end of line quality inspection to visual quality control at the time of production. Battershell states, “Because we produce so fast now and because people who make the product should be responsible for quality, we’ve redesigned the work flow with quality standard visual cues to allow person who makes the product to do quality inspection.”

In terms of planning, production planning continues to yield improvements at Rochester Gauges as planners spend more time on value-added tasks, such as handling exceptions in customer demand. Increased visibility into customer demand also helps planners refine forecasts for products with long lead times; more accurate forecasts result in even lower inventory levels. Battershell comments, “We used the Lean software to level load the pilot cell. Our production variance from high to low went from over 100% before Lean to 23% after implementation.”

Battershell concludes, “The transformation of everyone’s thinking around here is amazing because of the speed at which we’ve been able to accelerate the deployment of Lean principles down the line. When we rolled this out, no one thought it would do what it did. The very next day, it popped down to the levels we are still experiencing. Management watched for months thinking levels would go up, but they never did.” Battershell added, “We live Lean every day and are focused on further deploying throughout the entire supply chain.”

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Audio Technica

With sales growth hindered by its contact management and transaction processing systems, Audio-Technica recognised that it needed cutting-edge customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to manage inventory and boost productivity. With Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics AX—implemented by eBECS—the firm has seen performance improve, with detailed insights helping managers make better business decisions.

Business Needs

In addition to supplying a network of around 500 dealers across the United Kingdom (U.K.), audio equipment firm Audio-Technica also acts as a central inventory holding for the European operations of Audio-Technica—ordering stock from Japan, repackaging products for European market requirements, and shipping them to dealers across Europe.

In late 2010, the business realised that both its standalone contact management system and third-tier distribution business system were acting as barriers to growth.

Adrian Rooke, Managing Director, Audio-Technica, says: “We wanted to make CRM central to everything we do, helping to differentiate our offering in a competitive market. But we also recognised that not only did our core business system need upgrading to a full ERP system, but it also needed to be integrated with a comprehensive CRM system.”

But the firm’s requirements were complicated.

The existing contact management system provided sales representatives with an offline copy of the CRM database. This meant they could consult it while on the road and prepare post-visit reports shortly after leaving a customer’s premises.

And while the business wasn’t a traditional manufacturer, its functions embraced more than just distribution. Routinely, for instance, products were repackaged, combined together with other products to be sold as bundled sets, and shipped with localisation options specific to particular markets.

“It’s ‘assemble-to-order’ rather than true manufacturing—but with an extended supply chain stretching back to Japan,” says Rooke. “Increasingly, visibility into incoming shipments was becoming more and more important in terms of customer service and efficient inventory management.”

Solution

The search began for a solution, with CRM being considered the most important factor.

Audio-Technica identified only four offerings that met the majority of its requirements, and just one—Microsoft Dynamics CRM—that met the firm’s need for offline access.

But Audio-Technica wasn’t prepared to compromise. Rooke says: “CRM was going to be critical in helping us deliver a sustainable high-quality service. We knew that being able to deliver this would keep customers coming back. What’s more, delivering a sustainable high-quality service would help to change the conversation with customers from a price-based discussion to one that revolves around the total package that we offer. But achieving this is difficult without a CRM system, because so much information is in the salesperson’s head—which, of course, is then lost when the salesperson moves on.”

With the CRM solution chosen, the decision regarding which business system to deploy was also quickly made. The firm chose Microsoft Dynamics AX sourced from and implemented by eBECS—Microsoft Gold Partner and Microsoft Dynamics Reseller of the Year in 2012—which also provided data mapping and integration services.

“It was quickly clear that the combination of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics AX gives us a powerful, integrated solution,” says Rooke. “New customers would begin as prospects in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and seamlessly transition to a customer relationship within Microsoft Dynamics AX. We’d get a 360-degree view of not only the sales order process, but also the inventory management and assembly processes that fulfil those orders.”

eBECS played a critical role, not only in helping Audio-Technica understand what Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics CRM could deliver, but also how best to deploy and use them for maximum benefit.

Rooke says: “eBECS started with what we wanted to achieve, and how we wanted to achieve it—not with some predetermined view of what we should do, and how we should do it,” he says. “The result is a solution that’s completely ours, and that meets our specific requirements.”

Benefits

In place since early 2012, the combined ERP and CRM solution has delivered significant benefits to Audio-Technica. The integrated, state-of-the-art solution gives the audio equipment firm more accurate information, helping it make well-informed decisions that keep it ahead of its competitors.

Integrated solution helps improve decision-making. The integrated nature of the solution has enabled Audio-Technica to make significant productivity gains, with people no longer maintaining standalone spreadsheets and similar tools. But, more importantly, the combined solution has delivered on its promise of transforming the firm’s customer-facing and inventory-management processes, helping to fuel business growth. Rooke says: “We wanted more accurate information, with which to make better decisions—and we’ve got it.”
Cutting-edge technology and expert support give peace of mind. The company now has the reassurance of knowing that it’s using state-of-the-art technology sourced from a major vendor, and supported by one of the U.K.’s leading specialists in Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Thorlux Lighting

At Thorlux Lighting, engineers provide continuous post-sales support. But opportunities to increase productivity were being missed due to limited visibility of engineers’ activities. The firm couldn’t identify whether site visits were being invoiced or if engineers had the right equipment. With Microsoft Dynamics CRM—implemented by eBECS, Microsoft Dynamics Reseller of the Year 2012—Thorlux now has a clearer view of activities across the business.

Business Needs

Thorlux Lighting, a division of the F.W. Thorpe PLC Group, is proud of its strong post-sales support, commissioning and fine-tuning customers’ commercial and industrial lighting installations.

Paul Moisy, Technical Services Manager, Thorlux Lighting, says: “Over the past 10 years, our post-sales support activity has expanded rapidly. It has grown from a couple of engineers with some part-time administrative help, to a team of more than 20 that splits the workload between engineers that make site visits and engineers that provide customer service advice and support in our technical department.”

However, along with that growth came a loss of visibility. The firm was finding it increasingly challenging to establish the efficiency of operations and the commercial value that they provided to the rest of the business.

“How many site visits were we making each year? To which customers? How many of those visits involved rectification—and at what cost to the business? Questions like these were extremely difficult to answer: we just didn’t have the information,” says Moisy.

Anecdotal evidence suggested that opportunities were being missed to combine customer visits, increasing the number of visits each engineer could make per day. Likewise, there was a suspicion that some potentially chargeable engineer visits were only partly invoiced or not at all.

“We needed a system that could help us keep better track of what we were doing, why we were doing it, and for whom,” says Moisy. “A basic customer relationship management (CRM) system as used by our sales team would be of no use and had already been discounted. So what sort of system would match our needs?”

Solution

While Thorlux was happy to keep an open mind about the eventual shape of the solution, one option was rejected from the start. Moisy and the other Thorlux senior managers were adamant that they didn’t want a custom-built solution, or a package with limited support and a small user base.

Moisy says: “We wanted a solution with a strong history of development, support, and an extensive user base. In addition, we wanted the ability to customise and adapt it to our changing needs.”

A two-year search eventually led Thorlux to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, sourced from and implemented by Microsoft Gold Business Partner eBECS.

“From a solution perspective, Microsoft Dynamics CRM fulfilled our requirements sufficiently. From a solution provider perspective, eBECS combined a strong pedigree in manufacturing with a strong history of working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM,” says Moisy. “The more we talked to them, the more we felt that they understood what we were trying to achieve”.

The system was implemented at the end of 2011, and the results to date have been impressive. Moisy says: “Microsoft Dynamics CRM has given us an eye-opening amount of visibility into our post-sales support processes, and the opportunities that exist to increase the value to the business.

“We ended up getting a lot more than we expected. We’re able to target areas for improvement quickly, and pinpoint how we can serve our customers more effectively. Also, the information that becomes visible can now be fed back into our sales and manufacturing processes.”

Benefits

While Thorlux had high expectations of its investment in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, several early benefits quickly highlighted the power of the system, prompting the company to make its processes more transparent.

Company gets better view of activities. “We were concerned about how much engineering time we were giving away by not invoicing chargeable visits,” explains Moisy. “We were also anxious to understand costs and pinpoint areas to take advantage of opportunities.”
Firm reduces costs. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has helped the company reduce costs through better workflow, improved productivity, and enhanced visibility of data—leading to more site visits per engineer per day.
Solution gives Thorlux flexibility. “We are impressed with the flexibility and configurability of the system,” says Moisy. “We wanted to be able to make changes to the database and workflow ourselves without going back to eBECS.”
Company plans to extend use of Microsoft Dynamics across the business. “In terms of power, configurability, and return on investment, Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been truly transformative,” says Moisy. “The question now is how we extend its benefits to the rest of the business and integrate it with other business systems across the company

Industry: Discrete manufacturing

UK: +44 (0) 8455 441 441 Ireland: +353 (0)1 893 4831 USA: +1 (678) 701 5856 Saudi Arabia: +966 (11)920 007299

UK: +44 (0) 8455 441 441
Ireland: +353 (0)1 893 4831
USA: +1 (678) 701 5856
Saudi Arabia: +966 (11)920 007299