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| Case Studies |
WALK, DON’T RUN
By MICHAEL BURNS
Situation: ASB Heating Elements Limited manufactures industrial process heaters to
heat liquids, gas, air, water, oil, ovens, tanks, or any industrial process.
ASB has about 35 employees in their Toronto facility. About three years ago, they decided
their existing Simply Accounting System was not meeting their needs. The biggest problem
was that Simply Accounting at that time was not multi-user, and they required more than 10
users to access the system simultaneously. They also spent a lot of time re-keying information.
For example, they wrote a customer’s order on paper, then rewrote the same information on a
packing slip, and then keyed the same information into the accounting system as an invoice.
Objectives: The objectives for the new system included streamlining operations to
eliminate re-keying information, and generating more professional documentation for clients
such as order confirmations or packing slips.
Solution: Based on a recommendation from a business partner, they checked into
BusinessVision. After a demonstration, they liked what they saw and they also liked the
price.
They were not looking for a system to automate their manufacturing process. They just
wanted general ledger, accounts receivable accounts payable, inventory, order processing
and purchasing.
BusinessVision recommended Rowie Walker & Associates Inc. to do the training and
implementationRowie Walker & Associates specialize in BusinessVision with a team of
12 consultants with accounting and technical expertise For about $7,000 in software
and $3,000 in services, ASB had their solution. Three years later, they are still
happy with BusinessVision and Rowie Walker & Associates.
Challenges: ASB does not use BusinessVision’s bill of materials system. A bill
of materials system should allow ASB to define all the components in making their
products.
When finished goods are assembled, the raw materials are consumed, so ASB does not
control raw materials using BusinessVision.
To compensate, ASB stocks excess inventory to ensure that enough raw materials are
always available. ASB also has a semi-automated system (using Excel) for creating
work orders (which contain the bill of material) for the plant, but it is not
integrated with BusinessVision.
So what’s the problem? Most of ASB’s products are custom and their belief is that
required to create a bill of materialtoo much effort is for each new product.
Sure you could copy and modify existing bills of material, but there is still the
concern that too much effort will be required to implement bills of material using
BusinessVision.
The problem is not lack of sophistication at ASB. ASB employees know their business
and have worked with other systems at other jobs, where bill of material as well as
full MRP (Material Requirements Planning) was implemented. Part of the problem is
that their experience with these other systems was not positive.
Once burned, twice shy. So does it make sense for a manufacturing company to use a
product like BusinessVision? I asked this question to BusinessVision and Rowie Walker.
According to BusinessVision, about 20 per cent of their customers are light
manufacturers. Many of these manufacturers may have balked at the price tag
of full-blown manufacturing systems. Others may have not needed all the
functionality including work orders, production scheduling, routings and
engineering changes. Customization and a few reports may be all that is
needed or BusinessVision customers with more demanding manufacturing could
link with third-party products such as Seradex.
Another challenge is contact management. BusinessVision only provides for one
contact in the customer file. ASB investigated a number of alternatives that
were either considered too expensive or did not provide multi-user functionality.
So they have just started to use a new product from BusinessVision called Workbook,
which can be used to customize their system and allows up to 50 new fields to each
major BusinessVision module. So ASB has created its own contact manage ment system.
For more demanding contact management, BusinessVision provides both one- and two-way
synchronizations with ACT, Maximizer, Goldmine and Outlook.
ASB also struggled initially with system crashes that occurred as frequently as
three times per week. Part of the problem was workstations and network were not
setup optimally. ASB decided to use their internal resource to setup the network.
After running into problems, ASB agreed to bring in Rowie Walker’s technical resource,
who quickly tuned the network to meet BusinessVision requirements. Other improvements
included installation of UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply), upgrade from Windows 98 to
Windows 2000, and implementation of an anti-virus program. And about a year ago, ASB
upgraded to BusinessVision’s Pervasive SQL product. The Pervasive SQL product has also
eliminated complaints about performance.
Pervasive SQL is a client/server product, which means that when a user/workstation
requests information from the database such as one customer, the server only sends
the one customer requested rather than the entire customer file. For systems with
more than 10 users or heavy volumes, a client/server approach can significantly
reduce network traffic and reduce the risk of network problems leading to system
crashes.
Results: ASB not only achieved its original objectives but also obtained other
benefits from BusinessVision.
ASB has undergone substantial growth over the last few years and no additional
administrative staff needed to be hired. As well, they attribute some of their
growth to BusinessVision as result of the professional appearance of their
documentation, and their ability to access information requested by clients
instantly.
Rowie Walker also thinks that certain benefits are taken for granted. BusinessVision
differentiates itself from other products by providing real-time updates to the general
ledger for all transactions including those that are multi-currency transactions. ASB
can get up-to-the-minute financial information at the press of a key.
Once in a while, ASB comes up with a new report requirement. The last time this happened,
Rowie Walker told them they already created a similar report, and they could download it
from their Web site for $75.
In other cases, ASB has requested new reports can be developed by Rowie Walker & Associates
for an average investment of $200. ASB could learn Crystal Report Writer and do the custom
reports themselves, but their occasional need has not justified having their own in-house
expertise.
Conclusion: ASB prefers to walk before it runs. By taking a slow and cautious approach,
they have avoided a costly implementation or costly interruptions to their business. Is
it a coincidence that ASB chose Rowie Walker, whose name perfectly fits the walk- don’t-run
approach?
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