Jul 7, 2010
Founded in 1981, Bernatello’s got its start as a local tavern where pizzas were sold to area patrons. As its popularity increased, they began selling branded pizzas to local retail
establishments. In ’82 the tavern was sold and a manufacturing plant was started with a manual production line of eight employees applying ingredients by hand. Making 500 pizzas was considered a good day. As demand grew so did their production, distribution, and product lines.
Today, their Maple Lake, Minnesota plant runs four shifts, five days a week, employing over 165 people and the capabilities to produce 100,000 pizzas per day for millions of pizza lovers throughout the Midwest. The small family business has grown into an industry success story!
Bernatello’s Gets a Bigger Piece of the Pie
Bernatello’s had long ago implemented the accounting system, Solomon, which was adequate to meet their needs. However, when they purchased another company which used a direct store delivery model that was using what is now Sage Pro, they decided to migrate the Bernatello’s side of the business to this more robust solution for a seamless integration between the two companies. Unhappy with their current software reseller, Bernatello’s was referred to the pros at Business Automation Specialists of Minnesota (BASM) by a current BASM client. “We felt like we weren’t getting the support we needed and didn’t trust that our current provider would be able to handle the implementation at Bernatello’s and integrate the two companies well,” stated Duane Ebert, Controller at Bernatello’s. “After being introduced to and meeting with the BASM team, we knew we had found a great match for our needs. BASM’s expertise with our industry, and with the software, gave us confidence that we were in good hands.”
Ingredients for Increased Efficiencies
Business Automation Specialists’ first step was to get the new distribution company onto the most current version of the software. The Bernatello’s manufacturing side was then implemented, and the two companies were merged so that their systems integrated seamlessly. Bernatello’s eventually outgrew older software technology as they ran into limitations with the amount of history they could maintain. This resulted in a version upgrade to Sage Pro 7.5 and into current Microsoft SQL technology. BASM was brought in again, this time to eliminate the middleware between Sage Pro and the Direct Store Delivery (DSD) program using standard Microsoft SQL tools.
In the intervening time, Bernatello’s became a distributor for Edy’s Ice Cream. Edy’s required electronic ordering of product by store. This was a time consuming process. By extending the functionality of the DSD interface BASM created an automated purchase order system. This process accumulates the Sales Orders created in Sage Pro and converts it to an electronic purchase order to Edy’s. Now there is one system to order both pizza and ice cream. This allows delivery drivers, who are responsible for managing inventory on their trucks, to fill orders using handheld devices. Previously, when a driver would come into the warehouse, they would have to stock their truck and enter the info into the handhelds. Now they can download a bill of lading, acknowledge it or overwrite it, and stock their trucks more efficiently.
Edy’s also required electronic reporting of sales for sales analysis and payment of invoices. Now the delivery driver enters information one time, and it is all uploaded to Edy’s and Bernatello’s Sage Pro system in one step. In fact, Edy’s stated that Bernatello’s electronic data exchange implementation was the best out of all their distributors, and as a result, Bernatello’s is getting much faster turnaround on receivables from Edy’s.
Automation Saves Time and Dough
The newly automated system streamlined communication between the warehouse and drivers, resulting in huge time savings for the drivers. BASM also programmed the system to automatically e-mail an exception report if anything is out of order. The pricing program was also modified to automatically upload to the drivers’ handhelds. Previously, drivers updated pricing manually, as there was no central way to do it. Drivers can still add special customer pricing, but do not have to add regular prices. Another automation feature, programmed by BASM, is pick-tickets that print automatically to the warehouse as the orders are received from the handhelds. Now the warehouse staff does not have to wait for administrative staff to come in to do this. They have seen a huge improvement to work flow.
Another feature that BASM implemented is a dashboard-reporting tool called ClickBase. ClickBase provides a powerful reporting tool that integrates with Sage Pro and replaces hundreds of customized reports previously created by Bernatello’s. At the click of a few buttons, Bernatello’s can now see any information they want, the way they want it, any time they need it. According to the Bernatello’s sales team, “Sales reporting and sales analysis is now actually fun to get, thanks to ClickBase.”
BASM also provided the production staff with a screen to log what is taken-from and returned-to the ingredient inventory. “One of the benefits of implementing this raw materials management program on the manufacturing side is the new automated product usage,” stated Ron Ketterling, President at BASM. “If a recipe called for ten pounds of cheese, the work order took ten pounds from inventory; but the old system didn’t have a way to correlate ‘actual’ usage, so Bernatello’s kept track of usage on paper. Now with the automated actual usage, they can spot variances or inconsistencies and have a quick way of knowing if something is wrong.” In fact, Bernatello’s was able to catch two bill-of-materials with recipe errors the same week the system was implemented. This allowed them to correct it immediately. Previously, inventory was always ‘suspect’ until the account was balanced at month-end inventory. Now Bernatello’s is able to enter actual usage into work orders. “Nothing is precise in food manufacturing because of the variance in base products/ingredients,” said Ron. “This can cause significant inventory variance. Our new system allows Bernatello’s to catch these variances earlier and correct any problems before month end.”
According to Duane, “Thanks to the BASM team and Sage Pro software, the system and automation changes we’ve implemented increase our ability to increase profits; what more could you want! The burden on our administrative staff has been lessened as we spend less time double entering data. Our efficiencies have increased, we have faster visibility of manufacturing variances and the process of importing sales orders and bills of lading to the handhelds has true business value. We truly appreciate BASM’s commitment and response time and we look forward to working on a warehouse management project next.”
