BASM » Resources

Switching Gears Transforms EMSCO’s NAV System

Kimberlyc — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:59:55 +0000

One of the largest surplus, used and refurbished electrical equipment dealers in the U.S., Electric Motor Supply Company (EMSCO), is a family owned business started in 1948. With a 250,000 square foot warehouse and 16 miles of bus way, the company is able to keep most brands and styles of a variety of industrial electrical equipment right under their roof. Located just outside of Minneapolis in Fridley, Minnesota, EMSCO stocks thousands of bus plugs, transformers, circuit breakers, motor control centers, medium voltage gear, electric motors and many different sizes of switchgear.

A Disconnect with Software Vendor

For over 50 years, EMSCO has been buying and selling new, used and reconditioned electrical equipment. As a family business with very little staff turnover, much of the ever changing electrical supply inventory information was held by the individuals in the organization. The company had implemented Microsoft Dynamics NAV years ago to manage the accounting functions of the business. However, as time went by, they wanted to accomplish more in NAV than they were currently able to do. This included a desire to get the inventory information out of everyone’s heads and into an inventory management solution.

According to Joe Faust, Sales and IT manager of EMSCO, “We were getting a lot of system errors and the daily functionality we needed wasn’t there for us. The vendor we had worked with to install NAV years before wasn’t able to give us the support we needed to make NAV work the way we needed it to.” Joe expanded, “In fact, we had decided to look for a new vendor and new software, as we didn’t know if NAV could accomplish what we needed.”

EMSCO started looking for a new vendor; specifically one that offered multiple product lines, was local, and who had expertise in the distribution industry. “We wanted someone who could offer us solutions for our issues, not just sell us new software,” stated Joe. “It was important that they understood distribution and could easily grasp our unusual inventory situation.” After looking at several vendors, Business Automation Specialists of Minnesota (BASM) became the clear choice.

Switching Gears Saves EMSCO from a Complex and Costly System Change

Find out how … read the rest of this case study on our website at http://www.bautomation.com/resources/testimonials/ and read how EMSCO’s systems and processes were transformed.

Is Your Company Behind the Technology Curve?

Kimberlyc — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:56:37 +0000

Many companies have put technology improvements on the back burner over the last three years thanks to the recession. Unfortunately the timing for this was less than ideal as many companies were slated for updates during this time to keep the systems they put in place for Y2K current. What this means today is that many organizations are well behind the technology curve and not able to take advantage of efficiencies that are available now when they need it the most.

Mid-sized companies have been especially impacted by the lack of current technology, and many have been holding on by a thread trying to keep their businesses alive. However, if you are like us, you are starting to see positive trends that are real indicators of better times ahead – which makes today the time to focus on how to run your business better, faster and smarter to thrive in tomorrow’s economy.

If it’s time for a technology checkup, take our free online Business Health Systems Test.

Sage Product Name Changes

Kimberlyc — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:45:44 +0000

In 2012 the names of many of Sage’s core accounting and ERP lines will be changing. These products will be identified with a numbering approach where higher numbers denote increasing levels of product capability or sophistication.

For our clients, Sage ERP Accpac is becoming Sage 300 ERP, and SageCRM is becoming Sage CRM.

Now is the Time for Sales Tax Automation

Kimberlyc — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:39:45 +0000

The sales tax environment has become increasingly complex over the last several years. The current political and economic environment threatens to make it even more difficult for companies to keep up with ongoing changes, as government agencies seek out additional sources of revenue. Do you:

Use manual sales tax calculation methods?
Spend days or weeks preparing returns for filing?
Struggle to keep up with tax jurisdiction changes?
Want to simplify exemption certificate management?
Dread the 1099 filing process?
Worry about compliance risks?
Need to cut costs in your budget?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, we encourage you to learn why the time to automate the tedious sales tax process is now, by watching this 4.5 minute video, then take a free Needs Assessment Survey courtesy of our 3^rd Party Sales Tax Automation Partner, Avalara.

Does a Web Store Fit Your Business?

Kimberlyc — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:38:37 +0000

It may be easy to be carried away with fantasies of people flocking to your website and buying millions of dollars of products. On the other hand, you may not see how your business can benefit from a web store. This view may impede your success, particularly if your competitors offer Web shopping and you don’t. As a business owner, you must provide your customers with the services they want or they will go elsewhere.

Many business customers prefer placing orders on the Web because it is faster and easier than talking to a sales or customer service person. Many customers have chosen the Web because of the difficulty of getting to a “real” person by phone. Be careful that you don’t sacrifice customer service as your business model changes.

To evaluate the need for a web store, conduct a customer survey. Have your sales staff ask about interest in a web store as they call on your customers. Incorporate the survey as part of your standard order entry process. This is a perfect opportunity to compare your perceptions to the actual needs of your customer.

Why Include the Web as an Order Source?

The answer will depend on your customers and marketplace. Time, distance or language barriers may make the Web the best way to receive orders. The web order may simply be more convenient than faxing or talking to a customer service representative. A web order may be very different from any other order you receive.

What Challenges Will This Present?

Without strategic planning and tight controls, these differences can skew your profit margins to where it costs you money to sell on the Web. Consider the following when analyzing your specific challenges:

Stocking, Picking and Shipping Methods
Lead Times
Warehouse Layout
Staffing
Computer Systems
Manual Systems
Employee Stress
Customer Adaptability
Training
Disaster Preparedness and Recover

How Will You Handle Order Processing?

Processing orders over the Web presupposes automation of many steps that may be manually completed in your business now. Consider these questions carefully as you implement your Web store. Discuss them with your office, sales and warehouse staff. Also include your accounting software, network and Web service providers.

Programming and Development:

Hiring individuals from these disciplines can be extremely expensive. If you already have these resources, utilize them. If not, be sure to define your needs (especially future needs) carefully before you decide to hire a consultant or new staff.

We encourage you to contact BASM to discuss your web store implementation before making a decision, as not all web store applications will integrate with your ERP system.

New Blog Series: Effective Ways to Reduce Manufacturing Costs

Kimberlyc — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:37:31 +0000

Business Automation Specialists of Minnesota is excited to introduce our new monthly blog article series. This month we’ve focused on ways to improve costs, profits, and flexibility by reducing manufacturing costs. Manufacturing cost reduction efforts can result in significant product cost savings, manufacturing cost savings, and life cycle cost savings especially when companies implement all eight of the following strategies for manufacturing cost reduction:

Reduce manufacturing costs associated with product design
Implement lean manufacturing (or lean production) principles
Reduce overhead manufacturing costs with build-to-order and mass-customized inventory
Standardize parts to reduce manufacturing costs
Rationalize the product line to focus on the most profitable products
Simplify supply chain management
Evaluate the cost/benefit of quality (in some cases reducing quality costs can double profits)
How not to reduce manufacturing costs (avoiding cost reduction attempts that can substantially raise many less-obvious costs and compromise other important goals)

Learn more about all eight strategies by visiting our blog at http://blog.bautomation.com/. Of course, having a system in place to help you manage and analyze the data associated with each of these strategies is critical to implementing them. Download our “How to Choose a Manufacturing System” guide to see if your current system will be a help or a hindrance to reducing your manufacturing costs.

Connect with Us

Kimberlyc — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:35:59 +0000

Who would have guessed that social media would stick around and become such an integral part of our everyday lives? We didn’t! We thought it was just a fad for teenage kids (remember MySpace?), and certainly would never have any business applications. Yet, Social Media is now even an integrated part of most CRM systems, and companies are getting very clever with how they use it.

So, BASM has decided to embrace social media as another way to share information with our clients. In addition to our website and this newsletter, we also now have a dedicated blog, as well as a presence on Twitter and LinkedIn. We hope you’ll connect with us!

https://twitter.com/#!/RonKetterling

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ron-ketterling/11/112/502

http://blog.bautomation.com/

Twitter | LinkedIn | RSS

Finding the Perfect Blend for Caribou Coffee Company

Kimberlyc — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:53:44 +0000

Caribou Coffee Success Story

Switching Gears Transforms EMSCO’s NAV System

Kimberlyc — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:51:04 +0000

Switching Gears Saves EMSCO from Complex and Costly System Change

“When EMSCO came to us, they thought that NAV might not be the right solution for them anymore,” recalled Ryan Ketterling, Sales Manager at BASM. “After our in-depth needs analysis, we identified that NAV would work for them and was indeed the best solution. EMSCO simply hadn’t been instructed on how to best use the system and they needed an upgrade to the latest version, with a few changes, to make it work the way the company needed it to work.”

Melissa Reichenbacher, Project Manager at BASM added, “By avoiding a major system conversion, EMSCO saved significant time and conversion costs. Upgrading allowed for a simple data conversion, and the staff didn’t have to spend time in extensive retraining.”

According to Ron Ketterling, President at BASM, “By upgrading, EMSCO was able to take advantage of new functionality in the latest version of NAV. This provided them the fastest uptime at the lowest cost, and reduced the complexity and pain often associated with changing systems. It was the easiest option for the staff as they didn’t lose their NAV knowledge.”

EMSCO’s System and Processes Transformed

With the upgraded version of NAV in place, and with the expert guidance of BASM, EMSCO finally had the functionality they had been lacking for so long. In fact, BASM did more than was planned. Because EMSCO had problems with their system due to the way it was initially set up by the previous reseller, they had developed work-a-rounds for these issues. During the course of the implementation, BASM was able to identify and correct all the errors thus streamlining these previously tedious processes.

Joe at EMSCO states that, “Some of the changes we are thrilled to finally have in place, include our ability to issue a sales-tax-only credit memo; view the effective (total) tax rate of individual customers on invoice documents as well as on the customer screen; and the improved integration between UPS and NAV, which allows us to create tracking numbers within NAV and automatically track them on the UPS website.”

For items not shipped with UPS, EMSCO printed shipping labels. However, their old NAV system printed labels for all shippers, including UPS. This caused the staff to have to scroll through all labels looking for the correct one. Not only was this time consuming, but during the busy season with seasonal staff, this frequently created shipping errors. BASM was able to change this by implementing order scanning so only the scanned order labels printed. By streamlining this process, EMSCO eliminated irrelevant order labels, saving time for regular staff and eliminating errors with seasonal staff.

Joe continued, “We are especially happy with our new quoting process. EMSCO does thousands of quotes and we needed a way to determine if a particular item had been previously quoted to a particular customer. Many times we don’t have an item number, and we need to look by type or description. BASM created a process within NAV that now allows us to look up quotes by customer or by type and description. This is a huge time saver and helps us provide the best customer service.”

During the initial needs assessment, BASM also suggested implementing EZPDF to fax and or email invoices, statements, and quotes. Customers can indicate how they want to receive these documents and it can be done on an individual or batch basis. Faxing or e-mailing invoices, statements and quotes not only saves time, but also saves a tremendous amount of money on paper and postage.

“We started this process to simply resolve the day to day challenges we were having with our system. We needed to find a way to streamline our processes and to be as efficient as possible so we could ultimately manage our inventory better,” stated Joe. “Now we are at the point where we can explore warehouse automation. By adding part numbers to our entire inventory instead of relying on individuals’ knowledge, we will be able to manage our growth through the use of technology.”

Joe finished by stating that, “Working with BASM made everything so smooth. They spent a lot of time preparing to make sure NAV was the right system, and in making sure the conversion and subsequent processes were done as efficiently and with as little disruption to our business as possible. The conversion was done over a weekend, and we were back up and running by 11:00 a.m. that Monday. From our owner’s perspective it was all perfect, and that makes my job so much easier. The BASM team responds quickly, is easy to work with, and everyone on the team is truly an expert in their field and ours!

ATF Book Process Streamlined for Magnum Research

Kimberlyc — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:48:34 +0000

Magnum Research Inc. is a privately held corporation based in Fridley, Minnesota which manufactures and distributes firearms. Magnum Research builds the world’s finest and most powerful pistol, the Desert Eagle, as well as the BFR (Biggest, Finest Revolver), the Baby Eagle, the Micro Desert Eagle, the Magnum Lite Rifle, and the Mountain Eagle Rifle.

Not only are Magnum Research’s firearms popular with the general public, but Hollywood has a fascination with them, too. Magnum Research products have appeared on the big screen in Charlie’s Angels, Pulp Fiction, Matrix, three RoboCop movies and many others. Their products are also popular on the small screen, in books and video games. Check http://www.magnumfilms.com for a list of the hundreds of places you may have seen Magnum Research’s firearms.

Growth triggers need for automation

With the opening of a new manufacturing facility rapidly approaching, Magnum Research knew they had to automate what had been a manual and tedious reporting process. They felt the process might have had some holes and that they might not be in compliance with federal regulations. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) requires that firearm manufacturers keep an ATF Log Book (also called the Bound Book). From the time a manufacturer puts a serial number on a firearm frame or receiver , it must be precisely tracked through every step of the manufacturing, sale and distribution process. This is done through a series of acquisitions and dispositions, and is extremely detailed.

The problem, as presented to BASM, was that Magnum Research would have to establish and follow reporting guidelines for every possible scenario. For example, if a salesperson took a firearm to a gun show, sent a receiver to an outside subcontractor or if a gun was destroyed, the company had to record it. Additionally, the system had to work seamlessly between the distribution and manufacturing facilities. Each scenario had to follow a different path in the documentation process. The ATF’s ultimate objective is that if a firearm is used in a crime, they can track who possessed it last by using the ATF Log Book. Moreover, since Magnum Research is an importer, manufacturer and distributor working out of two locations, they had five Bound Books to maintain.

Ron Atzmiller, CFO at Magnum Research, turned to their software solution provider, Business Automation Specialists of Minnesota (BASM). Magnum Research needed help achieving efficiencies in their database program in a way that would meet ATF criteria. The ATF would have to approve any system put in place in order for Magnum Research to be in compliance, and to get an ATF variance. Penalties for non-compliance with the ATF regulations could result in severe consequences for the Company and its Executives/Managers.

BASM keeps the target in sight

“This was an unusual project for us,” recalled Ron Ketterling, President of BASM. “It tapped into our automation and systems expertise by having us properly identify and then document, each scenario and related processes Magnum Research would use to be in compliance with the ATF Book regulations. There was no programming or software involved at this stage, as the ATF had to approve any system before it was put into place.”

BASM worked with Magnum Research, their attorney, and the ATF over a nine month period. Ron from Magnum Research stated, “BASM kept the project moving forward and kept it on track. We had normal business issues taking place, while we were opening a new manufacturing facility, that would distract us from this project. I was pulled in a thousand different directions, but BASM kept the project focused and acted as collector of key pieces of information. On top of that, our ATF compliance officer was new to Magnum Research, and BASM gave her valuable insight into issues with inventory flow and how they related to compliance requirements.” BASM’s role became that of guiding and assisting the process, development of the procedures and making sure training was available to the Magnum Research staff.

Focused action gets the job done

BASM was successful in getting an ATF approval (variance) while significantly simplifying the ATF Book process for Magnum Research. And because they were an importer, manufacturer and distributor, the ATF required five separate log books. Through documentation and flowcharts, BASM was able to prove that writing the five logging entities into a single database wouldn’t interfere with generating the five distinct ATF Books.

During this time Magnum Research was acquired, and after the transaction was complete, BASM helped convert their data to the new company’s systems. They also used model numbers and caliber to track parts for manufacturing. BASM set up several excel reports and cleaned up the old database so it could be archived. This included identifying and correcting orphaned products, and ultimately printing the ATF Books (forty 5” binders printed on 11×17 paper) which was required semi-annually, in addition to a digital copy.

Ron at BASM recalls, “I knew this project was a huge success for Magnum Research, but when we started getting referrals from the ATF, I realized it was a win-win for everyone involved.”