 San
Antonio Lighthouse
ERP enables contract manufacturer to stay competitive
Overview
San Antonio Lighthouse (SAL), an organization providing employment
opportunities and rehabilitation services to people who are blind or
visually impaired, manufactures fasteners and writing instruments. They
focus on assembling and packaging products, which lend themselves to the
particular skills of the employees, but also provide warehousing and
distribution.
The Challenge
Sudden changes in market conditions threatened the loss of as much as
60 percent of SAL’s business, forcing them to move quickly to find new
distribution channels to reach their customer base. Additionally, to stay
competitive, they had an urgent need to reduce order-to-shipping time for
their core products.
“In light of the changing competitive environment, time was of the
essence,” said Pat Good, SAL Community Relations Manager. “We knew the
implementation of an ERP system would help us turn around products and
services to customers at the speed they required and keep SAL in the
ballgame.”
The Solution
To meet these extreme external challenges, SAL was quick to adopt
e-commerce technology for selling goods on the Internet directly to
government agencies and private firms. They were also aggressive about
implementing an ERP system to manage accounting and manufacturing
activities and meet customer demands for fast turnaround.
SAL had several requirements for their ERP system. The product had to
be easy to use, quick to implement, allowed for process reengineering and
it had to integrate their manufacturing and accounting processes so all
data was available from one central location.
San Antonio Lighthouse selected Intuitive ERP by Intuitive
Manufacturing Systems for three major reasons. First, the product
satisfied a need for Microsoft-centric technology. Intuitive ERP is
developed with 100 percent Microsoft technology, allowing them to
integrate seamlessly with other Microsoft applications such as Excel,
Outlook, Project, and Word. Second, the product was user-friendly which
contributed to a rapid implementation and required little training time
for users. And third, the consulting and technical support teams exhibited
a high level of expertise and competency.
“Prior to implementing Intuitive ERP, the SAL environment consisted of
multiple applications on multiple platforms running redundant processes,”
said Dana Russell, MIS manager for SAL. “Adoption of Intuitive’s
technology puts SAL on the cutting edge.”
“Implementation of Intuitive ERP has been a major learning experience,”
said Cindy Miller, SAL Vice President of Rehabilitation Services and
Administration. “The process invoked an analysis of how the organization
conducts business and allowed SAL to set up systems and processes the way
the organization wished they had always been.”
“Critical success factors in the implementation included leadership
championing the process, employee open-mindedness to change and quality
guidance from the consulting team,” Miller continued.
SAL’s Results
Implementation of Intuitive’s ERP application has resulted in vast
improvements in inventory management, invoicing and management
decision-making capabilities.
Prior to implementation, managing inventory was a complicated task and
resulted in stock outages and overages. Invoicing was a labor-intensive
activity that took too long. In addition, management decision-making was
hindered by a lack of information.
The implementation of Intuitive ERP provided SAL with a disciplined
material requirements planning process and shop floor scheduling that have
combined to reduce part shortages, increase inventory turns and automate
operational activities. The integrated system provides the management team
with a better view of business activities at a strategic level and for
daily operations.
Additionally, the organization as a whole has dramatically shortened
the order-to-ship cycle time, an advantage that has proved to be
absolutely critical at this time.
SAL’s Reaction
“SAL sought out a solution to support the process of bringing people
closer together, said Elvin Schofield, SAL Executive Vice President.
“Intuitive ERP has helped managers develop a sense of teamwork and that
makes it worth the investment in itself.”
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Challenges