Summers Industrial Supply of Johnson City, Tennessee is the leading industrial distributor serving eastern Tennessee, southwest Virginia, and western North Carolina. Since its inception in 1893, Summers has consistently out-serviced the competition by providing its customers with quality products, competitive pricing, and outstanding service.

The company’s industrial sales division, which was added in 1974, provides maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) supplies to area industries. The 150,000 square foot warehouse stores an extensive inventory of 14,000 stock keeping units (SKU’s). These items are available for next day or even same day delivery if necessary. Even though Summers has a vast inventory of MRO, cutting tools, abrasives, material handling items, safety, and janitorial supplies, more than 40% of orders processed are for non-stock or special items.

Summers is a family business led by its owner, Glenn Shaw. The company prides itself on its ability to locate those rare, hard to find, and specialty items in a timely manner and at a competitive price. This is a sharp contrast from larger industrial suppliers who typically will not take the time to locate items that are not held in inventory; and the smaller supply houses who do not have the resources to help solve those special problems.

Summers has nearly 40 people who are dedicated to excellence in industrial distribution. Summers employees include many highly-skilled inside and outside sales people as well as factory certified product specialists, technical representatives, and engineers who specialize in manufacturing and operations.

In order to facilitate reliable and consistent service, Summers has a fleet of vans and straight trucks that make ten scheduled runs a week and are available for special trips as needed. Vehicles and personnel are available to handle emergency situations that may arise after hours or on weekends. Summers also offers vendor managed inventory (VMI) and automated materials vending.

A customer of Summers’ can expect reliable service of the highest quality, integrity in every aspect of business, and experience backed by quality products and services. Summers values all of its customers and views their challenges as their own. Today, Summers is a strong company with proven experience in helping its customers solve their problems as quickly as possible.

Summers Industrial Supply Seeks a New System

Summers’ legacy computer system dated from 1980. The software was written in a proprietary programming language and was supported by an in-house programmer for many years. In the mid 1990s, Summers wanted to reduce its ongoing maintenance costs by installing an ERP package from a nationally-recognized software developer. Unfortunately, the implementation proved disastrous when the developer failed to live up to its promises.

“It didn’t go well,” said Craig Shaw, who recalled the story as it was told to him by his father, Glenn. “When the system went live, the whole operation shut down. We couldn’t get orders out and there were people filling up the sales counter area because we couldn’t get their orders picked. That night, my father said that he and his partner were standing in the warehouse. The trucks were sitting idle. His partner looked at him and said, ‘This is the worst day of my life’ and walked away.” After many attempts to debug the system, Summers reverted back to its legacy system.

Craig had started work at Summers shortly after graduating from Georgia Tech in 2008. Craig’s studies in computer engineering, inventory management and industrial engineering had prepared him well for entering the family business. Craig spent the first six months at Summers learning firsthand how all tasks are performed, from accounting to picking orders to making deliveries and everything in between. “After I had gone through the process of learning about the business and seeing where the business needed to go, I saw the importance of Summers having a good foundation in a new ERP system,” stated Craig.

However, around the same time that Summers came to this realization, the Great Recession of 2009 arrived. Summers’ managers were forced to place the project of a new computer system on hold and make some tough decisions. “We had to make several decisions about how we do business, but because those decisions were made quickly and the relationships we have with our customers, we were able to survive the downturn when others did not,” said Craig. “When the situation started to plateau a year later, we decided that we needed to put the new computer system on the front burner. Our philosophy is that if we’re not making ourselves better - if we’re not going after new business - then we’re going backwards.”

In 2010, Glenn asked Craig to put his formal education and training to work by spearheading the selection process for a new computer system. “Jeff Hardin, who is our vice president, collaborated with me on the project,” said Craig. “It was felt that we had a good idea of how all the departments worked together, so we took the lead on specifying the new system.”

Of course, one of the consequences of the previous failed implementation was that Summers’ personnel had long dreaded the prospect of installing another computer system. “Several people still remembered the last experience of installing a new computer system,” said Craig. “They were more than a little apprehensive about getting a new system. In fact, some were terrified!” he exclaimed. Still, while Summers’ personnel had their reasons for wanting to continue with the status quo, it was becoming evident that Summers’ aging legacy system could not be sustained indefinitely nor could it provide the advanced feature/functionality the company needed to stay competitive in the 21st century.

After concluding that installing an updated version of the legacy system would not be a viable option, it was decided that Summers would need to procure a new system. Of course, Craig was keen not to repeat the previous bad experience and resolved himself to thoroughly review the market as best he could. With that imperative in mind, Craig turned to Smith Brown Wallace, a highly respected consulting firm who publishes a well-known guide to distribution industry software. “We looked over the guide to find the software we were interested in learning more about,” said Craig. “We wanted to know how the software was built including the programming language, operating systems, how much of the application was core versus third party integration, and so on.” At that point, Craig and Jeff together with others on the Summers selection team narrowed down the list and began reading marketing materials, speaking with representatives, and looking at online demos.

Among the companies that Summers seriously considered was Infor, the leading developer of mid-market software solutions for industry. “We attended an industry Webinar where Infor was mentioned and came across the Infor name several times when talking with other people, too. We wanted to learn more,” stated Craig. Infor immediately put Craig in touch with Jeff Sprowls at Earnest & Associates (E&A), the leading Infor channel partner in the U.S. supporting over 300 companies in the wholesale/distribution and manufacturing industries.

Jeff arranged an appointment and drove from E&A’s office in Greenville, South Carolina to visit with Summers at the Johnson City office. After a successful first visit, a discovery was setup in late July, 2010 where Jeff and E&A presales business consultant Dave Johndrow would have the opportunity to inspect Summers’ operations in detail. Information gleaned from the discovery process would allow Jeff to closely align an Infor solution with Summers’ unique business needs.

“We liked the way that Jeff and Dave invested time in coming to our facility and observing our operations,” recalled Craig. “They wanted to know, ‘How does this work?’ And without any prompting from us, Dave pointed out that the software wouldn’t be able to handle our unique zone picking requirements without a modification or extension, which had been one of the causes of the previous system failure. So we appreciated the fact that E&A was approaching us in a straightforward manner.”

Impressed with the level of professionalism displayed at the discovery, Summers made the decision to short list E&A. “E&A was not just about making presentations,” stressed Craig. “E&A was seriously talking to us, trying to figure out who we are and how we work. It seemed that E&A was intent on making the best software recommendation possible to us.” Meanwhile, Jeff Sprowls furnished a reference list of companies that were similar in size and industry, offering to take the Summers team onsite for a visit so that they could witness how E&A and Infor might provide a superior solution.

Over time, Summers diligently narrowed the number of potential candidates down to three companies. “We had scheduled demos, with some of the demos onsite and others via Webex. Then we met as a group to compare notes and discuss the pros and cons of each solution,” said Craig. “We took a vote and came to a consensus that it would be a good decision to go with Infor software from E&A.” The contract that was signed in September, 2010 called for a 23 concurrent user license for Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) with value-added consulting, implementation and support services provided by E&A.

Craig emphasized that Summers’ final decision was about more than software. “The reason we chose Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) was because we were comfortable with E&A,” asserted Craig. “In fact, we thought to ourselves, ‘Any of the software packages from the three finalists we selected will probably work for us.’ But even though E&A was not the cheapest option, we felt that E&A had a much better understanding of Summers. E&A was willing to spend the time to work with us. As a result, we were more comfortable with E&A and the support they were going to give us than we were with the others who were merely trying to sell us.”

An important dimension of the proposal was a lease-to-own option made available through E&A’s financial partner, Ryan Capital. “We chose to lease the software because we didn’t want to restrict our cash flow,” said Craig. “We looked at what our credit line might be with our bank versus the leasing option and decided it was in our better interest to lease.”

Shortly after the software decision was made, E&A submitted a bid and subsequently won the right to source Summers’ computer hardware. E&A would be responsible for supplying two Dell servers which would be used for the installation of Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise). As a single source for Summers’ software and hardware, E&A could reduce the hassle of dealing with multiple vendors while ensuring that the customer’s system would be appropriately sized and configured.

Summers implements Infor10 Distribution Business

The ISOC^TM philosophy represents E&A’s solution to enterprise systems management in the small to medium sized business space. ISOC marginalizes the threat of runaway ERP projects that fail to deliver on their promises. E&A’s approach resonated with Summers, who recognized that a successful software implementation would require a structured, coordinated effort.

“ISOC was the biggest selling factor that E&A had,” remarked Craig. “E&A presented a plan: ‘This is how we’re going to implement the system, and it is going to take anywhere from six to twelve months to do the job right’. This is in contrast to another company that said we’d be up and running in six weeks, which we knew wasn’t realistic.”

Jon Woodrum, who manages the Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) team at E&A, assigned Bill Pattie to the role of implementation project manager. Tina Wang, Leo Lang and Matt DeSalle would supply programming services while Tom Fitzgerald would provide contract management support. Jon’s team worked from Dave’s high-level discovery document to begin specifying the modifications and detailing the implementation plan, paving the way for the ISOC operations review with the Summers team in October, 2010. “We sat down with Tom and Bill to review the specifications,” said Craig. “We walked through all of our critical processes, from receiving to shipping to the warehouse, to gain a deeper understanding of how the software would fit us. Bill then wrote up the detailed specs and gave them to us for our input.”

The operations review helped to flesh out three major modifications to the software. The first was the need to print multiple pick tickets from a single order; and to print these tickets by zone. This modification was deemed to be most crucial as it was the issue that had derailed the previous implementation. The requirement stems from the unique attributes of Summers’ magnificent, multi-story warehouse and office building which dates from 1912. Summers stocks its inventory in designated zones located on different levels in the building and in adjacent storage yards and sheds. With a significant amount of vertical and horizontal movement necessary to navigate through the sprawling facility, orders would be almost impossible to process unless pick tickets are sent to just the right printers in the building. Although an advanced warehouse management system could deliver this same kind of functionality, Summers did not want or need the added complication and expense of implementing another software package, if it could be avoided.

The second unique software requirement pertained to special stock held, or items that major (usually manufacturing industry) customers expect Summers to have on hand at all times. These include frequently-used production line items and mission-critical items that oftentimes means the difference between large enterprises keeping production lines running or having them sit idle. “Our customers might purchase these items only once in a while but if they can’t get the product when it’s needed, a machine, a production line or an entire operation could be shut down. So that’s something we absolutely must do for our customers,” emphasized Craig.

Route management was the third major requirement. Pick tickets must be printed for customers located within specific delivery zones on the days when their deliveries are scheduled. However, since some customers need delivery more frequently than others, Summers must be able to assign some of their customers to multiple routes whose stop orders might also vary according to the delivery day. “That’s something that Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) didn’t handle out of the box,” said Craig. “We asked E&A to deliver a modification where we could manage deliveries to customers who get service, say, once a week versus others who might get deliveries from us every day of the week.”

As E&A began work on the modifications, Craig arranged with a local computer firm to install high-speed fiber optic cables and wireless network access points throughout the building. New Windows 7 PCs were ordered for the few end users in the office who did not already have them.

E&A’s Adam Team delivered and installed the two new Dell servers, configuring the machines to run flawlessly with the Summers network. A copy of Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) was loaded onto the servers and a virtual test environment was set up, in turn enabling Summers to create a learning lab where software could be tested and end users could master how to use the software prior to the go-live.

During the software implementation, Bill became the most visible E&A staff member and developed a close working relationship with Craig and the Summers staff. Bill came in for the ISOC conference room pilot, where he met with Summers department managers to compare and contrast their current business processes with Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise). “Everybody here really liked Bill, and we got along well,” said Craig. “We discussed how things could work better for us with the new system in comparison to how we did things before.”

Bill worked with Craig on importing data from the legacy system into Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise). Since Craig had previously built a number of extract programs to use for reporting and analysis, Bill helped map the reporting database including all of Summer’s customer, vendor and product records to an import file that fed the data into Infor10 Distribution Business. Summers could now create a realistic end user training experience where its personnel could work not with samples but real customer, product and pricing information.

One of Craig’s objectives was to simplify the user interface as much as possible. Craig was concerned that the migration from a character-based screen to a graphical system might cause confusion for some users; while on the other hand, Craig sensed ample opportunity for more logically structuring the system to improve Summers’ business processes and efficiency. “We thought we could gain a big advantage if we could customize the screen layouts,” said Craig. “It would help with the transition from the old to the new system by putting all of the information our end users needed right in front of them.”

Taking advantage of Infor10 Distribution Business’ (SX.enterprise) customizable user interface, Craig and Bill set up role-specific screens that would allow end users to quickly access information to get their jobs done as efficiently as possible. “We created hot buttons that allow users to access the specific information they need,” explained Craig. “We customized the labels and displayed the links in logical orders within the navigation screen: select this button for accounts receivable, this one for accounts payable, and so on.”

Tasks have been grouped and ordered so that users can perform their jobs step-by-step in Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise). “We group and order the buttons where the top buttons are going to be the first step, the next button the second step, and so on. For example, on the sales side we’ve grouped order entry before order inquiry. The goal was to make the system as logical as possible and to make the transition easier for the end user,” stressed Craig.

Craig recalled the challenges of training people who had worked for many years with character-based terminals and were unfamiliar with using a PC. “When we started doing training, we had not one but two people look at the mouse and ask, ‘What is that?’,” he said. “We knew right away that we needed to get everybody on board. End user training would be crucial to the success of the project.”

Craig scheduled the training sessions by department where the Summers sales team would practice placing orders, purchasing would practice buying non-stock items, accounting would practice invoicing and receiving, and so on. To make the experience as relevant as possible, Craig asked users to recreate the daily work that they were performing in the legacy system to learn how these tasks would be performed using Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise). “That way, our people benefited from having a parallel experience: here’s how we’re going to do the same thing we are working on now in the new system,” said Craig.

Summers made sure that every computer user gained competency with Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) during the weeks running up to go-live. “We didn’t take a day off but end user training was the biggest thing that we did right,” said Craig. “We made it mandatory for everyone to practice using Infor10 Distribution Business for an hour every day.”

As Summers personnel gained familiarity with Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise), Bill began testing Tina’s and Matt’s modifications. Bill then asked Craig to review the modifications, which were either approved or sent back for further refinement. This process continued through the time of the end user training, where Summers had an opportunity to test its personalized version of Infor10 Distribution Business using its own data. The readiness assessment confirmed that, apart from a few minor refinements, Summers was ready to go-live on Infor10 Distribution Business. A go-live date was scheduled and E&A and Summers prepared for the final push.

To make absolutely certain its employees were ready, Summers scheduled special Saturday training sessions on the final two weekends before go-live. “We wanted to get entire departments in here at one time so that we could run through scenarios together,” said Craig. “We’d give our people a scenario that they’d have to work through as a team. They learned to depend on each other to work through their problems.”

A few nights before go-live, Summers used the training room for a final walk-through of the warehouse pick ticket system and other mission-critical business functions. “Bill and I went through every scenario we could think of, and made sure the pick tickets printed on the correct printers,” said Craig. “When we were certain that everything was working correctly, we decided we were ready to go-live.”

Summers successfully went live on Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) during the third week of March, 2011. Bill was onsite but thanks to the thorough prep work by E&A and Summers the event went well and according to plan. “When we went live, we didn’t have any major hiccups,” affirmed Craig. “Although the first two were long days for the Summers staff, by the end of the week things were starting to work smoothly. Having Bill with us to provide support was a huge help.”

Craig came to value the ongoing assistance provided by Bill during the implementation process. “Bill was a friend and a resource,” said Craig. “If something wasn’t working the way we had anticipated and we needed help, Bill was there. We’d get on the phone and talk through the issue. In the end, it worked out well because we were on the same page.”

Craig commented on the support services provided by E&A to help Summers quickly work through the few unexpected issues that did occur during the implementation. “Support has been good,” said Craig. “When we contact the E&A help desk a representative will get back to us very quickly. For example, one of the modifications that we had ordered was loaded and tested before we realized that we had missed something. Within a matter of minutes, Bill Pattie and Tina Wang were both on the phone. It was late in the afternoon but we got the issue straightened out before the end of the day.”

Craig also credited the Summers staff for their enthusiastic support of the project. “I was really proud of our people,” beamed Craig. “Nobody griped. Everyone maintained a good attitude and came in to practice when we asked them to. They were all excited about it. ‘We are ready for this!’, they’d say. In fact, there’s not a single person who regrets going to the new system. We were able to make the transition successfully because our people put in the effort need to make it successful.”

Summers Benefits from Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise)

Craig believes that the customized screen displays and processes built into Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) by E&A has helped Summers implement standardized procedures that helps make the company work more efficiently than before. “We’re able to standardize where everybody doesn’t have their own individual ways of doing things,” said Craig. “We don’t want to get the corporate mentality of telling people how to do their jobs but we are setting out general guidelines. Our people have actually taken to that philosophy very well.”

One of the largest areas of improvement has been with handling non-stock orders which comprises 40% of Summers’ business volume. Prior to implementing Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise), the lack of visibility to non-stocks meant that Summers would use manual process to place many overlapping small orders to the same vendors or purchase similar items from different vendors. “Beforehand, non-stock information wasn’t stored in the system and it wasn’t assigned a part number. You’d have to put the non-stock item on a PO, email purchasing, and purchasing would print the PO and stick it in a file somewhere. You’d hope that when it came time for purchasing to buy it, they hadn’t forgotten about it,” said Craig.

Now, Summers uses Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) to cooperatively add non-stock items to their sales orders and purchase them more efficiently. “One of the things we like is how Infor10 Distribution Business handles non-stocks,” said Craig. “We can easily add non-stocks to orders and to the database so that if someone else on our staff wants to order that same item in the future, we don’t have to search for the information all over again and re-enter it from scratch.” Non-stock items automatically show up in the Infor10 Distribution Business buyers’ control center where Summers can make much more intelligent purchasing decisions, taking greater advantage of buying targets and discounts from suppliers. “It’s a whole lot better than it was before,” admitted Craig.

Summers has implemented a more disciplined cross-reference system to gain greater control over its database and improve customer service. “The pricing and cross-reference system in Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) allows the catalog to be visible to everybody, not just to the person who entered the item originally,” said Craig. “We came up with a standard nomenclature for how to assign a product number to catalog items. When we search for a particular widget, we can locate it quickly using a manufacturer’s part number or description. If it’s already in our catalog we can see the current pricing and what price we’ve sold it to other people for. It’s one of the big benefits for us because we have such a large volume of non-stocks,” he continued.

Craig likes that he can easily access information within Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) for reporting and analysis. Infor10 Distribution Business includes many pre-built reports for sales analysis, inventory management, accounting, finance and other critical areas as well as tools for users who want to generate customized views and reports. “Bill gave us a little tutelage on how to extract data whenever we need a report that’s not already standard in the system,” said Craig. “We can drop data into Excel or view the custom report on the screen.”

Craig told us that the open database connectivity features in Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) that allow him to massage data in Excel compares favorably with the hassle of straightening out information that has already been uploaded to the ERP system. “A big advantage with Infor10 Distribution Business is that we can test and play with data before committing the final changes to the database,” said Craig. “For example, our largest pipe fitting vendor has over 700 SKUs where Units of Measure is an issue. We always had trouble reconciling the information in our legacy system. It used to take forever! But now we simply download a price sheet from the supplier’s website, make a few simple changes and then upload the data into Infor10 Distribution Business. The fields are updated in seconds! So instead of spending three weeks doing it all by hand, we can take care of the update in less than a day.”

Glenn Shaw discussed how E&A’s solution has benefited Summers. “Customer service is critical to us,” said Glenn. “With Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise), it is very easy to navigate from place to place in the system. We have gained quicker access to information, vendors and customers. We can provide acknowledgments and copies of invoices to customers on demand. The sales and purchasing reports have also been valuable in managing the company,” he continued.

E&A’s ISOC Philosophy Benefits Summers

The ISOC approach makes sure that systems are properly fitted to the business environment. During the discovery, the utilization of electronic data interchange (EDI) to trade information with suppliers was not deemed to be a critical process in Summer’s operations; and accordingly was not fitted into E&A’s initial proposal. However, as the ISOC management process unfolded it became evident to E&A during the Operations Analysis phase that EDI played an important part in Summer’s maintaining its vendor relationships. E&A made its observation known and upon additional consultation in February, 2011 Summers concurred that it was important to include an EDI interface to the implementation scope of services.

“We came to realize that we needed EDI,” confirmed Craig. “We wanted to maintain discounts and buying power with certain vendors who do require us to trade with them using EDI.” E&A’s Scott Manley took the lead in getting Summers’ EDI solution up and running in relatively short order. Although EDI was not fully implemented in time for the go-live, EDI has since come fully online. EDI has benefited Summers by automating previously manual processes and sharing in the cost savings achieved through participating in its vendors’ electronic trading systems.

Summers Today and Tomorrow

Craig’s ambition was to set Summers on a solid footing to allow for its future growth and expansion. With Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) successfully installed and a good working relationship established with its technology partners at E&A, Craig believes that Summers has achieved its goal and is now ready to do more. “I feel like we have that foundation now,” said Craig. “Today, we’re focusing on improving service to our existing customers and others who are in our defined business territories. Tomorrow, we plan to start work on a B2B website where we can roll out additional services to our customers, with future plans to add a B2C front end to capture new business opportunities, as well.”

Summers has recently opened up a virtual private network (VPN) so that remote users can access Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) from anywhere. “Our sales people love it!” said Craig. “We don’t need to install clients on the desktop. Our people can access the system through a secure login on our website and get full functionality just like they would if they were sitting here in the office. It’s been a big hit so far!” he enthused.

Meanwhile, Summers is working with E&A on implementing the Max Recall document imaging solution where scanned documents such as MSDS sheets and signed proof of delivery tickets can be accessed anywhere within Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise). E&A is also assisting with the implementation of the integrated bar code (IBC) module to enable Summers to virtually eliminate errors in its warehouse operations that might be associated with its receiving, shipping, and physical/cycle counting processes.

Glenn has been pleased with E&A’s responsive support. “When Craig was on vacation we had a few problems,” said Glenn. “We emailed E&A’s help desk with details and the problems were resolved in a matter of a few hours. We had believed that E&A would provide the support we needed after the implementation was complete, and they have.”

Craig praised E&A for its support with helping Summers move forward with technology to maintain industry leadership and competitive advantage. “E&A has taken good care of us,” said Craig. “With business, there’s simply no such thing as sitting still; if you are, you’re losing ground.”

To learn more about Summers, go to www.summersindustrial.com.

For over six decades, Hugh M. Cunningham, Inc. (HMC) of Dallas, Texas has been the leading manufacturer’s representative of first-quality commercial, industrial and residential plumbing and mechanical supplies in the Southwestern United States. Led by its president, David A. Cunningham, HMC is committed to providing exceptional customer service while championing the preeminent manufacturers in the industry. 

HMC employs over one hundred people who are focused on the marketing, sales and support of its manufacturer partners' products to their wholesale/distribution customers and the construction trades they serve.  Currently, HMC services the states of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas and Louisiana where HMC has established itself as a preeminent partner in the supply chain.

“We fill the gap between the manufacturer and the distributor,” said Dan Townsend, COO and vice president at HMC.  “Manufacturers hire us to be their specialty sales arm.  With most of our manufacturers, we have 30-day contracts in place so we’re only as good as our last sale,” he emphasized.  To fulfill its sales mission, HMC employs over thirty outside sales people who have diversified construction market expertise including plumbing and mechanical, fire and water, flow control, HVAC and more.

At its core, HMC is a knowledge-based enterprise.  Continuous investment in employee training and career development is vital to enabling HMC to competently sell and support its manufacturer partner’s products.  To that end, HMC has organized eight inside sales and customer service teams who have built considerable competencies around the specific product lines HMC supports.  As innovation in the industry has accelerated, the demand for HMC’s services has shown no signs of slowing.

Dan explained how HMC has organized its resources to take advantage of the opportunity.  “We have divided our customer support reps into teams. The teams support groups of products that complement each other because no single person could properly service the needs of all of our manufacturers and diverse customer base,” said Dan.  “One team’s product may require a significant amount of order facilitations and pricing demands, while another team’s products rely on heavy technical knowledge and specifications. This structure allows HMC associates the opportunity to maximize their individual strengths as well as provide a channel for future personal growth.”

Lori Zimmer is the customer service manager.  “We believe the relationship is all important,” said Lori. “Anyone can sell a product, but how do you know that you are buying the right thing?  Our customers get solutions to their everyday challenges because each of our customer support teams is led by people with years of industry experience.  It is our job to know the products inside and out,” she said.

HMC has a 75,000 square foot distribution center that handles HMC’s lines and serves as a regional shipping facility for other rep agencies who sell for Charlotte Pipe & Foundry, Elkhart, Little Giant and other manufacturers in territories not covered by HMC.  Dan Banaszek, vice president of distribution is tasked with managing the operation.  “We are a service center,” said Dan.  “Customers like local, fast delivery.  They want to pick it up today or have it delivered tomorrow.  We do whatever it takes to get product to our customers and to make them happy.  That’s what we’re here for.”

HMC’s beloved, late founder Hugh M. Cunningham once asked his employees to “be passionate about your work and life, love what you do, those you work for and with, the products you represent and the profession in which you labor.”  With HMC’s solid leadership, highly skilled sales and support teams backed by an efficient distribution center serving thousands of satisfied customers every day, it should not be doubted that Hugh’s spirit remains alive and well today. 

HMC’s Growth Prompts a Technology Upgrade

In the 1990s and early 2000s, several independent rep agencies decided to join forces as the HMC story was becoming better known.  In a relatively short time, HMC absorbed dozens of individuals who would go on to introduce HMC into the fire and protection, turf, agriculture and water well businesses. With the subsequent surge in demand for HMC’s services, the company began to formulate plans for a significant software upgrade to support the company’s growth.

Debra Dingess, who has been HMC’s information technology manager for the past twelve years, recalled the moment.  “In 1999, HMC had around twenty employees,” recalled Debra.  “Not long after the Y2K upgrade we began to expand our staff significantly.  We soon realized that our legacy system could not keep pace with our growth and the increasingly complex technical requirements that came along with it.”  Debra cited a desire to migrate from the current character-driven UNIX system to a Microsoft Windows-based platform with a software that included robust reporting tools as important technical requirements for the new system; while functionally, the software would need to provide timely access to information in order to allow HMC’s teams of sales and customer service representatives as well as warehouse staff to do their work more effectively.

After carefully evaluating their options, the HMC management team selected Infor ERP TakeStock, a robust distribution management solution designed to help distributors of all types run more efficient, end-to-end operations.  Running on the latest Windows-based connectivity standards and featuring an intuitive, graphical user interface, TakeStock satisfied HMC’s technology needs while delivering the ease-of-use that its computer end users wanted and the information its trading partners and customers expected.

Meanwhile, envisioning that it would soon become the definitive manufacturer’s representative in the state of Texas, HMC sought to engage a single-source business consultant who could support and customize its TakeStock software system to meet the challenges ahead.  HMC invited Earnest & Associates (E&A), a leading Infor channel partner with over fifty active TakeStock installations supported nationwide, to the Dallas office to discuss its IT strategy.

Dan Townsend recalled the meeting.  “When Tom Cangelosi, Jennifer Jones and Terry Dixon arrived, we could plainly see that they had the technical background.  But what was really impressive was the feeling that the E&A team had integrity,” Dan recounted.  “We recognized that in a technical business, things are not always going to be perfect but it’s all about what happens at the end of the day.  Will we get our problems resolved?  Will you stand by us until we get there?  That’s what business relationships are all about.  After speaking with E&A that very first day, we walked out of the meeting saying, ‘We believe they will be our partner.’ And they have been ever since.”

Debra affirmed that the decision to work with E&A has been a good one.  “E&A had the support infrastructure we were looking for,” said Debra.  “We like to have access to an active user group community and online training.  We expect superior service because that’s what we provide to our own customers, and we feel that E&A has provided just that kind of service to us.”

E&A Customizes and Supports TakeStock

TakeStock promised to be an ideal software solution for HMC. TakeStock includes a suite of business management, financial management, supplier relationship management and supply chain management modules.  However, HMC’s unique, hybrid business model meant that E&A would need to configure TakeStock to support HMC’s manufacturer’s representative (buy/sell) and its distribution (consigned inventory) groups simultaneously. The challenge would be to engineer two sets of business processes inside TakeStock and to properly track, account and report on these processes accordingly.

Within TakeStock, the Manufacturer’s Representative module proved to be key.  E&A wrote a significant number of modifications around this module to allow HMC to separately track its buy/sell orders and consigned inventories.  E&A’s solution allows HMC to manage both its manufacturer’s representative and distribution businesses from within a single system.  Dan Townsend said, “On the one hand, Man Rep allows us to track the large volume of consigned products that flow through our warehouse facility without impacting our G/L.  On the other hand, we can also use TakeStock to facilitate buy/sell orders for our manufacturing partners and assess our performance at any given point in time using the integrated business tools,” he continued.

Dan talked about the modifications.  “The biggest challenge for us was handling product we didn’t own,” he said.  “An open order on consigned product can impact the credit check process in TakeStock. E&A has written modifications to make sure that consignments don’t impact any existing open buy/sell orders or A/R credit checks.”

All told, E&A’s modifications have succeeded in presenting a complete view of the business.  Gary Chinn is HMC’s finance and human resources manager.  Gary testified to the effectiveness of E&A’s solution in allowing him to separately measure both the individual and overall performances of HMC’s operations.  “TakeStock is a fully integrated solution,” said Gary.  “Whereas before it was very difficult to manage, today we use TakeStock’s G/L for everything we do from payables to receivables to financial report writer to tracking consigned inventory sales, and more.  We use E&A’s Pro Business Intelligence module to drill into TakeStock data to produce useful management reports.  For example, we can see how much consigned inventory has been sold by using the sales order history data captured by TakeStock.  We can even track sales commissions despite the fact that almost every manufacturer has a different payout structure and some might take many months to pay us based on open projects,” he said.

Support Services Prove Valuable

E&A’s support services including help desk, online training and local user groups have helped HMC get the most from TakeStock.  

Debra told us that E&A’s help desk support compares favorably with other vendors.  “Before, it might have taken days to get a response from our previous software reseller; meanwhile, important work that needed to get done was postponed.  It’s not like that with E&A,” said Debra.  “If I contact E&A’s TakeStock support line, I don’t dare leave my desk to get a cup of coffee because Keith Baynard or someone else at the help desk will be immediately trying to get in touch with me.  That’s how quickly I get a response!  And the solution to my problem is provided that much faster.  I think that E&A’s support is more than 150 percent better than the competition!” she exclaimed.

Online training services for TakeStock are delivered through E&A University where attendees can participate in interactive live classes or playback recorded sessions whenever it is most convenient for them.  HMC has used E&A University to learn about new features when upgrading TakeStock and to help employees improve their skills.  “We love E&A University!” declared Debra.  “We upgrade TakeStock every two years and it’s an absolutely seamless experience because we can learn what’s new through E&A University. We’ll use the projector in our classroom to setup a lunch-and-learn session whenever a live class that we want to take is scheduled.  It’s the perfect training tool for our inside sales people.  And when a new hire needs to get up to speed quickly, we can use the recorded sessions: the employee can watch the video, go through the basic steps and get the mechanics down; then we’ll progress to a live setting.”

Debra is a regular participant in the E&A user group series, a free service that E&A provides to customers who care to stay current on the latest developments pertaining to their Infor ERP solutions and related technologies.  Debra had most recently attended the Cleveland, Ohio meeting where Jennifer shared how to more effectively use the TakeStock sales order entry system.  Debra found the information useful.  “At the E&A user group, I wrote down a few of the tips that Jennifer had shared with the audience and brought them back to the office,” recalled Debra.  “Sure enough, most of our people didn’t know about these features in TakeStock. It goes to show you that if you don’t use it, you lose it!”

TakeStock Benefits HMC’s Buy/Sell Operation

As explained previously, HMC’s core mission is to facilitate good purchasing decisions by distributors on behalf of its manufacturer partners.  “We must add value,” stated Dan Townsend. “If our customers contact us and don’t get the information they need, they will go someplace else.”  To fulfill its mission, HMC connects with customers using video conferencing for remote training and a classroom facility for face-to-face training. HMC has a sophisticated call center monitoring system which tracks inbound call volume, hold time and more.  HMC’s sales representatives use laptops with CRM software to communicate with the Dallas office.  With a multitude of touch points, HMC has found that the TakeStock database has proven to be a solid platform for information sharing throughout the company. 

With TakeStock, sales and customer service representatives have access to powerful sales tools that include account statuses, past purchase histories, inventories and other pertinent information.  TakeStock helps HMC to work more effectively as a top-notch sales and services organization.  “Our upper-level teams possess very specialized knowledge and rely on the TakeStock database to provide them with information about the various manufacturers’ products that we represent,” said Dan.  “For example, Team Four supports pumping systems.  The people in that team might need to know how to engineer a flow control system to move grey water as part of a public utility system.  Using TakeStock, our team can help the customer identify the specific kinds of pumping stations, controls, meters, valves etc. that needs to be purchased to build out a complete system. TakeStock enables us to facilitate this process which typically requires a lot of discussion with the customer as well as multiple interactions with the manufacturer to complete the sale.”

Lori highlighted the necessity of the TakeStock database when sharing with us the challenge of staying current with an ever-changing regulatory and business environment.  “Urgency needs to be escalated at times,” said Lori.  “Last week, there was a code change in the city of Austin which forced us to immediately change our recommendations to customers.  Although it was a very simple change, it was important that our customers adjust.  We used TakeStock to provide the information our customers needed to adjust to the new specifications and continue to make good buying decisions.”

E&A’s Warehouse Management Solution Benefits HMC’s Distribution Group

In 2005, with HMC’s successful implementation of TakeStock behind them, the company began to investigate a solution for its warehouse operations.  HMC visited several other businesses that were successfully running TakeStock integrated with Accellos (Radio Beacon), an advanced warehouse management solution.  Satisfied that Accellos offered the functionality HMC needed to better manage its operation, HMC decided to work with E&A and Accellos on the project.   

“We had to get more efficient,” said Dan Townsend.  “We were losing a tremendous amount of labor hours dealing with a paper-based system. We knew the best way to attain profitability would be to improve our efficiencies by using bar coding and radio frequency technologies in the warehouse,” he concluded.

In 2006, Dan Banaszek led the implementation at HMC with onsite assistance from E&A’s Sam Neogi and representatives from Accellos.  Over the course of several weeks, HMC’s warehouse workers learned how to use hand-held units to scan bar codes to record the movement of inventory from receiving to counting, moving, picking, packing and shipping.  Employees gained insight into how Accellos software’s seamless interface with TakeStock would allow HMC to send order acknowledgements, automatic shipping notifications, carrier ship tracking and other vital information to its trading partners, thereby improving communications and boosting the level of service the company provides. 

With Accellos, HMC’s distribution group has in fact achieved world class status.  HMC handles an inventory valued at over $10 million yet processes hundreds of inbound and outbound orders every day with near-flawless accuracy.  With dozens of workers picking stock from over 43 manufacturers in 4,000 stocking locations in the warehouse, HMC has achieved on-time delivery rates of 98%+ (including 94% delivered the next day) and with order fulfillment accuracy approaching 100%. 

Dan Banaszek attributes the improved performance to the rich trove of information supplied by the TakeStock/Accellos system.  Dan shared how HMC uses the software to better manage overstock, reassign workers to more specialized tasks, run weekly replenishment reports, measure the average time customers spend at will-call, and all but eliminate discrepancies (to cite just a few).  “In our line of work, discrepancies are a big issue,” said Dan.  “The customer might say, ‘We asked for ten but you only shipped us five’. In the old days, you had to take the customer’s word for it because you had no way to verify the information.  Now, we no longer have to search through spreadsheets to get the answer because it’s all in the system.  In less than five minutes we can locate the problem and correct what would have previously taken a day for us to resolve,” he said.

A few of E&A’s enhancements to TakeStock have helped improve HMC’s warehouse system.  For example, E&A’s Pro ShipLink module feeds freight costs automatically into sales orders during the confirmation process, avoiding costly errors associated with over- or undercharges.  E&A also wrote a modification to round up items that are sold by the box, thereby ensuring that the right amount of product is shipped to the customer every time.

The system has exceeded HMC’s expectations.  “We believed that we would get a 100% return on our investment within twelve months so we planned for eighteen; but we actually achieved full payback in only nine months,” marveled Dan Townsend.  “We have conservatively calculated that our workers are at least 20% more efficient using the system than before.”

Yet, HMC is currently planning to do even more.  At the time of writing, Dan Banaszek was in process of reconfiguring the warehouse based on an analysis of Accellos’ most recent picker productivity reports.  “The aisles are laid out by manufacturer,” explained Dan. “We put the ‘A’ or fast-moving items towards the front of the building or on the lowest shelf rack, ‘B’ items on the next shelf, and so on with the slowest movers on the top shelf.  Using the reports from Accellos to guide us, we’ll be super efficient after the new layout is fully implemented!” he asserted.

HMC is the Rep of the Year

When employees in an organization like HMC are empowered by their company leadership to achieve their goals and are provided with access to advanced information systems technologies, many positive things are bound to happen.  HMC was selected by Supply House Times as its Rep of the Year in 2008. The honor validated many years of achievement for which the company can be justifiably proud. 

E&A hopes to continue to support HMC for many years to come.  Dan Townsend commented on the partnership that has developed between HMC and E&A.  “Business has to be a partnership or else it’s a waste of time,” said Dan.  “There was nothing that E&A said to us that they couldn’t do.  E&A has delivered on every single thing we have needed, and more so.” 

To learn more about HMC, go to www.hughcunningham.com.

Since 1927, Paxton Company has been distributing quality marine safety supplies and industrial equipment to boat and yacht builders, marinas, repair shops and other skilled trade professionals.  Paxton Company has nearly one hundred employees serving at its corporate headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia and its branch locations in Wilmington, North Carolina and Charleston, South Carolina who are dedicated to providing the kind of quality products and services that Paxton customers have come to expect for more than eighty years.

Paxton Company stocks nearly 15,000 items from leading vendors such as 3M, Avery Dennison, Brownell, Danforth, Hubbell, Jabsco, Perko and many others. Ranging from adhesives and coring materials to navigation lights, paints, rope cleats, safety kits, solvents, winches and more, the Paxton Company catalog includes most everything needed by craftspeople and enthusiasts alike to build, operate and maintain their watercrafts in shipshape condition.

Paxton Company sells to thousands of customers in the Mid-Atlantic states from Maryland to Georgia. Sixteen outside salespeople and seven inside customer service representatives work to build solid customer relationships by providing expert guidance and support.  It is not unusual for over 1,000 sales orders to arrive each day via phone, fax and online.  Paxton Company has its own fleet of trucks to deliver to their customer’s doorsteps on the following business day on most orders received by 5:00 p.m. Orders that require shipment by motor freight or UPS can be delivered the next day when received before 2:00 p.m.

Paxton Company is led by the brother and sister team of Jim Beale and Peggy Beale who each have gained a lifetime of experience working and managing in the privately-held, family-run business. Having successfully guided the company through the boating industry’s ups and downs, the Beale’s have gained respect as they have positioned Paxton Company as a leader in its industry.

Paxton Company Grows with Technology

Ever since Peggy graduated college with a degree in computer science, Paxton Company has made sound use of information technology (IT) to support its business objectives. With Peggy’s leadership, an NCR accounting system was installed in the late 1970s to automate Paxton Company’s basic accounting functions. By 1998 however, the looming Y2K software bug had pushed the legacy NCR system into crisis, necessitating a search for a new system.

After conducting a thorough review of their options, the Paxton Company management team decided to purchase Infor10 Distribution Express (FACTS).  Infor software would enable Paxton Company to solve both the immediate problem of Y2K compliance and to more fully automate its critical business processes such as accounting, inventory management, purchasing, sales order entry, and so on.

“We felt like the work had been done by Infor’s programmers to provide us with tools we needed to better manage our distribution business,” explained Peggy. “In the old NCR system, we had to create the business logic from scratch. In the case of Infor Distribution Express, we believed that the formulas embedded in the system to help end users more effectively manage their inventory and purchasing processes was the sort of business model that we wanted to emulate.”

Indeed, since its implementation in 1999 Infor Distribution Express has played a vital role in helping Paxton Company to maximize its use of human and material resources while providing the information needed to make better business decisions. Contributing to this success has been Paxton Company’s  close working relationship with Doug Crosby at Earnest & Associates (E&A) who has helped the customer get the most value possible from its IT investment. Doug’s knowledge of Infor Distribution Express and related technologies has proven valuable as Paxton Company has made continuous improvements to its system over the years. These include the implementations of mobile and online e-commerce systems in 2003; a warehouse management system in 2004; upgrades of the core Infor Distribution Express software in 2003 and 2006; and assorted modifications to deliver the precise feature/functionality desired by Paxton Company to help it run the most lean and profitable operation possible.

Meanwhile, Paxton Company’s Paul Flusche has worked closely with Peggy and Doug in the role of IT and inventory control manager for the past seven years. Paul has provided invaluable onsite support for Paxton Company’s extensive computer hardware and network infrastructure. Additionally, Paul’s many years of practical experience in demanding warehouse environments has suited him for the task of tailoring the Infor Distribution Express software to significantly improve Paxton Company’s order fulfillment and shipping processes.

Recently, Paul, Peggy and materials manager Lisa Freeman met with us to discuss how Infor Distribution Express and E&A have benefited Paxton Company.

Customer Service

Paxton Company has unique customer service challenges that are specific to the boat building industry. “Most of our boat builder customers are family-owned businesses who excel at their craft,” explained Peggy.  “The working day typically starts very early in the morning but the materials replenishment needs are assessed later that same day, usually starting around 2:00 in the afternoon. At that time, the job manager might say, ‘We need a paint brush, rollers, paint’ and so on and then place a call to us.”  

Peggy said that economic pressures have forced most boat builders to phase out their materials sheds in lieu of just-in-time (JIT) replenishment models.  This fundamental shift has placed greater burden on distributors like Paxton Company who are expected to efficiently process and ship orders with very little lead time and virtually no margin for error.  “Our customers expect the right materials will be delivered the next business day so that their jobs will stay on track,” said Peggy. 

Fortunately, Infor Distribution Express has enabled Paxton Company to meet and exceed the rising expectation levels of its customers.  The integrated e-wms module provides visibility into the on-hand inventories in all three stocking warehouses, providing invaluable insight to Paxton Company’s customer service representatives (CSRs) when interacting with their customers on the phone. “Because we have information from multiple warehouses, we can provide better service to our customers and fulfill more orders,” said Peggy.  “For example, let’s suppose that a customer in Charleston calls and wants to order ten items; however, only eight of the items are in stock in our Charleston warehouse but the other two are available in Norfolk.  By splitting the ticket between the two locations, we can assure the customer that we can get the order filled. Infor Distribution Express will specify the eight items to be delivered by the Charleston truck with the remaining two on their way from Norfolk.”

The item substitution capability within Infor Distribution Express has proven key to maintaining loyal customer relationships and capturing more orders. “We’ve really made a conscientious effort to utilize the item substitution feature,” said Peggy.  “It might be the case that we don’t have a one inch paint brush but we have a similar item in another size or from another supplier. When the customer phones in, the CSR might ask if it is alright to substitute. We might not have the right size bucket or paint roller but we might have another size in stock that works just as well for the customer. This is the kind of value-added service we can provide that allows us to capture more business while keeping our customers happy by saving them from the hassle of driving across town to buy these items from their local hardware store.” 

In fact, Paxton Company has found the substitute item feature to be so important that it has formed a committee to methodically go through each vendor’s individual line items to see where it might make sense to substitute like items. “It’s an ongoing committee with two people from materials management and two from customer service,” said Peggy. “It has to be a continuous effort because we add new vendors and items to our catalog all the time.  They’ve done so well that now we are thinking of other things we might do with Infor Distribution Express to provide the kind of services that our big-box retail store competitors can’t deliver.”

Mobile and E-Commerce

Paxton Company has taken the lead in using mobile and e-commerce technologies to extend the company’s services more closely to their customers.  A password-protected sales portal setup on Paxton Company’s web site has been a big success, processing hundreds of sales orders every day while remaining open for business 24/7/365.

Paxton Company’s outside salespeople use Dell Axim PDA’s to download vital information from Infor Distribution Express. The data is used to maximize their effectiveness when servicing their customers especially when visiting accounts face-to-face.  For example, salespeople can view their customer’s past purchases, search for items, and adjust pricing on the spot to match the competition, if necessary. Sales orders processed in the field can be sent from the nearest available wireless hot spot to the Infor Distribution Express server in Norfolk for processing; in return, the latest pricing and inventory information is sent back to the PDA, allowing Paxton Company’s salespeople to work with the latest available information.

Similarly, licensed dealers who have accounts setup with Paxton Company can login to the web site and view products available for sale including their customer-specific pricing levels. Many customers keep the web site open and place several orders throughout the day as their materials requirements become known.  Additionally, local customers in Norfolk, Charleston and Wilmington have the option of placing their orders online and arranging pick up at the counter.  In this manner, Paxton Company has positioned itself as a strategic business partner for its customers, winning a level of customer loyalty and internal efficiencies that its competitors cannot match.

“Our e-commerce site handles fifty percent of our orders,” said Paul. “Everything goes straight into Infor Distribution Express for review.  An auto print program prints the pick tickets and our warehouse manager processes the order. It’s a very efficient process.”

E&A has provided critical support services for Paxton Company’s mobile and e-commerce solutions. “Josh Fake wrote most of the code for Infor Distribution Express version 7.5 to make the interface to the Dell Axim work properly,” said Paul. “And on several occasions when we’ve had issues with the web site, Sam Neogi has been able to help us.  E&A has been great.” 

Warehouse Management

Paxton Company maintains over 40,000 square feet of warehouse space to support the hundreds of inbound orders it receives every day.  Recognizing that automating its warehouse operations could have a positive impact on its operations, Paxton Company met with Doug in 2003 to discuss their options.  Doug advised Paxton Company to take a close look at e-wms, a robust warehouse management system that has been fully integrated with Infor Distribution Express.  Following a careful review, Paxton Company’s managers decided that the time was right to raise its use of technology to the next level and placed an order with Doug for the e-wms software.

Paul spearheaded the implementation of e-wms in October, 2004.  The first major challenge for Paul was to bar code the various bin locations and the inventory items so that Paxton Company employees could use hand-held Telxon (Symbol) scanners to efficiently receive, put away and pick and pack orders. Having achieved this goal, Paul worked with a few remaining suppliers who did not yet have their products bar coded so that Paxton Company could use their hand-held’s to check in as many incoming orders as possible. Through years of diligent work, Paxton Company has achieved a practically paperless warehouse environment that has benefited the company in multiple ways.

“From an inventory control manager’s point of view, e-wms is an ideal tool,” said Paul.  “We don’t print orders or pick tickets. Everything is done using hand-held scanners which virtually eliminates errors. At the same time, we have implemented a zone picking strategy which greatly increases productivity because our people can become more familiar with the inventories in the respective zones.”

Additionally, e-wms produces useful management reports that allows Paxton Company to set reasonable productivity standards and assign workers to picking zones that are best suited to their individual skill sets. “With e-wms, we’ve made strides towards achieving greater utilization of our people,” said Paul. “We have setup different sets of standards for the worker’s zone assignments.  For example, the people in the paint locker have the burden of marking hazmat materials correctly so they are assigned a different standard than, say a person who is working in the security cage.  Packing small items into boxes means the worker can pull a whole lot quicker.  With the insights gained from e-wms, we can strategically move our people around and get the maximum return from our labor dollars.”

Importantly, the laser-sharp accuracy of the e-wms system has allowed Paxton Company to implement a cycle counting program that has greatly decreased inventory discrepancies while eliminating the need for an annual physical inventory. “Our physical inventory is approaching 100 percent accuracy,” said Paul. “I’m very proud of the fact that after three years with e-wms we were able to do away with the physical inventory. Before, we would have to close the plant down for two business days plus the weekend to do an annual physical inventory which is costly to the business. Now, we don’t lose sales anymore because we are closed for inventory.  We can use the e-wms cycle counting feature to count the whole building twice per year while we carry on with business as usual. Key locations such as the security cage where we stock electronics and other high dollar items are counted from eight to twelve times per year.  And the more we cycle count, the more we can discover where the few mistakes might be occurring and how to prevent them from happening again in the future. That’s the real benefit. e-wms is a great tool.”

Paul described how the benefits of an efficient warehouse operation flows throughout the organization and to Paxton Company’s customers.   “We have great confidence in the accuracy of the inventory in our building,” said Paul.  “Our buyers can make good decisions and stock only what is needed. Our customers know that we can deliver on our promise to accurately pick and ship their orders quickly for delivery the next business day.  That’s what gives us a competitive advantage.”

Purchasing

Individuals living in the Mid-Atlantic states tend to use their boats according to the rhythm of the seasons which complicates the task of inventory replenishment.  “We do buy seasonally,” confirmed Paul.  “We’re getting into our busy season which runs from March through the July 4^th holiday. That’s when owners begin to take their boats out of dry dock and into the water, meaning we will sell a lot of paint, zinc, paint rollers and etc.  We also get a spike in activity when winterization begins in October through December for items such as antifreeze, shrink wrap and related products. Each customer is unique in their demand for material, for example some boat builders will book orders in the spring and summer but build during the winter months; versus others who build year round,” he continued.

Lisa said, “Keeping the correct amount of seasonal inventory is always a challenge.  We strive to match our inventory with sales by anticipating what the sales volume will be as we approach each season.  Using the Infor Distribution Express replenishment system, the buyers at Paxton Company are equipped with the information they need to make sure that the right materials are available at the right time.”

Lisa discussed how Paxton Company has centralized information from its three stocking locations into a single department in order to improve efficiencies, take advantage of vendor discounts earned by reaching buying targets, and make better decisions.  “We have an educated team of Buyers who are responsible for managing the items that we turn from ‘cradle to grave’,” said Lisa.  “We have set up buying targets in Infor Distribution Express and use the suggested purchase order method in the majority of our buying decisions.  We also use the software to alert us to stock outs and unusually high sales conditions which are key to helping us adapt to the ever-changing preferences of our customers.” Lisa shared that Paxton Company buyers are empowered to move their reorder points and economic order quantities up or down to better align with each vendor’s unique freight requirements; resulting in a fifty percent savings in the company’s ongoing freight expenses.

Paxton Company’s extremely high inventory fill and turns rates compare favorably with its peers in the industry; attesting to the ingenuity of its materials management team and the flexibility of its Infor Distribution Express solution. These efficiencies achieved through reduced carrying costs has allowed Paxton Company to pass along the savings to their customers, enabling the company to sell more competitively in a challenging economic environment.

Manufacturing Control

The Manufacturing Control module with Infor Distribution Express has proven useful to Paxton Company in several crucial areas where it can provide high-value services to its customers.

Paxton Company sells U.S. Coast Guard-compliant kits that conveniently bundles everything deemed essential to the passenger’s life and safety aboard their small boats. The kit includes cushions, dock lines, flairs, life jackets, rope and so on. Paxton Company uses Manufacturing Control to define the bill of materials associated with each kit, allowing the company to more easily sell the kit as a popular stock item and to more accurately replenish their inventory.

Another area where Paxton Company provides expert service is paint mixing.  The ability of Infor Distribution Express to seamlessly tie together business processes from the point of purchase to the warehouse has simplified what might otherwise be an error-prone process.  “We sell paints to our customers whose color mixes are defined within the Manufacturing Control module,” said Paul. “We start with an empty can and tare weight.  The worker simply refers to the bill of materials to see which particular paint colors to add, blend and weigh. It’s worked very well for us.”  The bar coded ticket generated by e-wms allows the employee to scan the document when the mix is complete, proving that the job has been completed. A label is applied to the paint can which is now ready for picking and shipping.  “It’s an awesome system!” exclaimed Paul.  “You might think that complications could arise when mixing paints but our software system has enabled us to engineer a smooth process that works very well for us.”

Peggy commented on the value of having E&A’s software engineers available to help Paxton Company customize its Infor Distribution Express application to suit its needs. “Jim Morton has been great,” said Peggy.  “He was onsite providing support during the 7.5 upgrade. I like that he is a no-nonsense programmer who comes in and gets the job done.  The fact that he lives right up the street and is available to come onsite in a pinch is also very comforting to us.”

Network Support and Managed Services

E&A’s expertise in hardware, network and managed services has proved crucial in enabling Paxton Company to consistently maintain system uptime while minimizing overhead costs.

Paxton Company’s computer systems are configured to run on a powerful IBM RS/6000 server running the rock-solid AIX operating system.  Select power users have desktop PCs with most end users working from Windows terminals.  With over fifty active computer users, E&A’s configuration is intended to minimize the administrative costs and hassles that Paxton Company might otherwise contend with by managing many dozens of PC end users.  “I don’t have to waste a lot of time managing these work stations,” beamed Paul. “Instead, I can focus on making sure that everything is working right in the server room. In that particular area, it’s been indispensible to be able to call E&A’s Adam Team for support on our AIX system whenever I need help. To have Adam available as a resource has been great.  E&A has been helpful in keeping our systems run smoothly.”

In 2009, Paul decided to engage E&A’s managed services team led by Ken Litaker in order to implement the Pro Recovery backup and disaster recovery solution.  “Ken installed a network attached storage (NAS) device to securely backup our data offsite,” said Paul. “The NAS has saved me from having to stuff a big duffel bag full with our daily backup tapes!  Although we’ve only had to recover and restore our data a couple times it’s sure been nice to know that our data is protected.”  

Paul recalled several instances when Pro Recovery’s 24x7x365 monitoring services helped to stave off potentially disruptive events. “We lost a drive in the e-wms server and E&A called us up before we had even realized there was a problem so that we could repair it. That was great!” enthused Paul. “And when our Microsoft Exchange server started to fill up, Ken was alerted by the network operations center about the issue before we had experienced any major problems. Ken phoned in to explain what was happening and discussed our options. We gave him permission to make the necessary repairs.  From start to finish the fix only took about a half hour but it staved off the possibility of a much more costly systems crash,” he emphasized.

Paxton Company Sails Into the Future

Paxton Company is currently partnering with E&A to upgrade to the latest 7.7 version of Infor Distribution Express. The installation will include the UnForm Document Archiving & Management module, a powerful document management tool that is expected to save Paxton Company countless labor hours while improving service to customers.

“We generate a lot of paper!” confirmed Sue Halstead, accounting manager at Paxton Company.  “We have a very large customer base that generates hundreds of invoices and proof of delivery tickets on a daily basis.” Sue explained that Paxton Company will use UnForm’s imaging features to capture these kinds of important paper documents and store them in a searchable database, thereby improving productivity and eliminating errors associated with manual filing systems. UnForm will also enable rapid, enterprise-wide access to information whenever it is needed, such as in the event of a customer request to prove the receipt of an order.

As Paxton Company sails into the future, Peggy shared her thoughts on why it is important for her company to partner with E&A and use technology to its advantage. “I recently drove past a popular video rental chain store that’s in process of closing its doors.  They are a lesson in what happens when you are too slow to adapt to changes in technology. The video store has become obsolete because nowadays most people can rent movies using their Internet connections,” observed Peggy. “I don’t want anything like that to happen to us!  I plan to work with E&A to make sure that Paxton Company stays in the forefront. I want our company to use technology wisely and stay one step ahead of the competition.”

To learn more about Paxton Company, go to www.paxtonco.com. 

Since 1983, Mid-America Sports Advantage (‘Sports Advantage’) of Jasper, Indiana has been passionate about supplying high quality field maintenance equipment and sporting goods. Sports Advantage products are designed to bring out the best in each player and grow with their customer’s teams over time.

Sports Advantage was founded by Mike Schmitt, Sr. an entrepreneur who owned and operated the popular smorgasbord restaurant Heritage Inn among other business ventures in the town of Jasper.  Mike, who had also made an investment in the United Clay Company, thought that he might remarket an excess supply of that company’s Pure Line brand of calcium carbonate to groundskeepers for use on local athletic fields such as baseball diamonds, football and soccer fields. Operating out of an office in the restaurant and renting a third party warehouse to stock the bags of marking chalk, Mike launched the business. Initially, Mike and his wife, Francine sold to parks and schools located in Indiana and sorrounding states.  However, as word of mouth spread and catalog distribution increased, Sports Advantage sales soon expanded & sales went nationwide.  

Success allowed Mike to sell his interest in the Heritage Inn to focus solely on Sports Advantage, purchasing land, building and office space dedicated to the enterprise. Mike’s daughter Denise Schmitt Kemker recalled how the company’s product line evolved organically with sales. “Customers asked for items related to what they were already getting from us,” said Denise. “For example, if they were a chalk customer they might ask, ‘Do you have Diamond Dry? Do you have paint?’ And so on. It made intuitive sense for us to stock all of the things our customers were asking for.” Popular facilities and field maintenance equipment such as aerators, drags and rakes as well as bases, fence caps and soil amendments soon became standard stock items.  In time, the Sports Advantage catalog would feature a broad array of sporting goods including practice balls, safety masks, foul poles, windscreen, baseball equipment, baseball and softball training aids, basketball equipment, pitching machines and more.

Today, Sports Advantage sells across North America and dozens of countries worldwide where U.S. military bases are located. A few of the company’s customers include the Chicago Park District, Indiana University, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the set of Suite Life on Deck (a popular children’s television program) and tens of thousands more. Along the way, Sports Advantage has become known as the dominant player in the field maintenance industry by supplying quality products at affordable prices.

Denise shared the philosophy that has served the company so well. “My father enjoys face to face interactions with our customers and learning as much as he can about what they need,” said Denise. “He always says, ‘You’ve only got one boss, and it’s not me, Mike Jr, or Denise. It’s the customer. If we do what we need to do to take care of the customer, everything else will work out fine’.”

Sports Advantage outgrows its computer system

Technology has played a key role in helping Sports Advantage achieve its goals. For example, computerized direct mail marketing has long been a cornerstone of Sports Advantage's growth strategy. When Denise joined the company in 1993, she diligently began to accumulate lists of prospective buyers in order to rapidly build the prospect database. "We inundated our software system with addresses!" affirmed Denise. "For example, we might obtain a book of athletic directors and coaches in a particular state as a result of our participation in a local trade show. We would return to the office, sit in front of the computer and enter the addresses into our system. We kept at it. Our database grew and grew."

Meanwhile, Mike’s son, Mike Schmitt, Jr. entered the business in 1994 with the goal of accelerating the company’s sales. With Mike’s leadership, the sales collateral became ever more sophisticated.  From its humble origins as a simple one-page, three-fold sales flier for marking chalk, to a 30 page two-color catalog, the Sports Advantage mail piece steadily evolved into a full-color 164-page catalog featuring thousands of items for sale. In a few short years, the Sports Advantage message would reach many tens of thousands of qualified buyers across the nation and overseas.  As a result of these savvy sales and marketing efforts, the Sports Advantage grew at a triple digit rate for three consecutive years in the late 1990s and continued to grow at double digit rates well into the 2000’s.

Accompanying this explosive growth came concern about maintaining the outstanding level of service that Sports Advantage customers had come to expect. Management made the sound business decision to greatly expand the company's physical plant and to more than triple the number of employees from six in the early 1990s to over twenty by the end of the decade. However, it soon become clear that the legacy SBT accounting software would no longer be up to the task of supporting the information processing needs of the business. "By 2003, we knew we had outgrown SBT," said Denise. "There were times when invoices were backlogged two to three weeks because the software was locked up. We were in a tough situation because the company where our help desk contact had worked was acquired and we had problems contacting him. Worse, there was no bar coding; our inventory counts were always off; and we had difficulty accessing the kind of information we needed to make good decisions," she reminisced.

Understanding both the importance of the technical support relationship and the value inherent in a software designed specifically for the distribution industry, Denise led the Sports Advantage search for a new information technology solution. Denise looked at over twenty different software products before whittling it down to two. The finalists included Infor10 Distribution Business (SX.enterprise) represented by Lynn Fisher at Earnest & Associates ('E&A') in Springfield, Illinois. Impressed by the overall value proposition of a nationally-recognized software backed by local sales, consulting services and technical support, Denise and the Sports Advantage team awarded their business to E&A in July, 2004.

Sports Advantage implements SX.enterprise

With E&A's guidance and assistance, Sports Advantage implemented a 25 user SX.enterprise solution in the latter part of 2004. Denise credits E&A's consulting, implementation and technical support team of Brady Bibb, Blake Cunningham, Cindy Guy and Leo Lang with making the installation a pain-free experience. "We worked with E&A to make decisions about how Infor Distribution Enterprise would be adapted to our unique business needs," said Denise. "Fortunately, E&A had developed a road map that detailed everything we needed to do to get setup properly. We simply followed along the check list!"

E&A assisted with the set up of a test system where Sports Advantage employees could acquaint themselves with Infor Distribution Enterprise and make decisions on how to set system parameters to align with their business needs. "There were a lot of days spent with computers in our break room to work on the setup," recalled Denise. "If we had questions about, say, how to set up AR thresholds or inventory tables, we'd call E&A to discuss industry best practices. We found that E&A's experience working with other distributors was helpful in implementing the business processes that were best suited for our company. Overall it was a very smooth process."

The project included several modifications to Infor Distribution Enterprise. E&A wrote a modification in the Integrated Bar Code (IBC) module that allows end users to repeatedly scan an item in order to enter the quantity desired, overriding the default setting which had been deemed inefficient. E&A created another mod to consolidate the invoicing in a manner that works well for Sports Advantage but supersedes the standard consolidated invoicing feature found in later versions of SX.enterprise. Later, a modification for managing inventory items that have a variety of size and color combinations was implemented. In this latter case, E&A's solution automatically creates inventory records from the selection of a single core item, saving the headache of manually creating separate inventory records for all of the size and color combinations that may be possible.

SX.enterprise benefits Sports Advantage

SX.enterprise empowers distributors like Sports Advantage to master issues critical to their business including accounting, inventory, purchasing, customer service and more. Since the go-live, Sports Advantage has enjoyed numerous benefits across the enterprise.

Customer Service

Customer service is at the core of the value proposition offered at Sports Advantage.  A staff of eight sales associates use SX.enterprise to process an average of one to two hundred orders every business day which arrive via phone, fax, email, trade show transactions, and the web. “With SX.enterprise we’re able to enter a higher volume of orders in a shorter period of time,” said Denise. “With over 100,000 print catalogs in circulation and dozens of new customers finding us every day on the Web, the first thing we need to do is locate the customer in the database. We like that the lookup feature in SX.enterprise is very fast and easy to use. As a rule, our sales associates can verify the contact information and check to see if there are others with whom we might have dealt with in the past from that same organization. Because we can do this rapidly, we can update the database as we go along. This is really a great thing for us because it helps improve accuracy when we distribute catalogs to our customers at the end of the year.”

Sales associate Sarah Jarboe discussed how SX.enterprise helps her get more work done is less time than before.  “Looking up customers is a lot easier to do in SX.enterprise,” said Sarah. “The name, zip code and phone number fields enable us to find exactly what we’re looking for.  Customer quotes can be converted to orders with the push of a button.  We can generate purchase orders for non-stock items without ever having to exit the order entry screen, and we can seamlessly fax and e-mail documents from within the application.”

Access to a rich trove of information associated with each customer account has allowed Sports Advantage to provide exceptional support services while helping to minimize labor costs.  “Although coaches and groundskeepers pretty much stay the same, turnover does happen occasionally,” said Denise. “We might get a call, ‘Hi, I’m new here and don’t know exactly where to begin.’ Our sales associates can use SX.enterprise to link to the account’s past purchase history and use that information to help the customer make an intelligent buying decision; whereas before we would have to physically step away from the phone to retrieve that information from a file cabinet.  The hours we have saved are significant,” she concluded.

System administrator Mike Kemker compared and contrasted the overall productivity levels of the sales unit before and after SX.enterprise.  “When we had SBT, the system was difficult for our sales associates to use.  They were working incredible amounts of overtime with over one hundred hours in a single pay period!” said Mike. “Now that we’ve implemented SX.enterprise we’ve been able to cut the hours back.  Even as our business has grown, we’ve actually reduced the number of sales hours. In fact, we were able to implement a ‘no overtime’ policy approximately two years ago with resounding success.  We’ve grown and saved money at the same time. That’s made us more profitable as a company.”

Thanks in part to the efficiencies gained through E&A’s solution, Sports Advantage is well-positioned to provide the kind of value-added services its competitors can only dream about. “We like to help our customers solve their unique field maintenance challenges,” said Denise. “Many customers have questions about their field surface playability, for example in the case of a football field where the grass isn’t growing or a baseball field that has a lot of standing water. We might ask the customer to take a soil sample, send it to us and allow us to perform an analysis. We’ll take a look at the particular way the sand, silt and clay is mixed and discuss what might be done to remedy the situation, including a visit to the customer site, if necessary. That’s an expertise that only a select few have but one that we absolutely do provide to our customers,” claimed Denise.

Inventory Management

Efficiently processing customer orders, of course, is only the beginning. Sports Advantage maintains a 35,000 square foot warehouse attached to its office in Jasper with two additional warehouses rented directly across the street and on the other side of town. To utilize these resources wisely, it is important for Sports Advantage managers to accurately predict demand and stock the right products; as well as pick, pack and ship customer orders as quickly and efficiently as possible. 

Operations manager Ken Brelage chatted with us about how SX.enterprise helps Sports Advantage maximize the value it gets from its suppliers.  “We have taken advantage of the user-definable custom fields in SX.enterprise to enable us to make better purchasing decisions,” said Ken. “It’s important for us to look carefully at every item because we can save significant amounts of money by taking advantage of buying targets including discounts and free freight.” 

Ken explained that in a business closely tied to outdoor sports such as baseball and softball, demand for certain product groups can fluctuate dramatically from month to month.  “We are seasonal,” confirmed Ken. “We’ve designed a three year purchasing report that looks at seasonal demand including a safety stock report that assesses the expected demand for the next 90 days. When our stock level reaches 20 percent then we know we need to make a purchasing decision.  We try to stay ahead of the game,” said Ken.

The IBC module in SX.enterprise as proven key to helping Sports Advantage increase visibility into its warehouse and improve its business processes.  Leveraging Radio Frequency (RF) technology, IBC allows workers to use hand-held devices to accurately manage the flow of materials in and out of the warehouse.  “The bar code system has made a world of difference,” enthused Denise. “Now we are organized!”

Inbound shipments are scanned using bar code labels for immediate validation of the purchase order and then assigned bin locations.  Every night, picking documents are sent to the warehouse using the SX.enterprise picking logic. The next morning, the picker/packer uses the RF terminal to confirm the accuracy of the orders being shipped. The use of bar code labels in lieu of manual data entry virtually eliminates the costs and associated loss of customer goodwill that might otherwise result from shipping mistakes, which have all but disappeared since implementing SX.enterprise.

Mike Kemker highlighted how SX.enterprise works with his own custom programs to vastly improve the physical inventory process.  “The change in how we conduct our physical inventories tells the story,” said Mike.  “Before, we would start inventory on a Friday and work through Sunday. It was painful and yet our numbers were off the mark by huge amounts.  Now, we can conduct an inventory in a day and a half during normal working hours with only negligible discrepancies in the dollar value of our inventory.  It’s not bad!” 

Denise also discussed how improved visibility made possible by the bar code system has helped Sports Advantage improve its customer relationships; with the additional benefit of lightening their sales associates’ workload.  “At the shipping station we simply scan the order using the IBC bar code,” said Denise. “The information is sent to FedEx where an email is automatically sent to the customer’s email address. That is a great feature because the customer knows instantly that their shipment is on the way.  And it reduces the number of inbound callers with routine inquiries about their shipments because all of the information is available for self-service viewing online.”

Accounting and Finance

Unlike many competitive products, SX.enterprise is a true ERP product in the sense that exceptional industry-specific functionality is thoroughly integrated with a robust accounting and finance system that pleases the most demanding end users.

Denise discussed how she has gained proficiency managing the accounting and financial aspects of Sports Advantage using SX.enterprise and E&A's support services. "When I started with Infor SX.enterprise, I had never done the month end closes before," said Denise. “I expected the worst because the month end’s with SBT had been so difficult; we would routinely be four to six months behind.  But now it’s wonderful! The month end’s are closed on time and everything balances correctly.  There are small rounding discrepancies each month, but that’s easy to adjust and if there are a few entry errors that cause an out of balance condition and I can’t figure it out, I can call Cindy. She is great at explaining what to do!”

Sports Advantage has become accustomed to having better control of its G/L with SX.enterprise.  “We used to have our accountant look at all of our adjusting G/L entries,” continued Denise. “Now I just send over the trial balance and financial reports to her at the beginning of the month.  I normally have a few small adjustments, and when done, I resend the reports again to her for a final review. It’s very painless most of the time but if we have an issue we can call Cindy to help me get it worked out and move on.”

Cindy Guy commented, “Denise’s general ledger is perfect! The balancing history available in SX.enterprise allows her to correct for the slightest differences between the G/L and the transactions in AR, AP and inventory.  We know the customer is doing a good job when they call us to help locate an out-of-balance inventory in the amount of only $1.20.  That’s progress!” she exclaimed.

Open computing helps the pool truck get on the road

The ‘pool truck’ program remains an important and highly symbolic legacy project at Sports Advantage. Originating from Mike, Sr.’s early days selling marking chalk and Diamond Dry, the pool truck is designed to make these kinds of heavy, bulky products more affordable by splitting the associated transportation costs among the largest group of customers possible. 

Mike Kemker shared how Sports Advantage manages the pool truck program using Infor Distribution Enterprise. “We start taking pool truck orders from December through the second week in February with deliveries from mid-February to mid-April,” said Mike. “We setup two user-defined fields in SX.enterprise to identify the larger customers who could order 120 bags or more and serve as destination points; and others who would be willing to travel to local destinations to pick up their orders. It’s a simple process for our sales associates to capture and record this information when they are on the phone with customers.”

With many dozens of pool truck stops scheduled in the states of Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Tennessee the process of calculating truck delivery routes had always been a complicated and time-consuming process.  “My dad used maps, push pins and rubber bands,” said Denise. “There would be tables stretched out all across the conference room. It would take months to figure out!  But now it’s simplified.”

Mike Kemker’s ingenious solution took advantage of the open database connectivity features of SX.enterprise to simplify the task and thereby save Sports Advantage managers countless hours of labor.  “We pull the information out of SX.enterprise,” explained Mike. “The data populates a third-party database that is integrated with Google Earth. Using this database, we can schedule everything in just one sitting.” 

Mike went on to describe how the software maps all of the stops on the route along with the SX.enterprise extract data including customer information, products, weights and quantities. The solution enables Sports Advantage to schedule the most efficient routes by more accurately calculating the per bag shipping costs of each shipment.  “The application even increments the weights on each truck so that we don’t overload,” said Mike. “We save the route, map it, print the directions and schedule the driver’s entire day from start to finish.” 

Sports Advantage progresses with technology

Mike Kemker discussed how the Progress® database’s advanced Cache-Forward™ Architecture has simplified the task of administering the SX.enterprise server.  “Progress is pretty rock solid,” said Mike. “In six years with SX.enterprise we haven’t lost a single hour of order entry.  Zero!” emphasized Mike.

Mike likes that he is able to plunge into the SX.enterprise database in order to distribute information just the way Sports Advantage needs it.  “The flexibility of the database is fantastic!” said Mike.  “We like to run our own custom sales reports by querying the Progress database.  For example, we might want to find out, ‘What is the inventory trend for this item?’ or ‘What did Indiana do last month?’ and etc.  In the past, we would have to open up the file cabinets, sort out the documents, write the numbers on a piece of paper and put it all into a spreadsheet.  It would take days!  Now we can extract that information from SX.enterprise  and hand the list over to the sales manager on demand, whenever he needs it.”

Another example of where open access to information has benefited Sports Advantage pertains to its management of purchase orders (PO’s).  Sports Advantage stocks most popular catalog items but chooses to drop ship larger, more expensive items such as pitching machines to help keep its inventory expenses under control.  Therefore it is not unusual for the sales staff to generate dozens of PO’s for special order items every day.

To make sure that customer expectations associated with these special orders are fulfilled, Sports Advantage has added several custom fields to SX.enterprise that help track quote conversions and PO aging. Using additional tools that Mike Kemker has implemented, Sports Advantage is alerted by email every evening about all of the pending PO’s in the queue.  “We’ve built a background process that checks for PO’s,” said Mike. “We used to have PO’s sit out there for six months, but today practically none of our PO’s ever gets missed.”

Mike credits the consultative services E&A has provided for helping him learn how to get more from his ERP system.  “When I started with SX.enterprise I didn’t know a lot about business rules,” said Mike. “But after working with E&A on the data conversion from SBT to SX.enterprise I learned so much about how the system churns. Now I can get all of the information from SX.enterprise that Sports Advantage needs.”

Recent Projects

Sports Advantage is continually discovering new ways to use technology to further distance itself from the competition.  In 2007, Sports Advantage decided to make a major investment in its online marketing program to include a redesign of its web site; improved shopping cart features; an advertising campaign through Google AdWords; and monthly email marketing campaigns.  The result has been extremely positive: online sales have doubled year-over-year from 2009 to 2010; with sales to individual consumers now comprising the fastest-growing segment of the Sports Advantage customer base. 

As this facet of the business grows, Sports Advantage will likely explore ways of importing the online orders with SX.enterprise. Sports Advantage hopes to improve efficiency and avoid the errors associated with the manual keying of orders, which are critical e-commerce success factors.  “The web shopper has a different mentality than someone ordering on the phone,” stressed Denise. “The expectation is that the customer will get it sent tomorrow, no matter what. So we need to look over our web orders the same day. We want to make sure these orders are released no more than 24 hours after they have been received.”

Also in 2007, Sports Advantage acquired Osborne Innovative Products (OIP), manufacturer of the most trusted baseball/softball pitcher safety screens. Denise marveled at how well SX.enterprise was able to account for Sports Advantage’ transition to a multi-company operation.  “We created a whole second company in SX.enterprise for OIP,” said Denise.  “We do some light value added manufacturing for some of the components and import other parts we need from overseas.  All of the final assembly work is performed in Jasper. In SX.enterprise, we simply entered the vendors to track our purchases of raw materials and setup Sports Advantage as OIP’s sole customer to buy the finished goods.” 

In September 2009, Sports Advantage turned to E&A’s Tammy Davis for assistance on an upgrade of SX.enterprise from version 5.0 to 5.5.  Tammy’s proposal was accepted in short order by Sports Advantage and work scheduled soon thereafter.  The care with which the system had been previously configured and supported paid dividends as the total project was completed in a timely manner with virtually no impact on current processing. “It was a breeze!” said Denise. “We made a concerted effort that lasted only about two weeks. We went live on December 1, 2009 and had every minor issue ironed out before year end. Ever since then we’ve been on a roll with SX.enterprise!”

The bottom line

Mike Kemker summed up the bottom line for Sports Advantage since the time it partnered with E&A on the Infor Distribution Enterprise solution. "In 2004, we had been growing very fast as a company. We were afraid that we wouldn't be able to keep up!" said Mike. "Since the implementation of SX.enterprise in 2004 to the end of 2010, we have nearly doubled in sales volume but we have added virtually no overhead costs to our operations. Our competitors hate us because we can sell at margins that no one else can match. We have become a price leader in our market! That's the difference that E&A and SX.enterprise has made for us."

To learn more about Sports Advantage, go to www.sportsadvantage.com.