Founded in 1983, Wolff Industries, Inc. is the world’s largest manufacturer of industrial scissors sharpeners, professional scissors sharpeners, and grooming and beauty shears sharpeners. Located in beautiful Spartanburg, SC the company specializes in supplying stainless steel shears that feature ergonomic designs and with edges sharper than can be obtained elsewhere.

Wolff Industries also offers a full line of sewing scissors and shears, poultry scissors and shears, thread clips, embroidery scissors, pet grooming shears, beauty shears, and scissors and shears for hard-to-cut materials. The company’s brands include: Ergonomix^®, Wolff^®, OOKAMI^®, Kai^®, Mundial^® and other leading brands.

In 1996, the management at Wolff Industries decided that rapid growth necessitated relocation to a larger building and investment in a new computer system to help streamline its business processes. At that time, Wolff Industries implemented a distribution software solution by Infor to automate its accounting, inventory and purchasing functions. As business growth continued over the next eight years, however, management realized that the application software would need to be updated in order to better align the system with the company’s ever-changing business needs.

Wolff Industries President David Wolff contacted E&A’s Jeff Sprowls in August, 2004 to discuss technology strategies for the company. Following the initial consultation, Jeff invited E&A’s Tom Cangelosi to an onsite visit at Wolff Industries for in-depth analysis and to explore possible solutions for the company.

Bill Pierce, General Manager at Wolff Industries worked closely with Tom in the Fall of 2004. Critical issues included how a prospective solution might lend better support for Wolff Industries’ light manufacturing operations, including improved multipart number tracking; customer relationship management (CRM); and more robust accounting functionality. As Bill explained Wolff Industries’ business model to Tom, it became apparent that the logical migration path would be from its existing software system to Infor ERP TakeStock. Wolff Industries would not only benefit from new technology and expanded feature/functionality available with TakeStock, but the plan made good business sense because the company would get credit from Infor for its past software investment.

Bill was impressed with the guidance Tom provided during the discovery phase. “Tom was tremendous because he knew both TakeStock and our legacy application,” said Bill. “Tom learned about our company and offered suggestions for how we might improve our business processes with TakeStock. He offered us options and allowed us to make the decisions that were right for us,” Bill continued.

A major issue pertained to the order entry process, where orders were customarily hand-written and then keyed into the software system in a labor-intensive process. Compounding the situation was the untimely retirement of a key Wolff Industries employee who had in-depth knowledge about customer-specific pricing, causing concern about how the company might be able to replicate its successful pricing models in the future. After studying the situation, Tom demonstrated how TakeStock could both seamlessly process customer orders on-the-fly and accommodate Wolff Industries’ complex pricing requirements, thereby saving the company significant labor costs as it improved accuracy and customer service.

In late 2004, the Wolff Industries team approved the purchase of TakeStock including the Archive, Credit Card InterLink, Manufacturing Control, and Viper add-on modules as well as E&A’s own custom solutions for CRM and UPS WorldShip integration. Wolff Industries also purchased additional components based on E&A’s recommendations, including a Dell server, associated software and an implementation services and support plan from E&A. 

Wolff Industries Installs TakeStock

Frequently, the first step with a new systems installation is to convert the legacy data for use with the new software, which often affords the opportunity to perform some housekeeping. In this case, Tom worked with David to trim the Wolff Industries customer database by one third. Similarly, other data such as parts files were purged of obsolete and non-pertinent information that might otherwise have cluttered the new system and consequently may have hindered some of the lookups and reports.

Meanwhile, E&A’s Adam Team managed the hardware installation. In January, 2005 Adam built a test system onsite using the new hardware and software components. The project included the installation of updated Windows XP software on the existing office PCs to ensure compatibility with the TakeStock application. Adam also successfully loaded Wolff Industries’ data onto the Dell server.

In March, 2005 Tom began helping end users gain confidence with TakeStock by leading a series of tutorials in Wolff Industries’ training room. Groups of three to four people representing the various functional areas of the company met with Tom to learn how the new system might help them work better as a team. “Tom learned to talk our language,” said Bill. “He used his knowledge of our operations to train our employees to run the business more efficiently using TakeStock.”

The months of March and April, 2005 were spent refining the system. E&A integrated its UPS WorldShip and CRM solutions to TakeStock and created a number of custom modifications, including a Yes/No option to the aggregate pricing feature, credit card file maintenances, and more. These enhancements helped ensure that the solution would closely align with Wolff Industries’ business model and maximize the success of the project.

The months of preparation by Wolff Industries culminated in a successful go-live with TakeStock on Monday, May 16, 2005.

(l to r) E&A's Keith Baynard and Jeff Sprowls with Bill Pierce

TakeStock Benefits Wolff Industries

It soon became evident to management that the company’s investment in TakeStock would yield a high rate of return.

For example, Wolff Industries’ decision to use TakeStock to update its pricing model from pricing levels to aggregate pricing -- where higher volume purchases generate additional discounts for customers -- has created a huge win-win for Wolff Industries and their customers. “It costs about the same for us to service small orders and large orders, so we think it makes sense to reward our best customers with aggregate pricing,” explained David. “Depending on the dollar volume of the order, our discount can increase from five to ten or fifteen percent. We believe these incentives are helping us not only win more business but helping us create greater loyalties between ourselves and our customers.”

Alyssa Wolff processes an order with TakeStock

Bill described how TakeStock has enabled Wolff Industries’ customer service representatives (CSRs) to become more than just order takers. Bill believes this is facilitated by TakeStock’s drill-down capabilities and Progress database that allows end users to maneuver throughout the system with rapidity to locate stored documents and other pertinent information. “Before, we sometimes had no choice but to take a name and number, pull the paper files from the cabinet, and call the customer back,” said Bill. “But with TakeStock, our employees can respond to customer’s questions in realtime. For instance, we can check on-hand quantities and calculate the total price of the order, including discounts and shipping costs, while the customer is on the line.”

Collections have improved significantly with TakeStock. The credit limit feature allows Wolff Industries to put orders on hold from customers who have exceeded their limits. Perhaps more importantly, the reporting tools available with TakeStock provides Bill with the information needed to identify troubled accounts quickly and easily. “I used to spend one and a half days each month on our statements,” said Bill. “With TakeStock, my time spent in this area has been greatly reduced. Now, I can correct oversights and immediately send notices to our customers to help make them aware of their payment status before there is a problem. This gives us greater control over the process and as a result very little is going to collections,” he remarked.

The option of readily exporting data from TakeStock helps Wolff Industries get more from their system investment. For example, David has benefited from using data analysis tools to better understand the company’s business performance; and Bill likes being able to sort data using Excel, which helps him focus on pertinent information and get more work accomplished in less time. “Our backlog at the end of the day has dissipated,” enthused Bill. “With TakeStock, time spent with month-end closings and other tasks have been reduced dramatically, with fewer errors and lockups than before.”

Looking Ahead

In the future, Wolff Industries has interest in expanding its use of technology. For example, David and Bill are interested in taking a closer look at TakeStock’s PDA Sales module, a wireless application that extends TakeStock’s sales order entry functionality to remote users. The company frequently rents space at trade shows where the ability to capture orders in real-time on the show floor using PDA Sales may afford an opportunity to get an immediate return on investment. David is also interested in utilizing the management alerts feature within TakeStock to help the company identify potentially troublesome issues in advance.

Bill credits the system with enabling Wolff Industries to begin thinking in terms of continuous improvement. “E&A has helped us to critically look at our processes and apply technology to reduce paperwork, improve inventory accuracy and raise our performance standards,” said Bill. “We feel that TakeStock has empowered us to take control of our business and achieve greater levels of success.”

David reflected on the experience of working with E&A to upgrade Wolff Industries’ information systems. “E&A gets it right the first time,” said David. “We always get a quick response to our calls for support. E&A takes every request seriously and has helped us discover better ways to manage our business.”

To learn more about Wolff Industries, go to www.wolffind.com or call 1-800-888-3832.