"When the wrong software package can put a company out of business in a highly competitive industry, a good fit is essential."- Roelf Kuitse, MIS Manager, Robert Weed Plywood (RWP)
"Robert Weed Plywood is a wholesaler and value-add manufacturer of plywood related products. They have been in business since 1966 and are an IBM customer since 1979. Half of their business comes from value-added manufacturing, such as custom cutting and laminating, while the remaining half is strictly distribution. With roughly $120M in sales and about 350 employees, they have an average of about 30,000 active SKU's. Their former environment consisted of a System/36 with custom RPG II code, which later ran on the AS/400. In 1996, a project was started to review the Y2K readiness of the company. It became apparent that they would need to do something about their software to make it ready for the year 2000. Business was growing and the Y2K shortcomings of the old system were becoming obvious. After they looked at the scope of re-writing the existing system, they decided it would be worth it to look at packaged software. Another factor involved in this decision was their small IT dept. With only 2 people in IT, no one else would be able to easily manage the legacy information system. They wanted an outside team to be readily available to come in and take over with people who knew the code, in case of emergency.
A year before the decision was to be made, Roelf Kuitse, the IT Director, began collecting information, reading reviews, and studying their business requirements. Roelf sent out some of the top requirements and processes to find out how the different software vendors handled them. After a process of elimination, he asked for trial versions of the software so that users could play with it. It also gave Roelf the opportunity to study the source code. He evaluated several AS/400 platform ERP packages including VAI’s S2K Enterprise. VAI was the only company that allowed him to run their code in house, allowing the end users to actually play with the software and see how it worked. By the time the decision came around, it was easy from a user standpoint, having had the hands-on experience of the software.
"Many users were completely signed on and very excited," said Roelf. They did an in-house migration and custom programming for RWP specific processes, which took around six months to complete. Intensive testing and training was done over a three to four week period with real data. The final switch over was done on the New Years’ weekend. Roelf recalls, "The first two weeks was chaotic as expected, and in retrospect I would have had a project manager onsite for these weeks to answer questions instead of my staff running around, but after the two weeks it was running much better. Overall the conversion went relatively smoothly."
Both management and the users noticed benefits almost instantly. "In order entry, the interface to inventory and purchasing (drop ships) was an immediate improvement", said Roelf. "The front end is completely integrated into the back. Customer orders show up everywhere in real time and they commit in real time." Additionally, as new versions of the VAI software was released, and a manufacturing module was added, order entry was modified by VAI to optionally create a manufacturing order immediately, replacing the previous multi-step process.
"On the credit and collections side, accounting was used to access different systems. The integrated system made things much easier." Roelf says the conversion over the weekend was transparent to customers. "We have 8 customer service representatives that like the system -- all information they need can be accessed right from inside order entry. Also, the manuals are now on PDF files which means that I don't have to answer every little question, which takes a load off my department. Recently new manuals were created by VAI that allow users to understand the software processes, which is even better."
As far as inventory management, Roelf likes the fact that back orders are created automatically through the shipping entry and billing processes. "Before we implemented VAI’s S2K Enterprise, inventory was not tied to general ledger accounts, so I can't talk about any improvement in inventory accuracy on the financial side...we have it now, and though it wasn’t the focus of getting the software, there is definitely return on investment in this area as well. It really improved in VAI Version 3.6 when manufacturing, work-in-process and finished items were integrated into the GL as well. "
Manufacturing orders are tied in to inventory. "Before, we had raw materials turn into finished goods in a batch environment. With VAI we can optionally update the customer orders with produced items automatically." Roelf has also added on their own warehouse management system, which communicates with VAI, and allows them to have their own version of online, real time inventory using barcodes and scanning devices on forklifts.
Roelf recalls that, as far as the accounting department is concerned, "They like the purchasing and AP integration a lot; the quick turn around has been great. The system optionally assigns PO numbers automatically. Manipulation of PO due dates down to the line item is a very nice feature as well. We had a number of important mission critical reports on the legacy software system. Those had to be manually reprogrammed using the VAI databases. Simple new reports are very easy to create with query. We can get quick answers from the Executive Information System and it’s easy to drill down into every application. The inquiry for sales tracking/trending is excellent. Accounting loves GL because any transaction to any account can be drilled down to the source transaction. Shipping entry allows our shipping department users to enter pick tickets. We modified the system to update inventory, back orders and delivery tickets at this time instead of waiting for the billing process. Although it is available for ASN's, we currently don't do any EDI. We do use our own version of barcode scanning.
"As to why we picked VAI? Our thinking was that we could go out and get another more expensive software system with many features that were not needed for our business, then spend a ton of money to implement it due to its complexity. We could also get VAI for a fraction of the cost, use 90% of it and spend a little bit on custom modifications to make it fit our business. This way it is value oriented and you aren't wasting resources, ensuring a good fit. VAI source code was also included and we were not forced to rebuy the software everytime the AS/400 was to be upgraded in the future. "
VAI is constantly striving to improve their software and their relationship with the customer. "The user conferences are getting much better now, VAI listens to what you want to do, on top of what you don’t want to do, which is equally important. From a programmers’ standpoint, the code is extremely readable, and the user defined fields are helpful features as well.
"Documentation is much better, much more process oriented, which is what ERP software really is; an automated process. VAI is inexpensive to maintain and the monthly maintenance fee is very reasonable."
