m-Power Case Study: Showplace Wood Products

The Challenges

Showplace Wood Products faced a common challenge: Their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system didn’t fit their exact needs. It’s a widespread problem with ERP systems in general. While they provide core business functions, they are built to address common needs across a wide range of companies. Without customization, no ERP system will perfectly fit every company’s exact needs.

The bigger problem: ERP customizations are not only expensive and time-consuming, they lock the business into that ERP version. If the company ever wanted to upgrade to a new version, they would need to redo all of the customizations.

This was the challenge facing Showplace Wood Products. They needed to deliver custom reports from their Friedman Frontier ERP down to the shop floor. But, they didn’t have a way to create the custom reports they needed.

As a result, they relied heavily on manual processes. As Showplace Wood Products grew, these manual processes began limiting the number of cabinets they could physically produce. Specifically, these processes created a few challenges:

They had trouble meeting daily shipping goals

Showplace Wood Products has a goal of 100% daily shipping. This means every order that should be shipped on a given day is completed and placed on the truck. However, the order data lived in their ERP system. Without a custom reporting solution to get that data down to the shop floor, they relied on manual processes to meet this goal.

To meet their shipping objective, they had to print the latest data from their ERP system twice a day, and hold meetings to discuss the items. Then, a team of six employees tracked down the orders on the shop floor using the printed data.

This manual process was further complicated by the lack of real-time data. Due to the fast pace of their manufacturing environment, the printed information was often outdated within minutes. As a result, the employees responsible for finding unfinished items often found themselves searching for items that were already completed.

The data we needed was in our system, we just didn’t have a good way to get it out.

Manual data entry harmed productivity

When a customer places an order, it’s entered into their Frontier ERP system. Then, the order gets sent down to the shop floor for cutting.

The problem: Getting this data to the shop floor was a manual process. “The data we needed was in our system, we just didn’t have a good way to get it out,” explains Andrew Gilbert, IT Director at Showplace Wood Products.

To get the panel sizes from each order to the cutting department, one employee spent half of their time writing down the details from the order acknowledgement form. Once everything was written down, the panels could be cut.

The sales department relied on IT for reporting

Because they had no way to pull sales data out of the system themselves, the sales team relied on IT for reporting. “The sales department would come to us and ask us for reports,” says Gilbert. “Then, inevitably they would want to look at the data in a different manner than what we had given them.”

This process wasted time for all involved. The IT department was stuck creating and altering reports, while the sales department was stuck waiting around for their data.

Value

With m-Power, Showplace Wood Products has successfully extended their Frontier ERP system with real-time data access and reporting. They’ve delivered on their primary goal—bringing ERP data to the shop floor. In doing so, they delivered some key business benefits:

Reduced manual data entry by 20 hours/week, resulting in $30,000 annual savings

Because m-Power lets Showplace extend ERP data to the shop floor, they’ve eliminated many manual processes. For example, their specialty cutting process formerly required 20 hours of manual data entry every week.

Now, that information is instantly available via a web application created with m-Power. In the past, one employee spent half of their time writing up cutting instructions. Now, that employee can focus on more important tasks. Gilbert estimates that automating their manual data entry saves Showplace Wood Products at least $30,000 per year.

Our employee retention is much better. Having to wait 4-6 months to actually do your job is a really long time. People would get frustrated and leave, and then we’d have to start all over again. Now, we actually have very tenured employees in our cutting department because of [the applications we created].

Reduced employee onboarding time from 4-6 months to 2 weeks, resulting in $30,000 annual savings

In addition to the time savings, Showplace found that the automation of their specialty cutting process reduced new employee onboarding dramatically. In the past, new employees couldn’t start cutting for about 4 – 6 months, while they learned all of the manual processes associated with the job. Now that they’ve automated the process, new employees can begin cutting in just 2 weeks.

Besides the time savings, and the reduced training cost for new employees, they’ve also improved employee retention. “Our employee retention is much better,” explains Gilbert. “Having to wait 4-6 months to actually do your job is a really long time. People would get frustrated and leave, and then we’d have to start all over again. Now, we actually have very tenured employees in our cutting department because of [the applications we created].”

With the time savings, combined with the reduced training costs and employee retention, Gilbert estimates they save another $30,000 every year.

Avoided the need for new developers, resulting in $15,000 annual savings

Developing web applications that deliver real-time data and integrate with existing systems typically requires the help of web developers. But, Showplace didn’t have any web developers on staff.

With m-Power, they managed to develop everything they needed using their current staff and skills. “We’ve really managed a huge return on our investment because we haven’t needed a specific developer for these reporting needs,” explains Gilbert.

Essentially, Showplace Wood Products turned their current staff into web developers. Rather than hire specialized skills (and pay a premium for these skills), they used the skills they had in house to develop all the applications they needed with the help of m-Power. The best part: Most of the applications only required a few hours of work.

Reallocated 160 man-hours per week to other areas of the business

In the past, six employees spent their days walking around the shop floor finding orders that needed to be shipped that day.

With the new daily review apps, they can now accomplish the task with just two employees. As a result, they have reallocated four people to other areas of the business that needed help.

In essence, they’ve freed up 160 hours every week. Rather than spend their time looking for orders on the shop floor, these employees can focus their efforts on more mission-critical tasks.