Headquartered in Zebulon, North Carolina, Advanced Plastiform, Inc. (API) provides custom plastic molding and fabrication services, including thermoforming, injection molding, CNC routing, secondary assembly and finishing. Operating out of nearly 250,000 square feet of manufacturing space in three separate facilities, the company serves a wide variety of industries, ranging from automotive, construction equipment and furniture to medical, transportation and telecommunications.
$50K in Annual Savings with EDI
Jay Jolly, API’s co-owner, points to a Global Shop Solutions feature – electronic data interchange (EDI) – as a big driver of cost savings and improved productivity.
Every day, ADI’s customer with 400 different parts sends updated order forecasts (for up to two years) on every item. Previously, all this data had to be manually entered – a task that fell to one employee whose only job was to make sure the hand-typed data matched the customer’s printed report. Electronically receiving the data through EDI allowed ADI to eliminate the position, for an annual savings of $50,000.
“The employee only typed in 30 to 60 days of forecasts because we knew the data would change,” says Jolly. “But it was still a full-time job, and it limited our visibility of the forecasts. Now we have two full years of visibility, and the system automatically updates customer changes. EDI also allowed us to move the employee to a higher value position analyzing the data rather than just typing and reviewing it.”
100% Increase in Logistics Efficiency
The superb visibility of data in Global Shop Solutions makes API more competitive in many different ways. Managers can determine true costs and profitability on each individual item. Automated Purchasing ensures that API has the right quantities of materials and finished goods in stock at all times. Machinists spend no longer waste time hunting down routers, drawings, routers, BOMs, PO’s, inventory lists. All of which adds up to a 100% increase in logistics efficiency.
“With Global Shop Solutions, you get one complete integrated system where all the modules talk to each other,” says Jolly. “The user interface is intuitive and easy to use, and you get all the functionality to run your entire business on one system – without needing a separate server, database, security, access or user list.”
In today’s just-in-time environment, it’s hard to imagine running a manufacturing business any other way.
Jay Jolly, Co-owner at API