Western Container Corporation, a make-to-order paper tube manufacturer in in Beloit, WI, operated the business for years with “legacy” accounting and third-party scheduling software that left a lot to be desired.
As the manufacturing industry continued to evolve at a rapid pace, President Jeff Perrigo recognized the need to bring the business into the 21st century or get left behind. After speaking with several ERP companies, he selected Global Shop Solutions.
In a manufacturing business, accurately tracking labor time impacts everything from quoting to profitability. After years of manually recording operator time, Western Container set their sights on using their new ERP system to capture labor time and costs electronically.
The company’s old system could not provide real-time feedback for estimating job costs. With their ERP software, operators now scan the job on the Shop Floor Data Collection screen at their workstations, and their labor automatically gets recorded for each step of the job.
Managing cash flow and customer accounts also has an impact throughout the business. Crystal Straight, who oversees financial operations for Western Container, uses the Accounts Payable and Receivables Dashboards to simplify her job.
“The visibility of data within Global Shop Solutions is superb. The AR Dashboard shows what invoices are due and how much cash we have coming in – all from one screen.”
Crystal Straight, Financial Operations at Western Container
Responsive customer service has become a “must have” for today’s manufacturers. So, it is no surprise that Perrigo identifies the robust Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application as his favorite.
“Our old system did not have an integrated CRM,” he says. “As a result, most people didn’t use it. With Global Shop Solutions CRM, everyone has it open for a variety of tasks – entering new customers and vendors, updating orders, reviewing buying histories, pricing, and much more.”
Western Container’s maintenance staff has been using the Preventative Maintenance work orders to schedule and provide historical maintenance records for each workcenter.
Progress is also being made in scheduling production using the Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) application. A new Global Application Builder (GAB) project provides a Dispatch List Dashboard that shows the active jobs by workcenter. It also displays estimated vs. actual hours for complete jobs, along with units completed and remaining. The Dashboard is easily exported to Microsoft Excel® for further analysis
To Perrigo, the overriding benefit of Global Shop Solutions ERP software is the way it brings the manufacturing, customer service and financial components together in one integrated system. The shop floor runs more efficiently.
“Global Shop Solutions also provides great training and service,” says Perrigo. “When we call in with a problem, they’re quick to respond. We always learn something new from the Friday Features and virtual training. The ability to customize the software allows us to work the way we need to work instead of putting up with clumsy work arounds.”
“One of the best things about Global Shop Solutions is you get all the main modules right out of the box,” he concludes. “You do not have to turn them all on right away, but they are ready to go when you want to use them. We have been at this less than two years, so there is a lot more we can do with the software. I can’t wait to see where we will be a few years from now!”
To learn more about all the great things ERP software did for Western Container Corporation, download their full case study.