Founded to provide a work-training program for inmates of the Alabama Department of Corrections, Alabama Correctional Industries (ACI) is one out of a handful of correctional facilities using Global Shop Solutions to simplify their manufacturing.
Through their program, ACI manufactures a variety of products to assist Alabama state departments, institutions, counties, cities and other tax-supported entities in securing furniture and supplies to meet their needs.
For years, ACI tracked and managed production with an old government funded accounting system that required several workarounds to function. As a result, ACI couldn’t product true financials, which made it difficult to properly price products and determine costs. When state officials changed the government funded accounting system to eliminate the workarounds, ACI was given the approval to begin the process to acquire Global Shop Solutions ERP software.
“I first came across Global Shop Solutions at a National Correctional Industries Association conference several years ago,” says Accounting Director LaDora Gindle. “I had an immediate interest because I could see that it would give us an application we could utilize across our multiple manufacturing processes and locations. It took a while to acquire the product, but we went live with Global Shop Solutions in October 2015, and it has made a huge difference in how we operate.”
Global Shop Solutions is a great tool for us. I would recommend it to any correctional industry program.
LaDora Gindle, Accounting Director at ACI
Tracking shop floor data in real time also helps ACI identify bottlenecks at each location and take appropriate action to resolve them. For example, ACI makes the chemicals for their janitorial supply products, which requires buying appropriate amounts of raw materials to mix together. With Global Shop Solutions’ popular Supply & Demand screen and Auto Purchasing, purchasers can easily tell when they need to replace or replenish a raw material order or slow down on purchasing.
“Our warehouse superintendent loves Supply & Demand because it allows him to set inventory minimums and maximums,” says Gindle. “Instead of having to manipulate all the data through different spreadsheets, he can quickly access the data in Global Shop Solutions and do in 10 minutes what used to take four hours. He also likes the on-time delivery report and the auto-generated purchasing, as these provide a quick overview of how we’re meeting our timelines and the needs of our customers.”
To learn more about ACI and how they use Global Shop Solutions to simplify their manufacturing, download their case study.