California-based NewBasis manufactures top-quality, highly-durable plastic, fibre-glass and polymer concrete enclosures for use in a wide variety of industries, including telecommunications, power and electrical, public works and transportation, water, landscaping and construction.
NewBasis offers six different product lines; however, since each product line is available in numerous sizes, the company maintains about six thousand different parts, each with its own part number. In October 2006, for example, NewBasis shipped several thousand individual items.
Christopher Larkins, President of NewBasis, comments: "We've grown by double digits for the past several years - and it's essential that we are able to access certain information as we continue to grow and add new customers and product lines, as well as expand to different areas of the country and the world."
Unfortunately, the rudimentary software NewBasis had been using failed to provide quick access to needed information. As a result, the company opted to seek out a new software solution. After an exhaustive search, the company bought SYSPRO, through SYSPRO reseller S2 Solutions.
NewBasis chose SYSPRO for being the most intuitive software available, as well as for the in-depth experience of the S2 SAS consultants' implementation team.
"We felt we could put almost any current or new employee in front of SYSPRO and have them able to use it and access the required information very quickly," Larkins says. "The team also had a far better understanding of manufacturing businesses of our size. Our decision was vindicated when the system went live after only 67 days."
During the implementation, the SAS consultants made use of the SYSPRO STARS (structured technique to achieve a rapid solution) implementation methodology, a highly-structured, business-centric methodology that guides all aspects of the implementation procedure and provides a framework by which business practices can be examined and re-energised to maximise overall operational efficiency.
In addition, many NewBasis business processes were examined and revised. As a growing company, NewBasis needed new procedures for different areas of its plant for inventory tracking, engineering control and costing, so the business processes were updated to be more compatible with SYSPRO. At the same time, the SAS team revised some aspects of SYSPRO to be more compatible with NewBasis's existing business processes.
The SYSPRO software runs on a Dell server and is used daily by up to 50 people.
Immediately following implementation, NewBasis began to reap the benefits of SYSPRO. "We have a much better handle on the true costs of our product. We have very quick access to information that we can provide to our customers, greatly enhancing customer service. And, we have exponentially increased visibility on production scheduling and work in process," Larkins says.
SYSPRO also plays a key role in co-ordinating the manufacture and shipments from NewBasis's main plant with satellite operations and warehouses. The company created several different warehouse bin locations within SYSPRO for tracking inventory by product and by warehouse. This enables management to gain an instantaneous picture of the inventory status at each location and, accordingly, plan production and shipments.
Larkins is confident that NewBasis would have been unable to meet its growth targets this year and in the future without implementing SYSPRO. Since installing the system, the company has had record-breaking shipment months, to the tune of 20% growth per month.
"I wouldn't say that's exclusively related to SYSPRO, but the SYSPRO software has given us greater access to information, greater visibility and control of scheduling and work in process. While some single-digit growth may have been inevitable, we would not have come near these record levels had we not had such great software," Larkins says.
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