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American Systems, a government services contractor, was tasked with developing and deploying a cloud-based version of its emergency notification system for the United States Air Force (USAF). The legacy Emergency Mass Notification System (EMNS) was reliable and secure, but required hardware installations at individual major commands and military bases, supporting approximately 700,000 users. The USAF realized that migrating the EMNS solution to the cloud could significantly reduce licensing, hardware, and maintenance costs, and make the system easier to scale and manage. However, the new cloud-based solution had to meet the stringent requirements of the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Secure Cloud Computing Architecture (SCCA). American Systems lacked the internal expertise to meet these requirements and needed a partner to help them tackle the SCCA requirements.

Auckland Transport (AT) is responsible for the region’s transportation services, including buses, trains, ferries, roads, and related facilities. With public transport trips expected to double from 70 million per year in 2012 to 140 million by 2022, AT needed a modern transportation system that could seamlessly connect people, devices, and systems, offer enhanced safety, improve commuters’ travel experience, and reduce operational costs. AT also wanted to address the fast-changing consumer landscape, where commuters and citizens expect dramatically improved levels of service, usability of customer-facing platforms, accelerated response from organizations, and high availability of information related to traffic and transportation schedules. To achieve this, AT had to improve the integration of its transportation network using an integrated single-system approach while moving away from its legacy information technology systems to a cloud-based environment. The constantly evolving technology also changed the nature of the transportation business, with AT amassing large amounts of customer data, especially through their mobile applications: AT Mobile and AT Park. This meant that AT had to abide by regulatory frameworks, particularly the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Finally, AT also recognized the need to protect its systems from increasingly sophisticated and dangerous cyber-attacks that have the potential to disrupt its transportation network.

The Bangladesh Post Office, a public sector enterprise, was determined to support the ‘Digital Bangladesh’ initiative by launching a digital wallet for instant money transfer. The wallet was expected to cater to a wide audience, including individuals without bank accounts. The challenge was to develop a highly robust, feature-rich, and easy-to-use application that enables secure money transfers. The app was a late entrant to the space, competing against established e-wallet applications in Bangladesh, which meant it had to be designed and function seamlessly. The requirements of the application included 24/7 availability and high-level security. The Post Office needed a tool that could reroute incoming requests from Telecom operators to their app servers, improving the app usage experience. Given the financial applications of the tool, safeguarding the application was vital, requiring protection against application layer attacks, Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, Bot traffic, and data breaches to steal user credentials.

SVP faced several business challenges with the management of their energy assessments. SVP was going out into the field with a checklist in hand and manually conducting energy audits—taking key staff members out of the office. Once the audit was completed, the utility staff would need to assess the data and compile a report to send to the customer. Depending on the bandwidth of the auditor, the time it would take to generate and send out the report could vary from a few days to a few weeks. Overall, SVP spent about three hours to conduct an audit and assemble the report. In addition, all of the valuable customer, premise, and building data was tracked manually.

Brookdale Senior Living, the largest senior housing provider in the country, made a major commitment to reduce energy use and enhance occupant comfort at many of their communities throughout the US. Nexant worked collaboratively with Brookdale to retro commission more than 82 communities within an aggressive 5-month schedule. To reduce the portfolio energy usage of the major HVAC systems, Nexant identified and implemented cost effective ways to save energy and maintain or improve occupant comfort at all 82 senior living/skilled nursing facilities within 5 months. Due to the diverse nature of the building portfolio (size, location, and system types), Brookdale requested a summary of existing building systems, an energy use analysis, facility benchmarks, and recommendations for corrective actions at each facility.

Small businesses make up 89% of Commonwealth Edison’s (ComEd) commercial customers. They were largely unaware of the energy efficiency program and lacked the time, money, and resources to pursue energy efficiency in their buildings and operations. The challenge was to create a simple path for these customers to participate in the program and achieve significant energy savings while increasing customer satisfaction.

Jacksonville has a diverse economy including tourism, manufacturing, import-export services, and is a leading transportation and distribution hub with major port operations serving the auto industry. To serve such a wide range of commercial and industrial enterprises, JEA needed to develop and manage a portfolio of energy efficiency programs to meet the needs of business customers while keeping administrative costs low. JEA chose Nexant to design and implement its InvestSmart suite of commercial and industrial energy efficiency programs, including the Small Business Direct Install (SBDI) program. JEA trusted Nexant’s experience and success in providing turnkey solutions to meet their diverse business challenges and overcome market barriers specific to each of their customer segments, especially small businesses.

Astrapak recognized that one system across its enterprise was necessary for future success. Of the 23 business units, three were already running SYSPRO. The other various solutions in place mainly focused on finance, sales, purchasing and distribution, with little attention being given to manufacturing. Together with the aggressive growth being experienced by Astrapak, other challenges included the diverse nature of the three divisions, the geographic spread of the sites and Astrapak’s inexperience in rolling out an ERP solution.

Yeti Cycles experienced extremely rapid growth that could not be supported by its prior technology solutions, including QuickBooks, in-house, and other third-party systems. The previous solution lacked the scalability required for such rapid growth, leading to inefficiencies and limitations in handling the increasing volume of operations and data. The company needed a more robust and scalable ERP solution to manage its expanding business operations effectively.

Most Lone Star Bakery products are flash frozen and stored in the giant freezer prior to shipment to customers. The storage freezer accommodates up to 120 truckloads of packaged products. During any average week, Lone Star fills about 40 truckloads with baked goods for shipment to its roster of more than 200 US customers. Lone Star’s modern facilities give the company a competitive advantage as well as help it to accommodate rapid growth. Because of the size and capabilities of the facilities, Lone Star can create, package and store baked goods more economically than its competitors and, indeed, its customers. In addition, the bakery’s capacity easily enables it to support existing customers as they add new products to their lines or new customers who are bringing new products to market. According to Lone Star Controller Jerome Neuhoff, “One never knows when a smaller customer’s product is going to really take off and expand.” Another reason for the outstanding success of Lone Star is operational flexibility. Neuhoff explains that Lone Star is not locked into producing one type of baked goods. “While,” he says, “some companies specialize in only one type of product, Lone Star can easily reconfigure to produce a multitude of products. “We can do it all, and we are able to run multiple lines on the same day,” he says. In the mid-nineties, it became apparent to company management that while the company’s facilities were among the most modern in the country, the bakery’s procedures were archaic – all records were kept manually in a set of books. So the company set out to find an integrated accounting/manufacturing software solution that would mirror the progressive nature of its manufacturing operations.

Operating for many years as a multiproduct company via a combination of home-grown technology patched to smaller software packages, TiLite knew that changing its business model to focus on one product would simultaneously require updating to robust ERP technology. The company went from producing five highly customized chairs per day to 70 or more, and expanded into 40 countries. The future opportunity was attractive: the manual wheelchair market is expected to grow to $2.9 billion dollars by 2018. The decision was made to change the company’s go-to-market strategy to the single focus on designing, engineering and building world class manual wheelchairs. To do that it had to change its operations at every level and it needed a powerful, flexible and scalable ERP solution to adjust to the new business model. TiLite selected SYSPRO ERP in 1997 and has been a leader in the customized manual wheelchair market ever since.

Prudential Lighting faced significant challenges with their initial ERP implementation using Oracle. The system was unstable, ineffective, and costly, requiring frequent consultations and customizations. System crashes were common, and the company often needed assistance from consultants. By 2010, it became clear that the Oracle system was no longer meeting their needs, prompting Prudential to search for alternative ERP solutions. The company needed a more reliable and cost-effective system that could handle their complex requirements, including managing a vast number of stock codes and custom luminaires.

Merritt’s need to digitally transform was accelerated to meet the needs of a changing customer-preference world. With its existing solution unable to adapt, Merritt required a technology solution that was tightly integrated with its business plans to customize orders and handle tens of thousands of parts rather than hundreds of parts as in the past. The company had two distinct requirements: acquiring an ERP solution that was flexible enough to take the company into whatever future opportunities might arise and finding the right qualities in its ERP vendor partner. Merritt wanted to streamline an interface for the company’s salespeople to handle the new order entry requirements and secondly to ensure that the Bill of Materials system interfaced seamlessly to those orders.

When the business underwent an ownership transfer, Jacto lost its use of the existing Oracle ERP solution. Forgoing the corporate parent’s offer to extend its SAP deployment, and not interested in continuing on Oracle with its own license, the U.S. team began to search for their own ERP solution in 2009. The former owner withdrew both its people and the existing Oracle ERP solution leaving Jacto scrambling for an effective ERP solution that could be deployed without delay. Jacto U.S. had to make a fast, but smart decision: they had to be off the Oracle solution within six months, so that timespan included both the selection and deployment cycle.

Many years of deploying and depending upon home–built, patchwork–style IT systems made it increasingly difficult for Alegacy to focus new efforts on growth. Corporate resources were continually being tapped to code, re–code, and remedy data integration issues. It was also difficult for management to have a clear and detailed understanding of company costs, materials management and inventory availability data.

As aesthetic surgical procedures become increasingly safer in the modern era, and in turn more mainstream, Sound Surgical has seen an increase in demand for its innovative VASER products. They fill hundreds of orders per month, and needed an ERP system that could not only aid in managing inventory, but that could help them ensure compliance to industry standards on each and every item and could keep up with the growth of the business. While they manufacture their products to stock, most of the items must be customized according to customer specification upon receipt of each purchase order. Sound Surgical needed an integrated ERP software solution that could handle constant product customizations and improve overall efficiency while doing it.

The company had been utilizing a database package from RealWorld, and while it served basic needs, it lacked a manufacturing module with inventory tracking capabilities. With more than 5,000 individual part numbers in stock, forecasting and inventory control are vitally important to XRP’s ability to fill orders on a timely basis. In addition, to inventory capabilities, XRP had to take cost into consideration. As a relatively small business of just over 30 employees, the company needed to go with an ERP solution that could bring world-class results for the long run but within a small-business budget.

Prior to SYSPRO, Wormser Corporation was using Microsoft Navision. As the company grew, the product line diversified and the customer base expanded, company management realized their current software systems were unable to handle the growth. Additionally, the company’s six worldwide locations were each using different systems and tracking inventory on spreadsheets. The result was duplication of work, multiple errors and poor visibility into global business operations. However, Wormser Corporation’s biggest challenge was the need to track shipments distributed from its manufacturing location in Shanghai to its 40 US warehouse locations. With nearly 1,000 orders filled per month, Wormser needed a fully integrated ERP solution that would provide full visibility into worldwide business processes while enhancing customer service.

In 2001, WPI recognized that implementing a world-class ERP solution was as necessary an ingredient to the company’s success as their passion for manufacturing high-quality research lab equipment. With an eye on providing affordable, quality instruments coupled with the competitive advantage of local sales and technical support, the company wanted to improve business operations across its financial, production, shipping, and customer service spectrum. The mission: an efficient technology backbone that supports the full business spectrum of delivering continuous company innovation for medical products, such as surgical stapling equipment and cell culture cup chambers used in research and diagnostics. The challenge: maintaining a healthy bottom line while absorbing new product requirements, aggressive geographic expansion, and factoring government funding vacillations tied to political/tax climates. Today, WPI relies heavily on its highly configurable SYPSRO ERP solution to keep its fast-changing operations both flexible and profitable.

Windings, Inc. faced several challenges in its operations. The company specializes in custom-made products and niche product lines, which require full technical backup and support. Additionally, Windings had to compete with its customers' manufacturing operations, making it essential to maintain high-quality standards and flexibility. The company used an IBM System 36 and associated software until 1998, but this system lacked the flexibility needed for mixed-mode manufacturing operations, including make-to-stock and make-to-order. The need for a more versatile and flexible system became apparent as the company continued to grow and diversify its product offerings.

Waldmann Lighting faced challenges in maintaining highly detailed records due to various distribution channels. The company needed to improve its production planning and scheduling to match the quality of its products with exceptional customer service. The lengthy shipping times from Germany necessitated accurate forecasting, and the company was using a small accounting package with manual processes for product forecasting, inventory tracking, and other essential functions. This led to labor-intensive processes and stacks of papers and folders everywhere.

In 1997, VonDrehle Corporation initiated a search for ERP software to facilitate growth, achieve green goals, manage costs, coordinate manufacturing and warehousing sites, implement digital dashboards, and provide in-depth visibility into operations. A primary consideration was the ability to coordinate all company locations under one IT umbrella, ensuring updated data on inventory movements, shipping processes, and other transactions would be readily available to all system users. By implementing a bar coding solution and tying it into the ERP software, the company believed that superior inventory tracking and more rapid order turnaround could be achieved. Additionally, the company wanted the ability to pinpoint finished goods inventories at various sites and enable customers to place orders directly into SYSPRO via EDI, enhancing its reputation for superior customer service.

The company produces all private label spice blends to order. “Though we have several large customers for which we maintain inventories, it would be extremely difficult for us to stock items, particularly with the various packaging requirements of 80 private label customers,” says Whitlock. “Our customers tell us how many of each spice or blend they want, and we then produce the desired labels and fill the packaging to order.” Vanns installed SYSPRO Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software in May, 2009. The company had been using dated and inflexible WINMAN software. “A requirement of our supermarket customers is that we have the ability to do lot tracking. Though we make over 2,000 blends of spices, with SYSPRO Lot Tracking we can tell which spice went into which blends. In fact, we can trace the origin of every grain of spice and into which blend it went - even into which bottle and onto which customer’s shelf.”

After acquiring two plants, US Salt realized the need to improve customer service, reduce costs, and enhance overall operational efficiency. The company decided to link its plants and headquarters through a Wide Area Network (WAN) and centralize certain financial business functions. The most expedient hardware setup was determined to be a client/server configuration with the server residing in Jacksonville and client workstations in Jacksonville and the two plants. This setup would leverage currently installed hardware and provide the benefits of a centrally managed system, including ease of maintenance, avoidance of duplication of functionality, and easy implementation of software upgrades. Additionally, it would ensure that the most current information was readily available to users.

It was the move to a new manufacturing facility in April 2003 that prompted Two Chefs to conduct a search for a new ERP software solution. When they relocated their manufacturing plant, tripling their physical space and manufacturing capacity, they realized it was also time to implement an ERP solution to support growth and future needs. Two Chefs had been using outmoded accounting software, which was not only limited in functionality, but was no longer being supported. Their “wish list” for the new system included an integrated solution and support for bar coding to reflect industry standards.

The company was conducting all work via the processing of paper. Approximately 6,000 orders per month were manually converted into invoices, an extremely time-consuming and error-prone process. To facilitate order processing and inventory management as well as enhance customer service, the Tom Barrow Company deemed it advisable to computerize its operations in 1996. The company faced several challenges including no manufacturing system in place, lack of visibility into inventory, manual reporting resulting in duplication of work and errors, and managing multiple locations.

The company had been using a broad-based ERP system, but decided to go with an industry-specific software package that addressed full quoting, accounting, material planning and shop floor data collection. Unfortunately, the system never delivered as promised. It became necessary to verify the accuracy of quotes, and there were long delays before a “good” receivables report could be obtained and month-end closes could be executed. “Our accounting staff ballooned to nine persons, and it still took two and one-half to three months to do a month-end close. Plus, all of my employees were demoralized, overworked and completely ‘gun-shy’ of anything having to do with computers,” said Tom Thomasma. Telemark subsequently took the software vendor to court and won, but the settlement included full surrender of the software after three months. In desperation, Thomasma contacted Automation Plus, a local software reseller and openly pleaded, “Find me a new system.” During the initial discussion, John Wiedlea, Automation Plus President, asked Thomasma to outline his “vision” of how the new computer solution should interact with the various segments of his business. Wiedlea also questioned Thomasma on his expectations regarding costs, productivity and length of implementation. Wiedlea also insisted that the two draft a written plan, replete with milestones and which would also contain a look into the future to assess the ability of the system to handle anticipated growth.

This ongoing drive toward quality growth and the necessity to become Y2K compliant drove the company to seek a new ERP software solution in 1998. Suhor had been experiencing the problems common to a company using an evolving set of inflexible software programs. Moreover, each location was responsible for backing up its own data. Without a central repository, a location crash and lack of data back-up would result in a loss of the data. According to Jeanette Geiser, Suhor Treasurer, the company quickly realized that future profitable growth could only be accommodated by centralizing financial information and consolidating data for budgeting analyses and control purposes.

Semler’s core business is chemical and industrial distribution, and the industry is undergoing rapid changes. Traditional supply channels are becoming obsolete, and distributors must add significant value to their products to survive. Semler’s turnkey approach to liquid handling and process systems, along with quick delivery, are examples of added value. The company maintains a large inventory of over 4,000 products, making stringent inventory management a top priority. However, Semler’s old custom-designed software for inventory tracking and order processing was inefficient and paper-bound, requiring hours to look up invoices and work orders. The company also had to shut down for two weeks annually to reconcile physical inventory with records, pulling sales staff from the field to assist. Semler needed a new system to improve speed and accuracy and prepare for the future.

Samson, one of the first U.S. rope manufacturers to receive ISO 9001 certification, does extensive testing of fiber and finished rope products to ensure they meet the highest standards. Quality assurance monitoring is a critical aspect of Samson’s operation, applying to the development of new products as well as the production of existing product lines. Each of Samson’s plants is equipped with certified testing equipment to assess the characteristics of raw materials and finished goods.