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Phoenix EDT Inc Phoenix EDT Inc. achieved 100% order fulfillment accuracy with Everest.August 15, 2005
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Company Background:
Phoenix EDT Inc. distributes standard and customized assembled wiring products to the automotive, marine and industrial market from its 10,000 Square Feet headquarters in Mississauga, Ontario since 1999.
With over 6000 part numbers in inventory and the ability to quickly customize products to meet customers’ needs, Phoenix EDT is experiencing fast growth in the wiring industry.
Phoenix EDT generates 3-5 M in revenue annually with 10 employees and has been running their business on EVEREST since January, 2005 |
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“Everest Software has helped us achieve 100% Order processing accuracy and as a result we have won new business because we can do it better than our competitors”
Duane Astrauskas
Managing Partner
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The Challenges
Phoenix EDT Inc. was using MYOB accounting software prior to Everest and were experiencing numerous challenges that prompt them to look for a new software solution for their business.
“We were double entering everything with MYOB because our company often buys and sells from our sister company” Duane Astrauskas said “Inventory control was a nightmare because we have so many different SKUs having different gauges, colours and put-ups (the length of wire in a spool) and MYOB was weak for the type of inventory control we need”. Astrauskas added, “We were growing and knew that we had to do something to improve our inventory and business process problems:”
Phoenix looked at several business software including: Business Vision, ACCPAC Advantage Series, Vista (Epicor) and Icode’s Everest. “All the other systems we reviewed either lacks the inventory control features we need or they were too expensive because of all the modules we had to purchase” Duane Astrauskas said. “When we looked at Everest, it has the LOT number tracking we wanted, its’ fully integrated with all the modules we need and includes contact management (we were using Goldmine for CRM). It was the best value for the investment we had to make”.
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The Solution
“The first meeting we had with Systematic gave us the go ahead to proceed with Everest” Duane Astrauskas said. “Systematic understand our company’s needs and demonstrated proficiencies in the Everest software. We were happy to find them and they were the missing critical component for the Everest solution”
The company spends 2 months preparing the information to import to Everest, and Systematic Management Consulting helped with consulting services providing the necessary directions for Phoenix EDT.
In January 2005, Phoenix EDT went live with Everest. The company utilizes the following key features in Everest:
Accounting:
- Integrates the 2 companies under 2 departments and made a tremendous improvements in efficiencies
- Multiple payment journal is easy and fast way to manage Accounts Payable
- Systematic implemented a new customized chart of account that tracks sales by category and provide visibility of product category management
- Improved financial reporting compared to MYOB
Sales:
- Sales process is easier and everything is visible just from clicking on the customer for sales order tracking, items purchased, quotes, order status, customer special pricing and more
- Drill-down capabilities for easy access to customer related information
- Margin analysis when quoting and selling & cost factoring to account for unforeseen costs.
- Customers from both companies are departmentalized and order processing is streamlined because we no longer have to double-entered everything
Inventory Control:
- Lot management is a key feature in Everest and has helped the company manage to achieve 100% order processing accuracy (we were experiencing daily occurrence of shipment errors). Lot numbers has also helped reduce the number of SKUs in the system because it can manage the variety of put-up sizes by assigning a lot number to a roll of wires. Lot numbers also help aged the inventory which was never possible with MYOB
- Systematic created custom labels for each inventory items for easy identification of product and improved order processing (sample attached)
- Multi-location inventory helps proper procedures to transfer inventory to WIP warehouse for controlling production materials / non-sellable inventory
Purchasing:
- The purchasing system in Everest is easy with features like items needed and PO creation is fast because of drill down capabilities including last purchase costs, when last purchased and a quick view of what’s “in the house”
- The browser and reports provide easy access to manage the flow for PO delivery management
Work Order:
- The work order for building assembled items works but cumbersome as the system do not automatically create work orders based on items sold in sales orders. Systematic helped built a Work Order Utility to automate this process and the utility allows us to select the sales order and item(s) which we want to assembled and generate the individual work orders automatically including document custom fields referencing the customer’s information, delivery dates and more.
Shipping and Receiving:
- Everest has helped improve efficiency and accuracy in the shipping and receiving of goods because we use the lot numbering feature and barcode labels to identify the products better. The system flags discrepancies which stops our people for making mistakes in picking / receiving.
Management reporting:
- We use the management synopsis on the daily basis which helps us with visibility of our business. Its been a tremendous help
E-commerce:
- Scheduled to deployment in winter 2005
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Summary:
“We made the right decision with Everest and we are seeing improvements in our company’s performance each day” Duane Astrauskas said. “Looking back during the implementation period, we were limited on our bandwidth for resources and Systematic Management Consulting helped us accomplish a successful implementation and we couldn’t have done it without their support”.
Astrauskas added, “Systematic’s training approach is great for a small business like us. They were able to deliver training in half days increments, giving us enough materials to learn each day without overwhelming us with information and absorbing our company’s resources”
“Systematic also provides us with the installation, configuration and support of our computer networks as well as Everest management. They are our external business & technology consultants and resource for supporting our business growth and continuity” |
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