ICIM ERP System Helps Construction Equipment Manufacturer Improve Bottom Line:

NPK Construction Equipment started out in business less than twenty years ago with five employees and grand ambitions of becoming a leading supplier of industrial hydraulic attachments for construction equipment. The Walton Hills, OH-based manufacturer sells hydraulic attachments-hydraulic hammers, vibratory compactors, primary and secondary crushers, material processors, grapples, pedestal boom systems and quick attach couplers-to exclusive distributors throughout North and South America.

After 12 years in business the company had experienced tremendous growth, going from ten employees to over 80 employees with annual revenues increasing 25% annually. Dan Tyrrell, vice president of NPK, says that the company developed "an in-house, homegrown inventory/sales quasi-ERP system" to help deal with the increasing strain being put on its internal business processes.

Eventually the company had outgrown the capabilities of its in-house system and NPK Construction Equipment began a search for a full-fledged ERP system to help it better control inventory levels, engineering bill of materials (BOMs), warranty and unit history of parts, and improve customer response times.

Tyrrell says that the company initially looked at over 20 ERP vendors, narrowed that list to 10 companies from which they got initial demos, then narrowed the field to three companies to do a more intense evaluation. Tyrrell says that NPK ultimately chose Metasystems, the developer of ICIM ERP software because "we had the impression they were reactive and they did the most to understand our business before making proposals, suggestions or demos. It was a smaller company and we sensed from the beginning the willingness of the entire company to work with us, not just be another customer number."

When it was time to undergo the ERP implementation, the company created a cross-departmental project team that worked alongside a team from Metasystems who remained on-site for the first two weeks. The team together worked to help with process mapping the key integrated business functions-engineering design; customer service; order fulfillment; and planning, procurement, and manufacturing. The team also worked to define each function's critical information needs; develop and test over 200 software enhancements to meet 100% of those needs; data cleanup and conversion; training and responsive post-startup support.

Through the use of new Oracle technologies the ICIM ERP system provides the company with the flexibility to run the system in either client-server architecture or over the Internet using a standard browser. After the initial implementation, Metasystems also worked with NPK to implement a warranty support application via the Internet that is fully interactive with ICIM.

With any ERP implementation, problems or "bugs" did arise but Tyrrell says that the Metasystems team was always there to help overcome them. "Bug fixes were addressed in a very satisfactory timeframe depending upon the level of need," says Tyrrell. "We worked on a three-level priority system. This was an ongoing for probably six months. Priority-one bugs were addressed immediately."

The benefits of the ICIM system have been numerous, but Tyrrell believes that the single biggest benefit is simply better access to data that has enabled the company to significantly improve its customer service. "To have all our data in one location, to be able to cross-reference all the data in a very straightforward method has been the biggest benefit," says Tyrrell. "We previously had data scattered throughout the drives and the folders and file cabinets-ICIM brought all that data into one easily accessible place so that when a customer calls we have that information at our fingertips rather than having to call them back. Our customer response has been greatly improved."

The engineering department has also benefited from having a comprehensive bill of materials history and direct control of bill of material revisions used by the factory. "We've eliminated duplications," says Tyrrell. "When we cleaned up our database, we found 4 or 5 or 6 part numbers, totally different parts with the same part number. So depending on to whom we sent the drawing, we never knew what we were going to get back."

Another area the company wanted to improve upon was its parts catalog used by its distributors. Before working with Metasystems, NPK hired a company to create a CD version of its parts catalog for its dealers, but after polling its dealers three years ago the company realized its customers wanted online access to parts.

The company chose Active Web Services (AWS) software, which is seamlessly integrated with the ICIM system so part information is automatically published directly from the ICIM system. "Whenever we create a serial number, it's automatically published into the online parts catalog," says Tyrrell. "Within the first three months, 30% of our orders were being placed online through ICIM. Our dealers can now track orders, part number changes, shipping schedules, even UPS delivery information. Our dealers love it; some of them are doing 99% of their orders online, which helps our inside sales people who can now handle orders without being on the phone all day. This has been a very successful program for us and we're unbelievably happy with it." Metasystems' close relationship with AWS while making the interface between the software has lead to an active partnership with AWS.