Business Results: 20% decrease in inventory, $400K inventory savings in one business unit, 5% savings in freight costs
Oliver Packaging has been developing and manufacturing innovative solutions since 1890, originating as a wood working equipment company. Using its expertise and experience in blades, it expanded into new markets with the introduction of a bread slicer in 1932. From there, Oliver further evolved into complete packaging system solutions for wrapping and labeling.
To continue its growth plans, Oliver needed to modernize its business processes and systems to stay competitive in today’s demanding equipment industry. Running on a 30-year-old legacy ERP solution which was unsupported by the software provider, Oliver had limited internal IT staff to maintain the old system, and a number of those staff were approaching retirement.
“I was data-starved before. Now I feel like I have access to what I need at any time.”
– Matt Meyer, Controller, Oliver Packaging & Equipment Co.
Working with their Infor Channel Partner, Oliver selected and moved its systems to the cloud, choosing Infor® CloudSuite Industrial (SyteLine) as its digital platform for the future.
Overcoming gaps in functionality
Today’s machinery and equipment manufacturers require the latest capabilities to grow their business and meet the needs of customers. The legacy ERP solution limited the ability of Oliver’s staff to meet customer expectations and maximize the efficiency of its production.
With Oliver’s move to CloudSuite Industrial, the company wanted to initially focus on three key areas for process improvement. Its strategic goals included managing inventory levels, analyzing and improving its transportation spend, and providing customers with better access to information and overall service levels.
The Infor Channel Partner provided project management, application training, and implementation consulting—bringing together key functions involved at Oliver, including manufacturing, supply chain, sales, and IT. All of these departments were instrumental in the key goals set for themselves.
Visibility and planning improves inventory
CloudSuite Industrial supports Oliver’s overall operations by providing the organization with a view into its inventory from raw materials, work in process, finished goods, and spares and maintenance materials.
Using advanced planning and scheduling tools has allowed Oliver to efficiently plan across the shop floor and analyze total dollars of inventory across the company. It has also utilized the Infor Factory Track solution, allowing its employees to not only clock in and out but also record all transactions as they happened on the shop floor.
Having initiated this process across half of its manufacturing systems for its food equipment lines, Oliver now has real-time transaction reporting and access to on-hand inventory information at any given time. Their new processes have reduced inventory in one business unit by $400,000, or 20%.
Rate shopping delivers transportation savings
With freight spend being a significant expense as part of the company P&L, it was necessarily for Oliver to analyze and review the company’s “freight as a percentage of sales” metric. Despite orders being shipped daily to every state, its old system was not capable of obtaining the best carrier per lane or shipment in real time. Working with the flexibility of CloudSuite Industrial, Oliver connected to a third-party platform to help drive its transportation processes.
Now, Oliver can negotiate and bid with multiple freight carriers in real time. The solution also provides the carriers with feedback on why they are or are not winning businesses. After a few short months of the new transportation process, Oliver expects savings of roughly 5%.
Creating the standard for digital transformation
The move to a cloud-based ERP solution with integrated industry functionality and built-in best practices sets the standard for the future at Oliver. With the CloudSuite Industrial platform, the company can optimize internal business processes and perform continuous improvement projects. Oliver continues to determine how best to use customer data and analytics, and the systems homepages and dashboards. The company has added a new resource to focus on how the organization can not only utilize more of the system, but also position itself to best take advantage of the solution’s pending roadmap.
“CloudSuite Industrial is a big part of our strategy going forward.”
– Matt Meyer, Controller, Oliver Packaging & Equipment Co.
