Oamaru-based healthcare and food product distributor Crombie and Price needed to overhaul its business systems to improve efficiency, cut costs and upgrade its operations.

The company needed a solution to digitise its workplace and warehousing. An aging Attaché accounting system was no longer up to the job, and it could not interface to barcode scanning systems needed to automate warehouse processes.

Solution
Enabling delivered an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution based on Microsoft Dynamics AX, replacing the old accounting software.

Among the critical requirements were reduced monthly processing, real time sales reporting, flexible management reporting and capability to handle Crombie’s requirement for dual invoicing, where income for an item might be a mixture of government and private funding – since every prescription item sold has some amount of subsidy.

This required substantial customisation.

“We created a specification, then went through a three day workshop with Enabling, walking through the design,” says Crombie operations manager, Trevor Lee.

“We worked through all of the processes, one module at a time, matching specification to implementation details as well as learning about all the features.”

Other requirements included a need for standardised business processes and transparent operation to support succession management, plus better handling of enquiries from users. Business processes were to be improved through more accurate and timely information. In the warehouse, picking routes for taking items from shelves needed to be optimised for immediate benefits and also to pave the way for an automated system in the future.

Results
“We are really pleased with the system we’ve got up and running,” says Lee. “The system went live on the first of November, and we are already relishing the business benefits, with improved reporting, speed of operation, and flexibility of general enquiries. Plus, of course, solving the problem of dual income streams on invoices so that we can now determine the true value of every sale,” he says. “We now have complete visibility into lost sales due to stock-outs, this sort of information and metrics really help to drive efficiencies across the company.”

Financial reporting is also a lot quicker, and cash flow management is streamlined.

In fact, 20 percent more orders can now be processed with no addition to staffing levels and there is a much better view of actual cost of stock. Tracking of receipts is improved, and it is now possible to easily move data to and from Excel worksheets for analysis and special reports.

“I like the whole feel of the Dynamics AX system, because it is Windows based, intuitive, and interfaces easily to Excel,” says Lee.

“It feels like something you’ve been used to. With the interface to Excel, you can manipulate data any time that you want, and can bring in data to simplify into one page reports. It permits copy and paste functions, and also data input by printing, so it’s quick and simple.”

A main goal was to reduce time to put in a customer order, and this was achieved, resulting in cost savings. Crombie & Price realised another 20 specific benefits as well.

“Enabling were helpful throughout the process and responded to issues as they arose. They provided good documentation and did one on one training.” says Lee. “They were responsive to our needs, and ensured that this was very much a team effort.”

Future
Crombie’s business continues to expand. “We will be adding additional modules to the software,” says Lee. “We want to digitise the whole operation and have an online Web portal for direct entry by resellers. We also need to complete the warehouse scanning and automation system.”

Web enablement is set to be completed by the end of March, 2008 and will be handled by Enabling. The warehouse automation project will then follow.

For more information
Enabling
www.enabling.net
Ph 0800 ENABLING
(0800 36 22 54)

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