|
|
 |
|
|
Columbus IT customers' own success stories provide a glimpse into the power that is created when innovative, technology-minded companies partner with an enterprise solution powerful enough to span their enterprise needs today and flexible enough to grow with a company to meet their needs tomorrow.
StoneWall
Kitchen Case Study
No one knows the meaning of success better than Jonathan King and Jim Stott,
the founders of the specialty food manufacturer, Stonewall Kitchen. Just eleven
years ago, they spent their weekends selling their own homemade jams and jellies
from a card table at local farmers' markets. Today, what was once a weekend hobby
has grown into Stonewall Kitchen -- a 100 million dollar business and the most
awarded specialty food manufacturer in the United States.
"As a young, expanding company, our biggest challenge has been managing our tremendous
growth," says Jonathan King. "We were open to new technology and its possibilities,
and we needed an ERP system that would grow as our company grew. What we didn't
need was an ERP system that would bury our business."
Columbus IT used their industry expertise to deliver a Microsoft business solution
that enabled Stonewall Kitchen to manage growth and take advantage of new opportunities.
VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing is a Microsoft Business solution developed by Columbus IT to meet
the unique needs of the process manufacturing industry. In VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing, the development
platform and functionality of Microsoft Navision are combined with specialized
features to produce a solution that adds tremendous value to process manufacturing
companies such as Stonewall Kitchen.
Lori King, chief operating officer at Stonewall Kitchen, thinks back to the days
before VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing was installed and realizes how far they have come. "Before
we had VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing, nothing was tied together," says King. "We were running tiny
pieces of different software to handle everything and it was proving to be impossible.
We had no inventory control and no item tracking, so it was very difficult to
identify the source of any problems. We couldn't see any detail at item level,
no reporting was available, and we couldn't tell which of our products were more
profitable than others."
The ease and efficiency of daily business at Stonewall has improved dramatically. "Since
implementing VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing, I see more tools, reports and opportunities to drive
our sales. I can now find information that used to take hours and hours to create.
In a split second I can get a snapshot of my business," explains Jonathan King.
"With VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing, we now have meaningful history on which to base our business
decisions. I can drill down to the smallest level to find out why a trend might
be so, and we can act on that information intelligently," adds Lori King.
From order processing and shipping to finance management, customer relationship
management, production and inventory control, Microsoft Navision and VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing has helped Stonewall Kitchen to manage their growing business and has provided
a solid foundation for further growth.
Better Customer Service Means Faster Growth
Stonewall Kitchen's diverse customer base now numbers 85,000 and is growing all
the time. Their 5,500 wholesale customers include some of the biggest names in
US retail, such as LL Bean, Crate & Barrel and Marshall Fields. However, a large
percentage of business at Stonewall Kitchen comes from a high volume of orders
from smaller retailers and individual customers.
Being able to service their customers promptly and effectively is paramount to
Stonewall. With such a large and diverse customer base with different needs,
this has proven to be a difficult task in the past. "Taking care of the customer
and customer service has always been the mission statement of the company but,
prior to VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing, we were unable to do that very well," says Maureen Tracy,
Stonewall's Materials Manager. "We can service the customer a lot better now."
Now, with their VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing solution, Stonewall sales staff can access one of
their 85,000 customers in a second. They can cross-search the database to find
a customer's history, as well as products, availability and delivery times. This
allows Stonewall representatives to personalize their interaction with customers
and provide immediate order and delivery information.
Stonewall Kitchen sells through a range of channels including wholesale, their
own retail stores, catalogues and the Internet. Internet orders and catalogue
sales over the telephone are received directly into the system, which makes order
processing fast and easy.
"Our customers have benefited immensely," Andrea Hall, Stonewall's Sales Operations
Manager explains. "Now we can tell our retailers right away which of our products
they carried last year. We are able to access information that helps their business.
That keeps our customers happy, and our business booming."
Managing Growth throughout the Business
Fifty percent of Stonewall's annual business is in the fourth quarter, which
means that efficient distribution and order processing systems are extremely
important. With VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing, the picking and put-away processes in Stonewall
Kitchen's warehouse are directed by the system and are much more accurate. Incorrect
orders are largely a thing of the past and orders are fulfilled much faster,
which allows Stonewall Kitchen to increase loyalty within their customer base.
Stonewall Kitchen has 800 to 1000 stock keeping units, 120 of which are manufactured
in-house and the rest are sourced from a variety of suppliers. The range and
number of inventory items presents many challenges in the area of inventory control.
Before VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing was installed, Stonewall had no way of keeping track of physical
inventory.
Inventory control is now much improved. When taking orders, Stonewall's sales
staff can see exactly how many of any item they have in stock. In the busy season,
Stonewall handles 1500 orders a day. This would have been impossible prior to
the inventory control capabilities of Columbus IT's VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing.
With the drilldown and item tracking capabilities available in VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing, Stonewall
employees simply enter the part number of an item and the inventory details for
that item appear on the screen. This allows them to promise a reliable delivery
date to their customers--instantly .
The specialized features of VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing have greatly increased the efficiency
and control of Stonewall Kitchen's manufacturing processes. For example, the
process design feature of VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing provides extensive instructions on formula
and recipes for mixing and blending operations. To ensure strict quality control,
VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing also allows Stonewall Kitchen to develop quality tests against manufactured
items and raw materials.
Stonewall is increasingly using the Internet to reach retail customers and their
business partners and anticipates both Internet and catalogue sales to grow by
100 percent over the next year. Their ERP solution has been fully integrated
to both a Web storefront and UPS delivery set up for shipping, making Internet-based
growth easy to manage. Plans are also underway to install Commerce Portal, in
the next couple of months, the personalized Web portal that will streamline Stonewall's
Web-based interactions with their customers and suppliers.
Cooking up a Solution
The management team at Stonewall Kitchen had never heard of VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing software
before Columbus IT approached the young company.
"They were very close to choosing another software vendor," says Richard Nissi,
president of Columbus IT, "but we were able to convince them that not only could
we offer a better product with VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing but that we could deliver local support,
industry expertise and close cooperation that many other software vendors are
not able to offer."
According to Richard Nissi, his solution center was able to win the trust and
confidence of the management team at Stonewall Kitchen because they focus 100
percent on the process manufacturing industries with their Microsoft business
solution, VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing. Plus, Columbus IT took extra care to understand and address
Stonewall's unique business problems and needs.
Columbus IT began implementation of VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing at Stonewall Kitchen in March
1999, and by May of that year, the system was up and running. "We had very little
disruption to our business," says Hall. "It took a weekend to transfer orders
from the old system and that was it."
For Stonewall's order entry employees, the VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing solution was fast and
easy to learn. In most cases, users received on-the-job training with someone
who knows the system and within a couple of hours are off and running. This is
a huge benefit in the peak season when Stonewall hires a lot of temporary staff.
It is quick and simple to train these temporary employees to use VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing
so they can quickly become effective.
Customizing: Recipe for the Perfect Solution
While Stonewall Kitchen recognized the need for a business management solution,
they wanted something that would give them the flexibility to expand the business
in the way they wanted. "We wanted a total solution, but also one we could customize
to make it do what we wanted it to" says Lori King. "One of the things that really
sold us on Navision and VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing was that we could add our own fields and
customize the solution as much as we wanted. We are so glad now that we did not
buy a less flexible solution."
Columbus IT performed a number of customizations on the VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing solution
to ensure that it met the unique requirements of Stonewall Kitchen. For example,
a wholesale tab and a retail tab were added to the customer card on the order
entry window to increase efficiency in order processing. And the picking, put-away
and packing processes were customized to suit Stonewall's business. These customizations,
combined with the core VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing, resulted in a solution that was a perfect,
customized fit for Stonewall Kitchen, and which quickly became a value-adding
asset to the company.
Processes change but values remain. While Stonewall grows in sales and profits,
it is still as committed as ever to the values and company culture with which
Jonathan King and Jim Stott founded the company.
"Navision helps us to maintain our company culture," says Lori King "which is
all about everyone being empowered to make suggestions and contribute to the
business. We encourage employees to suggest improvements to our processes, and
we know our ERP solution is flexible enough to accommodate these suggested changes.
This ensures that our business process gets better all the time."
To continue to manage their growing business, Stonewall Kitchen will use more
Columbus IT products in the future. Stonewall Kitchen is seeking to make big
improvements in the distribution side of their business through added distribution
functionality such as warehouse management. Stonewall Kitchen knows that VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing can grow with them and that wherever they see an opportunity for improvement,
Columbus IT can help them to meet that opportunity.
Microsoft Navision and Columbus IT: The Solution
for Growth
Stonewall Kitchen has grown by over 100% since VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing was installed, with
growth rates averaging between 27 to 30 percent per year. Turnover has gone from
US $ 6 million to over US $100 million per year.
Lori King attributes much of this success to Columbus IT and VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing, which
has both streamlined and accelerated the company's business processes. "VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing helps us work faster and get more orders out the door. If we didn't have
VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing, we would never be this big," says Lori King. "We love Columbus IT
and VerticalSoft Food Manufacturing. I wouldn't want to be in business without it. It has grown with
us in just the way we wanted it to."
|
|
