Background
The Ford Meter Box Company specializes in the manufacturing of products specific to the waterworks industry. The company’s product range is diverse and includes a range of water meter-related equipment and fittings. It is headquartered in Wabash, Indiana, and also operates a plant in Pell City, Alabama, which produces a range of repair clamps, fabricated steel items, and more. Ford Meter Box manufactures more than 30,000 product variations.
Business challenge
Dissatisfied with their existing barcode scanning solution vendor, Ford Meter Box began to seek other options. ERP Suites already provided managed services so Cheryl Working, Assistant Manager of IT, came to ERP Suites for an alternative scanning solution. Scanability, a proprietary barcode scanning solution, is positioned as a top competitor on the market thanks to its robust integration directly with JD Edwards and its variety of standard flows, or communication channels, that streamline warehouse operations.
Scanability offered Ford Meter Box:
- A lower cost than the other solution
- The flexibility to operate in 32-bit or 64-bit without significant upgrades
- A trusted team with a proven track record in other aspects of their day-to-day business operations.
This potential for expanded capacity, coupled with the upcoming license agreement renewals Ford Meter Box was facing, sealed their decision to switch to Scanability.
ERP Suites provides a seamless transition to Scanability implementation
The ERP Suites team designed a project roll-out to move Ford Meter Box to Scanability over nine phases. This allowed Ford Meter Box to transition individual business areas away from their existing solution, one at a time, as opposed to a “big bang” roll out that could cause potential accidental oversights. The team included a business analyst, a Scanability architect and an expert on the previous scanning solution who was able to replicate the functionalities within the Scanability environment.
Scanability’s powerful capabilities lie in its barcode flows, which are Orchestration-based and not limited to any one specific module within JDE. Flows can encompass various aspects of business, from inventory and location control to sales order processes and beyond. ERP Suites implemented 36 Scanability flows for Ford Meter Box to achieve their various goals, some were personalized to suit their individual needs. ERP Suites was able to tailor certain flows using one set of code, creating efficiencies previously not undertaken.
Throughout those phases and in the immediate period after, the ERP Suites implementation team provided continued support for Ford Meter Box. Because of our existing managed services support, we were able to bring to bear a variety of functional expertise, assisting them with tweaking their business processes as necessary and getting the Ford Meter Box team acquainted and comfortable with their new Scanability environment.
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Ford Meter Box Wabash, IN Environment: JD Edwards 9.2 |