Page 34 - MetalForming July 2013

Metalformer Takes
ERP to the Cloud
...and as a result improves lot traceability, inventory accuracy and quarantine control, and reduces its cost of poor quality. And,
as implementation and application continues to expand throughout the company,
more benefits surely are on the way.
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, EDITOR
Metalformer E&E Manufactur- ability—a critical function for manag- One and Two customers with its pro-
ing quality and process flow for one of its primary product lines—drawn metal fasteners. As a result, inventory man- agement and accuracy suffered.
Faced with either re-implementing its existing ERP system and upgrading to the newest release, or investing in a cloud-based solution, Swanson, Liu and the rest of the E&E IT team opted to take its ERP to the cloud. Its plant in Athens, TN, went live with the Plex Online cloud-based ERP system in November 2011; the firm took its main plant in Plymouth live with Plex Online in March 2012.
“We’ve experienced immediate cost savings as a result,” summarizes Swanson.
Lot Traceability and Quarantine Control
E&E is a full-service metalformer supplying primarily automotive Tier
ing, Plymouth, MI, had an
“ERP dilemma,” says the com- pany’s chief financial officer Brian Swanson. During a 2010 review of its 2005-vintage ERP (enterprise resource planning) software solution, Swanson, along with Dan Liu, director of infor- mation technology, identified a host of concerns.
“Maintenance and licensing of our system (server-based) was based on the number of users,” says Swanson, “and the company’s growth had caused a rapid increase in the cost of our ERP system. Also, the system could only schedule primary stamping process- es; secondary processes had to be scheduled manually. This proved to be inefficient and artificially limited our capacity.”
Further, Swanson explains, the com- pany’s previous ERP system lacked functionality with respect to lot trace-
prietary lineup of fasteners, small- to midsized stampings and welded assemblies. It also offers prototype test- ing and design and engineering serv- ices. Its Plymouth campus of facilities, which totals 446,000 sq. ft., ships more than 1 million parts/day. Making recent headlines here: Beginning in Septem- ber 2013, the plant will begin supplying light-weighted Humvee stamped and welded frame rails to one of the pro- gram’s prime suppliers.
Explaining further why its aging ERP system had to either be upgraded or replaced, Swanson notes a few short- comings that started to rear their ugly heads back in 2009 to 2010. “For starters, our ERP system at that time required a significant amount of man- ual effort to meet industry standards for lot traceability,” he says. “We need to track batches of parts—particularly fasteners stamped by the hundreds of
32 MetalForming/July 2013
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