|
Printable Version
The Company
Based in Texas but with operations around North American, AcroTech
is a world class manufacturer of reels and custom molded components for
the electronics and surface mount technology industry. Acrotech prides
themselves on their exceptional customer service and superb quality. In
addition to being a manufacturer of precision reels which are offered
in custom colors and available with private labeling, AcroTech is also
ISO 9002 certified.
Software
EnterpriseIQ™ ERP
software system, including: RealTime Production, Warehouse Management,
Quality, Customer Relationship Management, Payroll, Preventative Maintenance,
Project Manager, and Configurator modules.
Hardware
Oracle database with
windows-based server platform.
|
What EnterpriseIQ ERP Software
Has Done for AcroTech
At AcroTech Plastics Group, we use the most technologically
advanced equipment available for our proprietary injection molding, custom
injection molding and custom blow molding operations. With several plants
in two states and more than 100 machines, data management is the number
one reason we needed a new ERP system.
Our previous legacy system was text-based, definitely not
intuitive and lacked usable interface. Our data was on post-it notes,
numerous files and multiple databases.
One of our facilities began using EnterpriseIQ from IQMS
years ago, converting to the Windows version in 1999, and we knew this
was the right system for us. We added a second plant in April 2003 and
a third will come online in May.
EnterpriseIQ gives us the data access we need, and we've
used this data to achieve significant efficiencies in our business such
as inventory accuracy and process improvement. In the past, we struggled
with data, but with EnterpriseIQ that struggle is now over.
EnterpriseIQ, (from IQMS in Paso Robles, CA), offers us
a wide range of modules that fit our business and our industry. We use
most of the modules including General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts
Payables, PO Receiving, Payroll, Time and Attendance, Process Cost, Forecast,
Quality, CRM/SRM and EDI.
Five modules have given us the most significant results.
These include:
- RealTime that provides greater visibility on the shop
floor than we've ever had before. With this clear look at our floor's
activities, we've become aware of issues, both positive and negative,
much sooner. It's also greatly improved our timeliness and added significant
accuracy to our production reporting.
- Time and Attendance, which we use exclusively at our
Southwest plant, gives us great labor tracking abilities. We can tie
an employee's hours spent to a work order, and get our true costs for
that job. From an analysis standpoint, we can track certain work orders
to see if they've taken too long or if there's more scrap or down time
then there should be, essentially find the key issues, and make changes
for a better fit.
- EDI module helps us automatically process larger orders
that used to be input manually. EDI saves us 4-1/2 days per week of
order entry.
- Online scheduling is very efficient. We used to do our
scheduling on a white board in a conference room, now it's all on-line
and we are more efficient with set-ups and change-overs.
- CRM that gives our team mouse-click availability to customer
management, order management, quoting prospect control and a whole suite
of controls that interfaces with their Outlook. Our groups are most
excited about this module since it very convenient.
We're finding increased efficiencies all the time. Since
our orders are more accurate, we've used the end as a starting point to
streamline the entire production process even more. We've saved a lot
of money and time with increased accuracy in our inventory management,
in terms of actual vs. virtual.
Sometimes people are often afraid of what they don't know,
but I've frequently been asked why we didn't implement EnterpriseIQ sooner.
About the Author
With more than 27 years of IT experience, Bob Bester has been at AcroTech
for nearly three years. Prior to that he was an independent IT consultant.
AcroTech provides plastic injection and blow molding products to a wide
variety of industries. The company operates plants in the Midwest and
Texas with more than 100 machines and 275 people serving customers across
the United States.
|
