Chemicals
Background
The business was a complex sea of islands of IT products. In a
very competive business the New Zealand based manufacture faces scrutiny
of the drug regulation regime and the effects of major overseas
manufacturers competing hard for the same dollars as the locals.
Efficient manufacturers they maintain a business based around research
and sales with very few clerical or overhead staff.
The existing Accounting system had no attachment to Inventory or the
Standard costs of products they manufactured so integration, and new
processes were important items in the new installation.
Sub systems covered
- Accounting and distribution
- Component and Subassembly inventory management
- Finished Goods management
- Costing
- Product formulation
- Base Product reporting
- Compliance
- Manufacturing control
- Supplier Price list management
- Manufacturing Alternative formulation
- Real time Order monitoring feed back to production
- Management of Royalties
This firm was already an Open
Source advocate so it was important from a culture to provide all
solutions from the Open Source cupboard.
Challenges
The implementation of the new system had to take over from the
current accounting system and then absorb the other roles.
Most important of them was management of Customer Price lists – which
changed to follower competitor activity, new products and seasonal
response.
The needs of a Sales force that were mostly remote from the Head Office.
Very few spare hands to assist with the installation of the new system.
Solution
McBoss offered a solution which included a number of the
components of CoBox.
Installed and converted all the data from their existing accounting
system into the new ERP - ADempiere
Extended the functionality of ADempiere to accommodate complex Customer
Group and representative reporting, Special Pricing, Royalty Management
and base product reporting
Product specifications came from a separate sub system – that was
integrated into Adempiere
Manufacturing Shop Floor transactions came from a separate sub system.
That too was integrated into ADempiere through importation of
manufacturing Records and reconciling through the ADempiere
manufacturing accounting.
Components - Technologies used
- ADempiere ERP /CRM
- Jasper Reporting
- Pentaho – Report Serving
- Mondrian – OLAP
- JPivot viewing
- JFree Reports
- Postgres
Services Provided by McBoss
- Analysis
- Data Mapping
- Data Migration
- Accounting Assistance
- Modification to the User interface
- Modification to the import process into ADempiere
- Development of Custom Reports
- Implementation and End User training
Business Case Summary
The Business Need
Older Accounting system, small number of support users but a big
research and Sales organization, sensitive food related chemical
products with strict license regime, many small sub systems none
integrated. Existing Open Source business. Few hands to assist with
transition.
Requirements
Integrate, Simplify, Improve reporting, restructure data to
simplify the number of products, suppliers and customer naming and
numbering schemes.
Benefits achieved
- Fewer packages to support
- Streamlined processing
- Better financial reporting
- Improved Sales Reporting and analysis for Sales
- First view of manufacturing efficiency
- Check on manufacturing losses
- Full view of inventory – assistance with inventory control
- Better base for forward ordering of stock
