Case Study: Smethport Specialty Co.
Pennsylvania Toy Company Finds
Software Customizations Child's Play with M1
Since the
1950s, countless children - and
adults - have played with the Wooly Willy toy. Featuring
an illustration of a hairless man's head, kids use a magnetic
stick to give Willy hair, eyebrows and whiskers of metal
shavings. Made by Smethport Specialty Co. in Smethport, Pennsylvania,
Wooly Willy was one of the 40 most popular toys produced
from the '50s to '80s.
Founded in 1923, Smethport continues
its long tradition of making toys that are simple, yet spark
children's imaginations and creativity. Over the years the
company's ownership has changed, and Willy has new friends
like Hairdo Harriet, but Smethport remains true to its roots
as a maker of educational toys that captivate younger children.
As the toy market evolved in the '90s, with mid-size stores
going out of business, the company found a niche in offering
its products in parent-teacher stores, and specialty toy
stores and chains like Cracker Barrel, rather than at the
large big-box retailers.
In 2004, Smethport purchased Lauri,
another toy manufacturer with complementary products, and an
established reputation and client base. The acquisition instantly
doubled the product line and forced the 80-year-old company
to look at new ways of doing business.
"The acquisition of Lauri added confusion to what we do," explained
Robert Daggett, Vice President of Manufacturing at Smethport. "We'd
been making similar stuff for years and everybody knew how
to make those products. We basically doubled the size of our
product line in one fell swoop and the old way of relying on
memory no longer worked."
At the time, Smethport had a homegrown system for job costing
and time tracking, and an off-the-shelf application for invoicing
and accounts payable. Lauri had a third system in place for
accounting. Because the company acts as both a manufacturer
and distributor, batch manufacturing and then pulling items
off the shelves for customers on demand, it needed a unified
application that could handle both processes.
"Our current systems were certainly creaking under the load,
and then we bought the new company, which was just going to
break it," Daggett said. "Something had to change."
Flexible, Open Architecture Maps to Company Processes
Daggett researched enterprise
resource planning (ERP) solutions online. From experience,
he knew that an open architecture would provide the greatest
adaptability for the company's unique needs. Based on Microsoft
SQL server, M1 by B & GT software
emerged as the clear solution:
- Smethport could manage
batch manufacturing one product at a time, as well as
handle the company's method of shipping from stock like a
distributor.
- M1 allows Smethport to create
three separate M1 systems: two sales companies - Lauri Toy and Smethport
Toy - and
a manufacturing company to sell products to both organizations.
Users can easily toggle back and forth between the three
company systems by simply clicking on an icon.
Smethport now uses nearly all of the functionality of M1's
Production system, along with modules for Accounts Receivable,
Accounts Payable and General Ledger. With a single, unified
system, Smethport tracks information essential to every step
of its operations, and can access and analyze data to drive
process improvements.
The company easily runs M1 or customized reports for the separate
companies, or exports the information to Excel to analyze data
collectively. It created a range of reports to look at key
metrics related to inventory such as what's in stock, what's
on order, and projected sales of products with specific parts.
From there, Smethport can decide how many products the company
needs to order, at what time, to meet customer demands.
Daggett also calls out M1's "kitting" capabilities,
which allow the toy company to track the various individual
toys sold within assortment packages and plan inventory accordingly.
Better Balancing of Inventory, Cash Flow
As a small company, Smethport's
survival relies on attentive inventory and cash management - controlling
stock on hand while remaining agile to customer needs. With
M1, the company more effectively balances production planning
and inventory.
"Because we do relatively small volumes of many different
products, if we're not careful, inventory can gobble up our
cash," Daggett said. "We used to have huge growth rates of
our inventories as business grew. Now we are able to hold them
level even though we add more products each year, so we can
manage our cash flow more effectively."
Daggett credits the software's exceptional flexibility with
enabling him to separate information into the three companies,
and drill down to the data he needs. He regularly customizes
M1 on his own, particularly for reporting.
"There isn't a system out there that fits what we do exactly,
so flexibility in today's day and age is key. A company of
our size doesn't have the resources to hire someone to customize
the software," Daggett said. "Flexibility is M1's huge advantage
over most of the other software out there that wants you to
fit in a cookie cutter mold. M1's open architecture makes it
very flexible and easy for us to adjust."
Likewise, Daggett appreciates
that customizations remain through software upgrades. With
other ERP systems, he had never updated the applications
because he feared losing essential customizations - something
that has never been a concern with M1.
"When you get an update with M1, all your customizations still
work," he added. "We can do these little customizations and
not have the world blow up when we upgrade to the next version.
That is so cool."
The M1 by B> ERP software
offers comprehensive modules designed and fully supported
to meet the needs of growing manufacturing businesses.
With more than 500 installed sites around the world and a
comprehensive user group interface ERP Software has never been
more affordable or beneficial.
Full information on the ERP program is available from the
website www.bowen-groves.com or
by emailing sales@bowen-groves.com
About Bowen & Groves
Bowen & Groves is setting the standard in Enterprise Resource
Planning software (ERP), for the small to medium manufacturer.
Founded in 1992 Bowen & Groves is a privately owned software
development company operating in the United States of America
, Canada , United Kingdom , Australia and New Zealand . M1
by B> sets the standard in affordability and ease of
use. Bowen & Groves can be reached at sales@bowen-groves.com or
via their website, www.bowen-groves.com
