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4 years ago

SUMMER 2019

  • Text
  • Carbon
  • Components
  • Distributors
  • Industrial
  • Manufacturing
  • Stainless
  • Products
  • Screws
  • Fasteners
  • Fastener
Distributor's Link Magazine Summer 2019 / Vol 42 No3

98 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

98 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK COMPUTER INSIGHTS, INC 108 Third Street, Bloomingdale, IL 60108 TEL 1-800-539-1233 EMAIL sales@ci-inc.com WEB www.ci-inc.com HOW MUCH POWER DOES YOUR SYSTEM GIVE YOU? Fastener companies that are working with off-theshelf operating (ERP) systems are putting themselves at a distinct disadvantage. Simple start-up systems do not have capabilities that are critical to fastener companies. When using one of these systems, everyone in the company gets used to the idea that they need to do “work arounds” to get through their workday. You may wonder how impactful these “work arounds” are. The answer is that they can add hours to each person’s workday; they also create confusion, and introduce errors that reduce the company’s ability to serve their customers. Service Is Everything More that any other category of industrial distribution, fastener distribution requires spot-on service. Fasteners are often an afterthought for the end user customers. Fasteners may amount to only 2% of their entire inventory, and they simply don’t think about them until they run out. That creates a crisis for the customer. If the fastener distributor can’t respond at lightning speed, with correct information, and provide the right part as promised, the customer will surely go somewhere else. There is no room for error. Off-the-shelf sytems don’t handle fastener companies needs out of the box, and they don’t have any options for adding capabilities. Generalized Systems Large, general purpose, accounting oriented, or general distribution systems have similar problems. With the larger systems, there is the option of adding fastener specific capabilities, but you’d better have lots of time and money, because it is going to take a long time, and it is going to cost plenty. Also, when you have the special programs, you will have to pay for them over and over, because they will not be part of the base package that you purchased. Devil Is In The Details Often, the problems seem simple. The things that the fastener company needs are clear cut, every day occurances for the company, but the concepts are foreign to the software vendor. Following are a few examples of industry specific needs that are not addressed by the majority of off-the-shelf or generalized distribution systems: Multiple Part Numbers The fastener industry has more unique part numbers that describe the same product than any other industrial sector. People using generalized programs end up putting customer or vendor part numbers in as comments, or as part of the product description. Every time they add an alternate part number this way, they waste time, and they have the opportunity to make a mistake. I have even seen companies create several part numbers for the exact same part. This wreaks havoc on their inventory, since they only have inventory on one of the identical parts. BUSINESS FOCUS ARTICLE CONTINUED ON PAGE 168

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