 Leaf Industries, Inc. - Minneapolis, MN
Leaf Industries, Inc. was formed in 1988 to satisfy a growing preference of companies to look toward outside organizations for their manufacturing needs. Leaf Industries goal is to function as a manufacturing arm for its customers’ operations.
About Leaf
From simple components, to elaborate products completely finished and assembled, Leaf knows you'll appreciate the attention to detail and fine workmanship in everything they build. It is through their talented people with years of manufacturing experience ...along with a firm commitment to customer service...that they can truly say, "From Design to Delivery, Great Ideas Take Shape at Leaf."
Legacy Environment
Prior to dataSTOR, Leaf used an ERP system that was text based and ran on an IBM AIX computer. The system was accessible via dumb terminals. This text based interface made it difficult to find desired programs. Windows savvy employees were encumbered by the menu driven access to programs and data. There was little capability to capture data in external spreadsheets for analysis.
There were also numerous other paper systems to run their business. This caused delays and wasted time transferring data between applications. In addition, because of the nature of these procedures, some of the information was just not readily available. Often that information was “somewhere” in a folder.
Selection Prerequisites
Leaf Management realized that they a needed a flexible, fully integrated business system that could bring all their processes together. It also had to fit Leaf’s business environment to distribute real-time data to users throughout the facility.
dataSTOR Benefits
Per Jim Schollett, Leaf’s Vice President of Finance & Administration, ”Our HVAC Door business provides highly customized access panels for large air handling equipment. The estimating process had been independent from our manufacturing and shop floor control procedures. Datacom worked with us to develop a Configure-to-Order process which builds Quotes based on a customer’s unique parameters. When a customer accepts our quote, the quote is seamlessly released to the shop floor with the necessary CAD drawings, material requirements and specific work instructions unique to our manufacturing process. The seamless integration ensures that Leaf satisfies the customer’s needs. The data base maintains a thread which enables Leaf to access each Quote’s profitability as soon as the order is complete.”
Over the past five years, dataSTOR’s end-to-end solution has enabled Leaf to improve efficiency and dramatically reduce inventory costs—factors that Schollett attributes to Leaf’s unprecedented growth in that period. “With the dataSTOR system in place, Leaf has been able to grow sales without adding back office staff,” Schollett said. “In some areas, through attrition, we have actually been able to decrease staff, which has resulted in major savings.” A short learning curve and the ease of use of the dataSTOR Business System are key factors that keep Leaf’s staff productive and efficient. “We are very impressed with how easy it is to learn and use the dataSTOR system,” Schollett said. “Our staff consists of diverse age groups, backgrounds and disciplines and we haven’t had anyone who can’t use the system.”
Reduced Inventory Costs
Inventory control is another area where Leaf has achieved a major reduction in costs. After the dataSTOR implementation, Leaf’s purchasing personnel could at last trust the system to provide accurate, real-time information on all job orders in the system. As a result, Leaf maintains tight control of materials purchased for each job, thus reducing inventory costs. “With thorough job costing and real-time information, Leaf has a leg up on the competition because we have an excellent sense of our costs and delivery lead times,” said Schollett. “Using the dataSTOR system, purchasing can schedule delivery of what we need when the system tells us we need it.”
“The dataSTOR system also allows real-time bar coding of labor activities, that enables us to go in and see how everything is progressing with the order,” Schollett added. “Using the bar coding function frees up our personnel, who had previously been doing manual labor entries, to be utilized in other areas of the operation.”
Improved Communication and Customer Service
According to Schollett, the benefits of the dataSTOR System have had a ripple effect throughout the entire company. “Perhaps the biggest benefit of the system is the improved communication throughout all of the departments at Leaf,” said Schollett. “Before dataSTOR was implemented, the sales department had to make a number of phone calls to find out the status of a job in production. Now they can go into their dataSTOR system screens and see where the order is on the production floor.
The sales personnel realize tremendous savings in time.” Schollett also noted that the dataSTOR System can track all customer service related calls through the system. One representative may handle a question or inquiry and log it into the system on one day, but if he or she is not there the next day and the customer calls back, another representative will be able to bring up the customer’s information on the screen and handle the issue knowledgeably. “dataSTOR has helped us continually achieve our goal of putting our customers and their needs first,” Schollett said.
Internally, Leaf’s upper management takes advantage of the instant access to customer reports generated by the system that tie into the company’s key measurables for profitability. Managers can go into the system at any time to monitor company performance based on different criteria. “Leaf’s leaders are using the reports to fine-tune corporate strategy,” said Schollett. “The closer you watch your key measurables, the easier it is to stay aware of upturns and downturns in your business. The reports generated through the dataSTOR system let managers step in to tweak strategy along the way, if needed, to head off a downturn instead of seeing bad results at the end of the year.”
In summary…
By implementing dataSTOR, Leaf Industries has been able to focus on what they do best...making fabricated products for their customers. |
