| Company Name: | Amercian Garage Door Supply, Inc. |
| Industry: | Commercial and residential exterior door system manufacturer and reseller. |
| Contact: | Kevin Baumgartner, President |
| Location: | Belmidji, Minnesota |
| # Locations: | 1 |
| Website: | americandoorsupply.com |
| Software Systems: | QuickBooks and MISys Manufacturing |
Description of the Business:
“Single Best Source for Door, Operator and Loading Dock products for any type of facility.” Use standard aluminum door configurations that are modified to meet particular needs of customer. They manufacture door systems, incorporating parts from outside vendors, and also sell component parts direct to customers, sometimes drop shipping from vendors. They have a large catalogue business as well as custom design business.
They maintain a separate installation business for jobs more local to their headquarters in Minnesota.
Previous to purchasing MISys Manufacturing, what system(s) did you use to manage your manufacturing operation?
Used Peachtree and an integrated POS system called Keystrokes.
What other systems did you consider before purchasing MISys?
ERP Lite, NumberCruncher, E2 by Shoptech.
What problem/challenges were you trying to solve?
Poor financial reporting. Took 10 months to close the books for the calendar year. Ran lots of sub-systems to handle the various aspects of the business which created real difficulty in learning the systems and keeping them up to date. Poor costing. Restricted to Average or FIFO cost, which did not help them price products in an inflationary environment. They were not able to maintain decent margins, coming in at 25-30% gross margin when they should have been at 35%+. Could not trust the numbers in the system. Plagued by returns. Cash flow was “horrid.”
System could not track part numbers to finished items. Missed shipments and angry customers.
How did MISys address the challenges you mentioned above? What specific solutions did MISys bring to you?
MISys extended a monthly rental plan for the software which enabled them to implement the system while cash flow was lean. Once they had saved enough cash, they purchased the software system.
Established the infrastructure to track inventory costs, due dates, item numbers in one manufacturing system without having a network of small sub-systems.
Established a standard Bill of Material and modified that bill for specific manufacturing orders, making it easy to service customers post-sale when they had a question on the product .
Organized the inventory on the shop floor by location so that it could easily be found by the people in manufacturing.
What have the results been like? Have you quantified them in terms of ROI, order fulfillment, etc…?
Reconciling the books is done in a matter of days. Maintain a margin of 40% now. Able to grow sales, adding large, national accounts that would not have been possible without a system that could help improve the delivery and quality. “I don’t ever hear of a return anymore.” Reduced shop floor labor from 16 people to 5 even with the same volume of business. Cash flow has improved.
What was implementation like for you?
There were some bumps along the way that actually required an update in the software. MISys was able to address it and meet our concerns along the way.
“If you want a plant to grow, you have to put it in a bigger pot. MISys was the bigger pot for us, and we have grown and expanded in part because of it.” ~Kevin Baumgartner, President