cardinal carryor/ cardinal Integrated systems
Transcription
cardinal carryor/ cardinal Integrated systems
case study: Cardinal Carryor/ Cardinal Integrated Systems Client Profile Founded in 1947 and based in Louisville, KY, Cardinal Carryor is a full-service material handling dealership that serves Kentuckiana (Kentucky and Indiana). They provide rentals, leasing and maintenance on new and used equipment from Clark, Crown, and Doosan. Their sister company, Cardinal Integrated Systems, also in Louisville, handles warehouse planning, systems design, installation, project management, preventative maintenance and repair plus all industrial engineering services. Cardinal Carryor became the only authorized Clark forklift dealership serving Kentuckiana in 1962, which they still are today. They are also an authorized Crown equipment distributor since 1983. The third-generation family-owned and operated company has experienced 50% real growth in the last decade with fewer employees. In 2012, Cardinal added Golf Cart World to their mix to achieve diversity and increase profitability, while staying within their core competencies around “everything industrial or commercial with wheels,” says Brad Baker, VP and Treasurer for Cardinal Carryor and CEO for Cardinal Integrated Systems. “I recommend EquipSoft all the time - more than the software, it’s the people there… When they told me something will get done, it got done… I always felt like I was their most important customer” 1 Brad Baker, CEO, Cardinal Integrated Systems; VP, Cardinal Carryor The Challenge Cardinal had been using a Unix-based software called MTA since 1978 when that company dropped support of the system and subsequently went out of business. As well, their legacy software wasn’t good at getting information out of the system, such as reporting, although Cardinal employees enjoyed its ease of use. “They liked that you could change anything anytime without an audit trail,” says Baker, who has been with the company since 1982. “But if you wanted to know what happened… good luck!” Starting around 2008, Baker began researching vendors of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for equipment distributors, including DIS, Minitrac, EBS as well as EquipSoft, which is built on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV platform. “The more I checked into NAV, the more I liked that it was a Microsoft product, that I wouldn’t have to be captive to any one partner.” Baker adds that “with EquipSoft and Microsoft Dynamics, we have full assurance that our investment can be leveraged for as many years as we need it.” He also likes the integration of the EquipSoft system with other Microsoft products such as Excel and Outlook. 2 The Solution The Benefits “After an initial decision to implement the system ourselves, we quickly realized we needed the expertise and experience of EquipSoft who have years of experience working with equipment distributors,” says Baker. He has nothing but high praise for the EquipSoft team who came in to implement at this point, in particular Oliver Lamaca, who was one of the first employees at EquipSoft. “At one point Oliver told me, ‘I will put this on my back and I’ll make it happen on time and on budget,” says Baker. “He got us live and it was tremendously smooth.” Baker says their EquipSoft system has improved efficiencies so much that they’ve been able to cut costs dramatically in the parts and accounting departments. In general, the two sister companies are processing more orders with the same number of staff, so productivity is way up. Reporting is a “huge thing” within EquipSoft, notes Baker. “Before the system, they didn’t have exact information on inventory turns, cycle counts, automated replacements, and much other data critical to making good business decisions. “We’ve been able to achieve significant cost reductions in the parts and accounting departments by using EquipSoft” Brad Baker, CEO Cardinal Integrated Systems; VP, Cardinal Carryor 3 Within EquipSoft’s rentals functionality, Baker says the availability tree is a big improvement, making it easy for people outside the rental department – such as sales people – to easily see what equipment is available and what is not. Cardinal is also effectively using the customer relationship management (CRM) system built into EquipSoft for contact management by its sales resources. Baker appreciates that the EquipSoft system can treat service vans like they’re “warehouses” – something they could never do before. Cardinal has many vans on the road; they used to have to manually track all the inventory in all those vans before they got EquipSoft. The Future “The number-one project on my horizon is to implement mobile technology for our service technicians,” says Baker. To that end, he is looking at the MobileFrame integration within EquipSoft; in particular he is seeking a system where there can be multiple resources working on a single service order at once, with up to 10 employees on a job. Baker adds, “when we start dispatching electronically, GPS will be a key component” to keep track of technicians on the road. EquipSoft can deliver this as part of their equipment distributors ERP system. “I recommend EquipSoft all the time … even more than the software, I recommend the people. Every time there is a problem, they come to the front and fix it and don’t over-charge. The team at EquipSoft is honest: When I am told something, it gets done … I always feel like I am EquipSoft’s most important customer” Brad Baker CEO, Cardinal Integrated Systems VP, Cardinal Carryor About EquipSoft EquipSoft delivers software and services for the equipment distribution industry to help improve efficiencies in rentals, service, sales, parts, and fleet management aspects of your business. www.equip-soft.com 4