YORK, PENN. — Inventory turnover doubled last year. Fill rates for 50,000 SKUs shot up. And Wolf Distributing believes it is just beginning to reap the benefits of implementing enterprise resource planning software.

For years, the distributor of building, bath and kitchen products ran on a homegrown legacy computer system that provided only limited integration among its distribution centers, home office and other operations. Wolf Distributing switched to a pre-configured ERP system from SAP more than two and a half years ago, and the results have been dramatic.

The Pennsylvania-based company saw a 56 percent increase in sales revenue per hour of administrative time, as sales grew 14 percent in 2002. While it costs about $1.7 million a year to maintain Wolf Distributing's information technology systems — which includes everything from the company's network to amortizing SAP expenses — executives say the investment is worth it.

"The technical challenges in an implementation like this were huge, but a driver behind this was a business process improvement project," says CFO Ron Blevins. "As a result of implementing SAP, we are in a constant state of significant process changes."

New efficiencies include everything from providing employees at the $170-million company a single source of data and merchandise replenishment tools, to consolidating its call centers. On the financial and administrative side, Blevins says the software allowed him to centralize accounts payables and take advantage of evaluated receipt settlements. That means major suppliers of cabinets or building products no longer need to send invoices, as purchase orders and acknowledgements are exchanged electronically.

"When the time comes, we just send them the money," he says. "For our organization as a whole, prior to SAP, we had 55 people to expedite accounts payable, taking invoices and matching them versus purchase orders, resolve differences and initiate payments," he says. "Today, we have four."