Case Study: Conexiom Powers DGI Supply's ERP System

DGI's move to its current ERP solution resulted in reduced costs for order processing, improved order accuracy, and faster order processing times. Now DGI has plans to grow their enrolled customers by 150 percent.

Background

As the largest provider of industrial vending and inventory control solutions in the world, DGI Supply offers more than 1,500 brands containing over 1,000,000 SKUs. The company is No. 31 on Industrial Distribution's 2014 Big 50 List. With revenues exceeding $300 million, they employed the Epicor Prelude system to manage their massive $30 million inventory and internal resources. The ability to integrate information with high visibility created many opportunities to realize internal benefits like operational efficiencies and cost savings. However it also highlighted the need to improve the order entry process.

Challenges

Need to Eliminate Dual Order Entry: At least 33 percent of DGI Supply’s orders arrived via fax or email, which created the problem of dual entry. Customer orders arriving in this fashion awaited manual entry by a team of internal staff before transitioning into a sales order. Not only did this cause unnecessary delays in order processing, but the sheer volume of orders received required considerable time and effort from employees.

Need to Create Internal Efficiencies: As a company recognized for implementing productivity improvements leading to cost savings for customers, DGI Supply expected the same for itself. “From a macro perspective, we’re always trying to find ways to lean out our company and expenses, while becoming more productive. It’s part of our value proposition to our customers,” explained Bill Henricks, Chief Operations Officer at DGI Supply.

The Solution

DGI Supply turned to Conexiom to create the efficiencies they sought. “We needed a low cost solution and we’d heard great recommendations about Conexiom through the Industrial Supply Association,” relayed Henricks. After carefully selecting one of their largest customers who ordered 90 percent of their inbound lines from core stock products, DGI Supply launched their pilot.

The move to Conexiom just made sense for DGI Supply. As Henricks explained, “With our primary goal of savings customers money, we look to do things with less expense and Conexiom offered us that potential.” Conexiom captures and transforms computer-generated purchase orders into electronic sales orders automatically. By eliminating dual entry and manual order processing, it creates substantial savings both in terms of cost and time.

Automating order processing enabled DGI Supply to better serve their customers who didn’t have the internal capabilities to implement EDI, which in turn accelerated order cycle times. Getting started was quick and painless once the project began. “The service requirements are all front-loaded for Conexiom. Once the mapping is completed, it basically manages itself. It all comes down to selling the customer on the solution. Once that’s done, it’s simple to operate and a breeze to add additional customers,” said Henricks.

Benefits

Reduce the Cost of Placing Orders: Eliminating the problem of dual entry has created considerable savings – both in processing time and money. Now customer orders are processed automatically, which translates into a big chunk of time saved that used to be devoted to order processing. “With over 20 of our largest customers already enrolled in Conexiom, the time savings really starts to add up now that we don’t have to re-enter orders,” stated Henricks.

Deliver The Right Parts Faster: Customers enjoy the peace of mind that comes from knowing their orders are placed as soon as they send their purchase order. Not only does this accelerate order cycle times, but the mapping functionality ensures that order information is entered with 100 percent accuracy. This means no more frustrating errors, wrong products, and costly returns. Reducing errors during order entry has been a big win for both DGI Supply and its customers.

Reassign Employees New Priorities: With the sheer volume of orders received daily, some days it was challenging to stay on top of order processing. Thanks to Conexiom, many employees have found free time on their hands to focus on other business priorities. “For just one of our larger customers, after automating the order process we were able to free up one full-time employee who was previously re-entering gross orders. Now we’ve assigned him to other value-added tasks and it’s made a big difference. That’s the value of Conexiom,” explained Henricks.

The Future: DGI Supply has been so impressed with the efficiency and speed of Conexiom that they have plans to grow their enrolled customers by 150 percent. “We can’t wait to enrol more customers in Conexiom. It’s a natural progression for us,” shared Henricks. “We’re constantly impressed by our ability to handle a bigger volume of orders without additional staff or order cycle delays. It’s exactly the business improvement we were after and our customers are thrilled.”

 

For more information about Conexiom, visit www.conexiom.com

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