Topic: Business Process Improvement

Chicago Tube & Iron was at a technology dead-end: Its 30-year-old, Unix-based operations management system was heavily customized and difficult to maintain and update. While it served the distribution and fabrication company well for many years through changing business models, it was (past) time for an ERP upgrade. But COVID pandemic restrictions and complex customizations presented challenges.

Successful, goal-achieving ERP projects require structure. At Ultra, this framework is provided by our methodology. To show it in action – and reveal why it’s critical to success – we are going to follow a single ERP project for a client: R&L Spring Company. Along the way, we’ll share the project’s real-life challenges (and solutions) and provide an insider’s view of a business transformation.

For distributors, metrics can point the way to profits. Up-to-the-minute, detailed and accurate key performance indicators (KPIs) – driven by data provided by your ERP solution – can tell you which processes are working well, which are broken, which can be improved and which offer the greatest opportunity to improve your bottom line.

The procure-to-pay (P2P) process offers exceptional opportunities for optimization and integration. Many forward-looking organizations are eager to achieve new efficiencies, and are looking closely at P2P software solutions to centralize and automate the purchasing and inventory processes. But success requires some up-front work. Is your organization ready?

With the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic in the past, distributors still are challenged like never before: Supply chain networks remain exceptionally complex, customer demands continue to escalate and disruptions are near-constant. What can forward-thinking distributors do to optimize operations today and enable success tomorrow?

The COVID pandemic and the post-COVID business environment are challenging distributors in ways they’ve never experienced. And a number of problems – the disruption of supply chains, forecasting difficulty and the pressing need to change the interface and interaction with customers – are forcing significant changes. What are the positive actions to take?