AERCO Heats Up Order Taking Process

Manufacturer of boiler and water heating products implements ERP system for better visibility, improved tracking capabilities

Manufacturer of boiler and water heating products implements ERP system for better visibility, improved tracking capabilities

El Segundo, CA — April 7, 2004 — AERCO International Inc., a supplier of boilers and water heating products, said it has achieved operational benefits since implementing Glovia International's extended enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, glovia.com.

Glovia said it enabled AERCO to increase visibility into its operations, improving cost control and decision-making while enabling the company to understand its costs and operational performance.

The real-time, enterprise-wide parts tracking capability enables AERCO to schedule projects and track costs through full integration of engineering items, inventory, customer orders and accounting from original order through post-sales service.

AERCO said it now has visibility across all customer orders to see where parts are required to avert potential shortages before they become actual problems and cause costly delays.

In addition, AERCO said the improved operational visibility has also led to tighter inventory control, which is very important to the supplier. One of the company's goals for glovia.com was to reduce inventory and increase turns, and in 2003, AERCO said it increased turns by 35 percent.

In addition, AERCO enhanced order placement and processing with glovia.com's e-commerce capabilities. "Not only can our reps order online, they have access to information regarding pricing, availability and shipping that they previously had to obtain via a phone call," said Jane Falkenstern, director of IT for AERCO.

Falkenstern added that the immediate benefit of the ERP solution is the decrease in volume of the number of parts orders that order entry personnel have to handle. "Sales orders print directly in the production area for review and processing," she said. "This cuts down on approximately two to three hours of processing time in the order entry area. Our ultimate goal is for a Web-based order to print directly in the shipping area for picking and packing thus eliminating transactions and therefore saving time and money."

Today more than 55 percent of AERCO parts orders are placed online with an ultimate goal of 98 percent as more AERCO reps become active users of the system. Eventually, AERCO said it hopes to expand the use of online ordering to the major equipment side of the business, not just replacement parts.

AERCO is currently in the process of implementing the glovia.com Field Service module to improve customer service. AERCO is planning to use the logging, tracking, monitoring and response tools to track customer service calls over periods of time to be able to analyze the information received and track the trends to more effectively manage field service resources.

Glovia International is a subsidiary of Fujitsu.

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