Ensuring the Best Possible Pricing while Maintaining Profitability

Niche Modern wanted an enterprise resource planning solution that sits on top of its Salesforce system

Rootstock Software

San Francisco, Calif.Nov. 14, 2014Rootstock Software, a provider of cloud manufacturing and supply chain applications, announced that it is installing its manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) and shop floor control software at Niche Modern, a provider of hand-blown glass lighting with exposed filament bulbs. As a result, Niche Modern will be able to provide its customers with the best possible pricing while assuring that the company stays profitable.

"From a financial standpoint, we knew that our accounting software was misrepresenting our inventory values," stated Jeremy Pyles, Niche Modern owner. "Plus, there was no tie in between our sales, accounting and manufacturing systems. The left hand had no idea what the right hand was doing. As we were doubling sales and volume every year, this was getting very risky."

For some time, Niche Modern's salespeople were using Saleforce.com with very positive results. But, that information had to be re-entered for the accounting function and, then again, for the manufacturing process. Pyles wanted the new ERP to sit on top of the Salesforce system. At Dreamforce 2014, he decided to meet with ERP vendors. He held a quick handshake meeting at the Rootstock booth and saw them approximately a month later at another event for deeper talks.

"What impressed me is that Rootstock's people asked me about my problems," added Pyles. "I told them that we needed an ERP system that would take us beyond simply entering data. Having everything in one place was very enticing. Rootstock's specialists then showed me how we could create configurable price quotes because the ERP software would take us all the way from order taking through fulfillment."

Pyles was especially impressed by the Rootstock Scheduling and Planning engine. The work order scheduling logic is performed for each work order in a stepped method, establishing certain criteria at the end of each step before ultimately determining each work order operation's scheduled start date and scheduled complete date. The work order operation's start date and scheduled complete date determines which work center day slots the work order will occupy. The priority determines the order of the listing within the work center. Figuring in labor costs, material costs and other data, Niche Modern will always know its cost of goods sold (COGS).

"Manufacturers such as Niche Modern require a scheduling engine that dates work order operation routing steps (which can be sequential or concurrent) and processes them against a comprehensive set of prioritization rules," emphasized Pat Garrehy, Rootstock CEO. "Production control managers must be able to easily reprioritize work orders visually with drag-and-drop capacity planning screens. They need to quickly locate overloaded work centers or late work orders by color, and then, go to another tab in the capacity planning screens, and see all of the shop orders and field service work for a particular job."

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