Epicor® Vantage® / Vista™ - Diedrich Manufacturing Case Study
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At a Glance: Diedrich Manufacturing Industry: Equipment Manufacturing Solution: Epicor Vista Employees: 50 employees Logistics: U.S. Headquarters with global customers
Business Challenge Non-integrated software packages were unable to provide adequate operational control and management capabilities for manufacturer of coffee-roasting equipment
Solution Robust, integrated system designed to streamline and manage entire make-to-order manufacturing process.
Business Benefits
Improved inventory control, with levels dropping by 50 percent
Faster, more accurate job planning and quoting, even on custom orders
Powerful reporting options for job costs and
Roasting coffee requires precise adjustments in heat, timing and air flow. Each roaster built by Diedrich Manufacturing allows the user to create, and predictably recreate, the perfect roasting profile for any coffee bean - from Antigua to Zimbabwe. By offering the only fully automated roast profile system on the market, Diedrich gives operators the ability to develop and easily repeat more than 40 unique profiles.
But while Diedrich roasters enable users to exactingly control all the coffee-roasting variables, the company struggled to manage all the details involved in its own manufacturing operations.
"Each of our roasters is basically custom," explains Kirk Miller, production analyst and Vista project manager at Diedrich, who says one of their most popular models - the IR-3 - is available in up to 4,000 different varieties. Options like operating voltage, fuel type, custom colors and metal finishes account for the differences.
"Configuring all these variables, manufacturing the roaster and shipping it out the door on a timely basis requires excellent inventory management and control," explains Miller.
Diedrich Manufacturing roasters include in-store machines you might see at your neighborhood coffee shop, like the IR-3, which can roast three kilograms (about seven pounds) of coffee every fifteen minutes. Because of Diedrich’s outstanding reputation, commercial customers have asked the company to manufacture much larger roasters, with capacities up to 280 kilograms.
Steeped in Coffee Tradition, Growing to Meet Demand
The Diedrich family has been a part of the coffee trade for three generations - starting in Guatemala in 1912. In the 1960s, Carl Diedrich, Sr., developed the first Diedrich roaster, while raising three sons - Martin, Stephan and Carl, Jr. The family moved fromGuatemala to California in 1972 and opened the first Diedrich Coffee house. In 1980, Stephan and Carl Diedrich, Jr., founded Diedrich Manufacturing Company to build coffee-roasting equipment.
As the demand for Diedrich Manufacturing roasters increased, growth and success resulted in new challenges. Along with additional staff in manufacturing and management, support personnel were needed in design, engineering and software programming. Software was also needed to help manage the operations.
Before selecting Epicor Vista in 2002, Diedrich used Peachtree for accounting and Microsoft Office for almost everything else. Miller says their transition to Vista was gradual. When he joined Diedrich in 2005, the accounting and shipping modules in Vista were both working well, but the company had not yet implemented any material management. "Microsoft Office isn’t designed to move inventory or order parts," notes Miller.
Improving Efficiency
Because Epicor Vista offered Diedrich an integrated package, the need for double and triple entry of information was eliminated. "Vista is a nice solution for a company our size," comments Miller. "It's improved our efficiency in all areas and the learning curve is very fast.
"We'll be moving to Vista 8.0 soon, which will make building our bill of materials (BOM) much faster because we'll be able to configure different roaster options more quickly than we can with the current version," explains Miller.
To streamline the BOM-building process with its current Vista implementation, Miller assigned commonly used parts to production kits. Unique options are added by dragging and dropping within the Vista system. "I can now build an IR-3 BOM in around 10 minutes," he explains, adding that having a BOM makes it easy to log data, move inventory, manage work in progress and process sales orders. "Otherwise you're not planning, you’re just reacting," says Miller. "We can also calculate our true costs very quickly, instead of quoting jobs on intuition."
Diedrich is still integrating the inventory management capabilities within Vista, and will be adding bar coding soon to help track components and log job costs.
"Unless you have a handle on inventory, you’re blind," notes Miller, who adds that some of its roaster components cost up to $5,000. "Managing inventory is tremendously important - it's like a bank account." He says if Diedrich ran out of a key component, they would have to pay rush freight charges. Using Vista, inventory levels have decreased by 50 percent in just six months. "Vista helps us run a leaner company," Miller declares. Miller says Vista makes it easy to create a variety of custom reports, highlighting data such as key vendors and raw material costs. Rising steel and gas prices affect Diedrich’s business; increased fuel costs pushed shipping costs up 30 percent in the last six months.
"Vista gives me the tools to quickly analyze data and see trends, keeping us on our toes so we know when to react," says Miller, adding that custom reports and queries will be even easier with Vista 8.0. "I’m a fan of Vista, it's a very good system."
Epicor® Vantage® / Vista™ - Diedrich Manufacturing Case Study
