Epicor® Vantage® / Vista™ - Enkeboll Designs Case Study
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At a Glance: Enkeboll Designs Industry: Design/Manufacture Architectural Wood Elements Headquarters: Carson, California Solution: Epicor Manufacturing Employees: 200 employees Logistics: 5 acres, 80,000 sq. ft. facilities
Business Solution Shipping volume of about 250 packages per day – needed a solution that could handle multiple carriers for rating and routing, while ensuring order accuracy
Solution Enkeboll Designs implemented Epicor Vantage, an integrated end-to-end manufacturing solution with advanced shipping capabilities
Business Benefit
Streamlined management of the entire order cycle
Bar-code scanning of all the items being packaged ensures order accuracy
Cost - and time - savings from greater efficiency in order shipment process
Return on Investment
Shaved 45 seconds per package off time to process
Achieved management objective of improving efficiency through automation
Enkeboll Designs improves warehouse efficiency with Epicor Vantage and Advanced Shipping. Enkeboll Designs is a second generation family-owned and operated business specializing in wood-carved architectural details. Founded in 1956 by Raymond Enkeboll, the company is credited with sparking the Spanish Mediterranean furniture trend popular in the 1960's. With his visionary outlook of the industry, he evolved the company from furniture design to include architectural woodcarvings and home décor items, and becoming a preferred supplier of finely detailed carved architectural details. Enkeboll Designs has over 600 items in its catalog, crafted from seven species of wood.
The company ships about 250 packages per day to destinations throughout the United States and Canada, and uses UPS, FedEx, and some less-than-truckload shipping (LTL). Enkeboll required a solution that could handle multiple carriers for rating and routing, while providing the ability to scan shipment contents in order to ensure that the items and quantities being shipped match the order.
Enkeboll has been a parcel shipper for many years, and went through the process of implementing shipping solutions three times before finding a solution that could meet its requirements. The first solution was a homegrown Macintosh-based system, followed by an AS/400-based shipping system integrated to JD Edwards, and then a package from another provider that ultimately went out of business.
Finally, Enkeboll turned to Advanced Shipping from Epicor Software Corporation, which provided all of the necessary functionality to track what was in the box, right out of the box. Advanced Shipping is an extension to Epicor Vantage, an easy-to-use solution for make-to-order and mixed-mode manufacturing companies that manages the entire order cycle - from marketing and sales, through production and planning, sourcing and procurement, installation and service, and financial recognition.
John Dabevsky, IT manager for Enkeboll, has been managing the company's internal IT needs for five years and had experienced first hand the shortcomings of the previous shipping solutions. According to Dabevsky, "Epicor already had a solution ready to go when we were confronted with having to replace the existing system. We have particular needs, and Advanced Shipping did everything we needed it to do, including packing verification."
The implementation process of Advanced Shipping also exceeded Enkeboll's expectations. "This is the third shipping solution I have implemented at Enkeboll. The first solution took a month to implement, and the second one took two weeks," said Dabevsky. "With Advanced Shipping, we were up and running in less than a day. It’s by far the cleanest solution Enkeboll has had, with the least need for customization."
"We're pretty picky here," Dabevsky continued. "And, "We needed a solution that would handle multiple carriers, shipments to Canada, plus the ability to bar-code scan all the items we were packaging to ensure accuracy-Epicor's Advanced Shipping package truly fit the bill."
Enkeboll has five separate packing stations and two checkout/shipping stations. They also use Advanced Material Management (AMM) and are looking forward to the day when they can deploy RF readers and move towards a paperless picking environment.
Reaping the Benefits of a Streamlined Order Shipment Process
"Our management team has focused us all on improved efficiency through automation. By using Epicor Vantage with Advanced Shipping we have achieved this goal," said Dabevsky. "We are shipping smoother, faster, and cheaper than ever before. Support has been terrific as well – whenever we've had a problem, we can get it resolved quickly."
Another key advantage of the Advanced Shipping solution was the fact that it was Progress-based and spoke to the Vantage database natively. "Our previous system had to go through a data synchronization process which sometimes failed. It was frustrating and slow," said Dabevsky. "Advanced Shipping is seamless and quick. On average, we have shaved 45 seconds per package off our time to process. That time savings equates to significant cost savings for the company."
Epicor® Vantage® / Vista™ - Enkeboll Designs Case Study
