As one of the largest plastic pipe extruders in the United States, PWPipe manufactures and sells PVC pipe to the irrigation, water works, electrical, and plumbing markets. PWPipe is currently the largest manufacturer of pipe in the Western United States and is the second largest nationally. The company has a total of ten plants and sells its product to clients located West of the Mississippi River, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, and Pacific Rim countries.
PWPipe has a long history in plastic pipe extrusion dating back to 1967. In the beginning, the company was a single plant location in Eugene, Oregon. Since that time, PWPipe has gone through a number of acquisitions and mergers that has led to their exceptional growth and market leadership. The company’s corporate headquarters are located in Eugene, Oregon.
Industry Challenges: Maintaining Growth and Expansion on an Outdated Home-Grown System
In recent years PWPipe has expanded its manufacturing and sales activities to include new product offerings and expanded sales territories. However, PWPipe was operating on an outdated 10-year-old homegrown system. Using this system, PWPipe found it difficult to respond to market changes quickly, nor did the system meet their business process needs or company growth objectives. In addition, the system was not integrated to other PWPipe solutions and was not sufficient to meet growing customers needs fast enough.
PWPipe quickly realized the need for a complete and fully functional enterprise system. As a result, the company began to evaluate a number of enterprise software solution providers. Ultimately, JD Edwards’ Enterprise Software was selected and AMX was chosen as the implementation and technical services partner.
The AMX Solution: Quality e-People Consultants and Superior Implementation Services
With PWPipe’s existing system finding it difficult to meet necessary business process requirements, AMX knew from the beginning that a fast and efficient implementation and knowledge transfer was essential to ensure a successful project.
AMX’s Project Team included quality technical consultants who possessed a comprehensive knowledge of JD Edwards. PWPipe implemented JD Edwards’ inventory, sales order, address book, shipping, advanced pricing, shop floor, manufacturing planning, and product data management modules. In addition, AMX’s consultants provided technical support and programming for maintenance and modifications as well as on going technical consulting and several data conversions.
The robust functionality and flexibility of JD Edwards has proven to be a very positive experience for PWPipe. The company continues to see an increased return on investment in all of their business processes.
“AMX has a very qualified group of technical consultants who provided us with an excellent transfer of knowledge,” says Ed Stanley, Information Services Manager, PWPipe. “We tried hard not to rely too much on the expertise of AMX. We wanted to understand the new JD Edwards system thoroughly in order to ensure that we could take ownership of the system after the project was complete. AMX did a great job in accomplishing this goal of the project.”
Quantifiable Results: Additional Resources and Significant Internal Savings
AMX was able to deliver a number of value-add solutions to PWPipe that provided them with the ability to track and measure a return on their investment. First, AMX utilized several pre-programmed data conversion tools modified to meet PWPipe’s specific needs. Second, AMX provided a custom solution that would enable PWPipe to enter unique inventory transactions into JD Edwards. AMX’s ability to modify existing solutions with pre-programmed tools allowed PWPipe to immediately see cost savings and reduced time to benefit. In addition, utilizing AMX’s resources and solutions made for a much faster implementation, resulting in project completion under budget.
The implementation by AMX also provided PWPipe with significant cost savings in shipping and has simplified the management of freight from the plant to the customer’s location. With the new solution, PWPipe is now able to better serve clients with more cost-effective freight shipping options and consistent delivery times, which has result in greater client satisfaction and a more simplified management process for PWPipe’s shipping responsibilities.
“Through the JD Edwards implementation, AMX has provided PWPipe with additional opportunities to provide our clients with more shipping options and better response times,” says Stanley. “This has resulted in cost savings for PWPipe and more satisfied customers. We are pleased to extend these new services to our clients and we are confident that we will continue to see client satisfaction on the rise.”
As PWPipe expanded its markets and operating facilities through acquisitions, it saw an immediate need to get new plants up and running on the JD Edwards system quickly. JD Edwards’ flexibility allowed PWPipe to extend the software to include the new plants quickly. In fact, PWPipe was able to bring on three new manufacturing facilities in a period of five months, resulting in superior company and interplant performance.
“We are very pleased with the performance and the results of AMX during our JD Edwards implementation,” Stanley continued. “They provided us with the resources necessary to accomplish this project. If it wasn’t for their expertise we would not have seen these outstanding results in shipping and cost savings from previous programming and development.”
The Future: On-going Technical Consulting and e-Business Solutions
As new technology and business processes evolve, PWPipe plans to use AMX for additional technical consulting and potential e-Business solutions.
“We have some additional projects that we plan to proceed with in the near future. We are confident that AMX International is qualified to assist in these areas and we plan to use their expertise again in extending our enterprise system,” Stanley concluded.
AMX Project Team: Building Business Value
AMX International provided PWPipe with quality technical consultants who were committed to a successful project that would bring business value to PWPipe and be completed on-time and on-budget.
“When the project originally started, the PWPipe project team still had their daily jobs to do in addition to implementing a new enterprise system. They did not have the JD Edwards expertise necessary to accomplish this project alone,” says Paul Hanson, AMX International Project Team Client Manager. “AMX was brought in to provide technical expertise and provide a transfer of knowledge of JD Edwards to PWPipe. We were able to get PWPipe up to speed on the new system very quickly, which has enabled them to take care of most of the on-going technical work internally.”
Company: Lincoln Industrial
By selecting AMX International as its JD Edwards implementation partner, Lincoln Industrial has received an increased ROI, greater manufacturing and distribution productivity, expanded financial management capabilities and more efficient daily business processes.
Organization Profile: One of the Country's Largest Manufacturing Companies
Lincoln Industrial is one of the world’s largest and most successful lubrication and pumping manufacturing companies that builds precision metal components, state-of-the-art electronic controls, and the industry’s top-performing pumping systems. Organizations have relied on Lincoln’s technical and quality leadership, world-class manufacturing and customer service, and vast network of distributors and support facilities for over 90 years.
Industry Challenges: Up-to-Date Operations
Lincoln Industrial was experiencing inefficiencies in business operations due to outdated information systems. Order processing time and inventory levels were high and competitive pressures were continually on the rise. With continual pressure to increase business process levels, Lincoln Industrial realized the necessity to implement a new solution that would enhance operating levels and allow the company to out-perform their competition. The software solution of choice was JD Edwards.
The AMX Solution:Increased ROI and Other Quantifiable Results After an assessment of their business situation, Lincoln Industrial elected to implement JD Edwards software to bring their business systems up to a world-class level. Implementing the full suite of applications, including financials, distribution and manufacturing systems, has proven to increase process efficiencies and to reduce the number of full time personnel required to run their systems. Order processing time has been reduced along with inventory levels. With the flexibility of the JD Edwards applications and ActiveEra™, Lincoln Industrial is now able to respond rapidly to changes in the business environment. Keeping current with industry changes and customer demands can now be done efficiently and effectively.
AMX Project Team: Experienced Technical and Applications Consultants
AMX provided Lincoln Industrial with its most qualified technical and applications consultants who had many years of experience in managing a full-scale implementation project like this. The AMX consultants had extensive knowledge and an impressive skill set in JD Edwards financials, distribution, custom modifications and custom programming.
Company: Elamex
With the implementation of JD Edwards Software, Elamex is experiencing greater IT functionality, productivity and performance and continues to have a global presence as a leader in the full service contract manufacturing industry.
Organization Profile: Long-time Industry Leader
Elamex is a full service contract manufacturer headquartered in Juarez, Mexico. Its business focus is to offer competitive high quality manufacturing and repair services to original equipment manufacturer’s (“OEMs”). As a full service contract manufacturer, Elamex provides the labor, facilities and the technical manufacturing expertise for a wide range of subassemblies and finished products in industries that include: Automotive, Medial, Military, Telecommunications, Computer Peripherals, Consumer Products and Industrial Products.
Industry Challenges: One complete JD Edwards System
In selecting a new Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) system, Elamex S.A. de C.V. had a large challenge. The company’s MAPICS Manufacturing Resource Planning system was becoming old and difficult to support. A recent acquisition’s facility was running JD Edwards 7.2 and Elamex’s Finance department was running JD Edwards 6.3. The goal of the company’s systems integration team was to combine the three environments under one system that could support continued growth of a multi-plant company. Additional goals included system compatibility with the company’s large contract manufacturing customer base, Y2K compliance and enhanced factory planning.
The AMX Solution: Identifying Critical Implementation Issues
It became obvious to Elamex that a successful implementation would require an experienced consulting partner. AMX was selected because they appeared to have the resources required to support concurrent implementation in multiple plants and their consultants had the greatest variety of subject area and technical expertise.
The only major variance from original plan occurred during the training phase. AMX’s training methodology included comprehension testing. When it became evident that many of the personnel being trained were not mastering all system concepts (taught in English) two additional Spanish language-based firms were added to the scenario. One, JD Edwards from Mexico City, to handle the training, and Glas Consultores, located in Monterrey, Mexico, to support the Spanish on-site requirements. AMX continued to have total control of the project.
AMX Project Team: Project Management Leadership
AMX International provided Elamex with a very knowledgeable project team that had extensive experience in JD Edwards. The AMX project team included consultants with expertise in Project Management, Manufacturing Applications, Inventory Applications, Purchasing Applications, Sales Order Applications, Solution Assurance, Technical Consulting, Conversions, Cutover, RPG Programming and Modules.
With high expectations for project success and a highly anticipated go-live date, AMX International exemplified its Project Management expertise during every aspect of the implementation. The AMX consultants initiated all project plans including multi-site, conversions, cutovers and environment strategy.
