Is Social Media Management Right for You?

With the rise of social media and its growing impact, businesses need a way to successfully engage what is being said about their company, their services, and their products.

Engage 121, brought to you by Dolvin Consulting and Cyber Security Auditors &Administrators is a social media management application with a minimal budget impact for companies of all sizes. Just some of the key benefits of our social media management allow you to:

•         Monitor your company’s online presence and reputation.

•         Track comments on all 22 social media platforms (including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and more) in a single interface.

•         Follow posts on 1.3 million blogs, reviews, and websites.

•         Drive more traffic to your local website or blog.

•         Increase your search engine presence and Klout score.

•         Raise your search engine rankings.

•         Draw more attention to news releases and announcements.

•         Attract more friends, fans, and followers.

To learn more or to schedule a demonstration, please contact us.

Incompatible Systems and Inefficiency

What happens when two companies merge and they determine that neither system is compatible with one another?  This incompatibility resulted in hours wasted re-keying data and swapping information via spreadsheets and other documents.

Having evaluated the business issues caused by having disparate systems, a decision was taken to source an integrated system that was robust, proven and scalable to cope with planned future growth, without the potential proliferation of more servers and the associated maintenance and energy costs.

Read the full story by clicking on this link.

The needs of this company were not that uncommon. 

·         A search for a totally integrated solution.  There has to be a strong reason to implement a new system that does not integrate the entire organization.  That is a core definition of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.  Separate systems lead to inefficiencies, errors, and rising costs.

·         Budget fit.  There are great many solutions in today’s market, but they will not do you any good, if they do not fit your budget and provide a reasonable Return on Investment (ROI).

·         Reasonable implementation time.  A great solution is only great if you can implement it across your enterprise in a reasonable amount of time.  Your ROI and staff confidence and ultimately your customers satisfaction depends on timely implementation.

Decision criteria. 

·         Powerful function.   The system needed to handle the current business units and allow for future growth.  You may have a good system, but if it takes a long time to display the information you need, then what good is it?

·         Ease of use across all areas of business.  They now enjoy faster, virtually error-free order processing and business reporting.  A good system delivers functionality, a great system delivers that functionality by providing an easy to understand and use system interface, including technical support.

·         Proven track record of success.  Implementation of a proven mid-market ERP solution with over 1,000 installations across the world.  You are investing in your company’s future.  It should be with a stable company with a proven track record of success.

·         Local support.  Help when you need it by people that know you and your business.  A proven solutions leader is important, but so is the guy who comes to your door, understands your business environment and your people.

“We knew that it was time to replace our home-grown disparate software systems with an advanced, flexible solution and were looking for an established, stable company who could help us select, implement and support a replacement system that satisfied all requirements." said Quirepace’s Financial Director Martin Chewter.

VAI's totally integrated ERP system has enabled the business to view data easily across all parts of the system, which is proving a major benefit in streamlining customer service management.

Dolvin Consulting is your local resource to industry leaders and experts.  We take the time to understand your challenges and concerns.  Call us today to see how we can help you with your operations.  We are here to listen and help.

Overworked Warehouse Staff

I read a recent post on LinkedIn about a warehouse operation that is experiencing growth and was working their people 60 hours a week and is experiencing high absenteeism.

There are a lot of social and business management issues in this topic and it is tempting to run a little bit here.  Unfortunately there was not a lot of detail from the person who posted the article.  It would be nice to know if this was a temporary or seasonal demand situation or did the company tighten its belt in these economic conditions, started to grow again and just is too squeamish to hire anyone new.

 

The good news is this is a company that is working.  Bad news is they are headed for a brick wall. 

 

There are all sorts of management issues.  First, why are you using LinkedIn to get answers?  But now that you did, here come some observations. 

 

The first few responders to our poster’s article were how to get more water out of a stone.  Employees who are respected and treated well do not usually mind working harder for a limited amount of time for the company’s and everyone else’s sake.  When that time period extends too long, then they feel used and not appreciated.  We all heard about employees giving back when the economy started to tank a few years ago and company owners coming to employees seeking help.  A real spirit of cooperation existed then.

Then came some suggestion of how you can split some shifts or alter time schedules to basically get the same hours out of your employees without it looking like they are working the same.

There were ideas about adding temporary workers to fill the gaps.

 

Some nice ideas came next about publicly acknowledging the workers with small perks, like donuts, gift cards and employee of the month recognition.  Nice ideas as these are, they should already have existed.

Now I am not suggesting the company is greedy and should hire people, but that did cross my mind.  I do not know who they are or what they produce.  Many organizations are still shell shocked by the last few years and do not want to extend themselves in case the economy tanks again.  However, it is just that attitude that is stalling the recovery.  In any case this is not supposed to be an economics lesson.

One person took the time to ask a whole series of questions.  This is a good idea regardless of any circumstances.  Any business should be doing this on a regular basis and if they do not know what to ask themselves, then they should first look for a trusted advisor to help them set direction.

So why am I writing this article?  Simply, not one person stopped to ask or inquire or even prematurely suggest that the systems they are using may not match their current challenges.  First, is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system appropriate?  Is the company currently “big enough” or growing fast enough to implement a fully comprehensive system? 

 

Perhaps they do have a system.  Maybe that system was adequate years past.  Times change and so do the challenges all organizations face.  Here is where a consultation makes sense.  It should be high level to determine if a detailed analysis should be made. 

Are there efficiencies that can be gained by automating the warehouse operations?  Are they bar coding product and using wireless scanning?  Are they a candidate for an assessment from a warehouse engineer?  Would conveyors make sense?  Could a section be updated with robotics? 

 

What if we just managed the paperwork better?  What if we bulk picked and sorted?  What if we validated the shipments so that the overhead associated with incorrect shipments was minimized?

 

The questions can go on for quite a bit.  The idea that should be taken from this post is businesses should not just be looking for ways to minimize absenteeism from their overworked and underappreciated employees, but should also be looking for ways to streamline their operations with potentially a combination of Software and Hardware. 

 

Give the employees the tools they need to get the job done and then get out of the way.  Empower your people to make productive changes. 

 

Dolvin Consulting works with Manufacturers, Distributors and Specialty Retailers to help them streamline their operations with ERP solutions so they operate more efficiently reduce costs and become more productive.  Contact us today for aninitial consultation.

Ways to Increase Inventory Accuracy

The first step to increase the accuracy of your inventory is to validate that it is worth pursuing.  Many organizations feel that their inventory accuracy is “alright” or “okay”. 

Is just “okay” good enough?

Many businesses say we already have an inventory system and it works fine.  Really?  Did you just say that to get rid of a sales person or do you really believe that your inventory is as accurate as it can be?  Do not let pride get in the way of a solution that will help the bottom line.  Check with your Finance Department what a one or two percent drop in inventory levels will do to your overhead and bottom line.

We did a count and it was 100% accurate. 

Great, so does that mean that you cannot improve the other processes that revolve around your inventory system?  Here is a key component.  Do you have an inventory system or do you have an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution which incorporates an inventory module?  Has your company grown over the years such that you have separate systems tied together? 

Are you processing everything in your system or have spread sheets become an integral part?  Do not get me wrong, spread sheet programs have great value and put in the hands of users the ability to manipulate and analyze lots of information.  They have their place.  Do they tie back to the source database?  I invested hours with a senior IT Director one day looking at and verify the assertion that sales were incorrectly reported.  In the end, the problem was an incorrect column sort that skewed the data. 

How many copies of the information now exist?  Have your well intentioned people just created silos of disconnected information?

So, okay, we feel that this is worth looking into. 

Here are a few places to get started:

·         Labeling.  Check to ensure that vendor labeling is correct.  You may have to work with your suppliers to ensure correct and readable labels that include bar coding.  Bar codes are a necessary ingredient.  Whenever you can eliminate manual processing or keying, you will increase accuracy and efficiency.

·         Validate receipts.  As quickly as possible you want your staff to validate that the inventory that was received was what you ordered (on your purchase order).  This allows discrepancies to be discovered sooner.  Saving time with putting away the wrong items.  Saving time with the accounting people having to handle extra steps.  You work to ensure accurate shipments, hopefully your suppliers are doing the same thing.

·         Know where it is and where it is going and where it went.  Tracking and validating the receipt, in-transit, and put-away to final bin is important.  Who handled it?  How long did it take?  Where did it go?  Can we find it now?

·         Review your pick process.  Pick in bulk, then sort?  Pick sequentially?  Voice pick?  Bar code validation?  Count-backs?   Is your inventory located in a logical way for pick automation?  Does the put-away process go to bulk areas or picking and is that optimized for picking?

·         Confirm and validate what has been picked.  No one likes receiving the wrong material.  You do not, so why would your customers?  Not to mention the overhead on shipping the wrong items.  Return freight expense, expedited replacement shipping.  Employee overhead to inspect and return stock.  Employee time taken away from production to re-pick the correct items.  Employee overhead creating and processing the paperwork for returns, credits, and replacement ordering.  It adds up.

·         Optimize pick/pack size.  When possible breaking cases to fulfill orders should be minimized.  It leads to errors in picking, it is inefficient, and creates problems when doing physical inventory.  It may make sense if you need break cases to stock whole and partial quantities in separate areas.  Bulk replenishment, case pick and individual product. 

·         Manage your results.  Test, track, measure, analyze and repeat.  Manage the process and look for areas of improvement.  The least written, but the most important step.  If you do not know what you are trying to fix, how will you know if you are doing the right thing or when you get there.

Big savings often come from small incremental improvement steps.  Each step small and manageable, yet each necessary.  You do not create a pyramid by waving a wand.  You build it one brick at a time.  The difference between profit and loss or success and failure is not this big gap.  It is the attention to small details.

Can we help?  It depends on you being willing and able to look at what you are doing and acknowledging that you need help.  Maybe you are already doing what you can with the budget available, but want and need to improve.  There are great solutions out there, but you also need to be able to pay for them and generate a reasonable Return on Investment (ROI).

Dolvin Consulting can help you by leveraging their experience and industry contacts.  Right now all you have to do is click on the Contact Link right here and fill out the information and we will call or email you.  It is that simple. 

If you are a consulting firm, pass this link along to your clients that may be in need of assistance.  You will gain creditability with them by letting them know you care.  We are not out to replace you, we are here to assist you in helping your clients.  Do it now, contact us.

Customer Service is Key to Success

Montebello Foods has a need to automate their warehouse, adjust pricing while monitoring food expiration realizes they need a better solution so they can make their customers happy.  Montebello has many of the classic symptoms that Food Distributors have. 

Read the full story by clicking here.

Manual processing is the door way to mistakes, cost overruns, lost profits and unhappy customers.  In comparison a system that streamlines operations and tracks and manages their inventory in real-time is a step forward.  Tracking inventory both inbound and outbound adds confidence to their processing that the customer will receive the right order on-time and you maintain the right inventory levels.

The right partner for Montebello is similar to Montebello’s customers finding the right supplier for their needs.  Eliminating manual processing was a key step.  Integrating the truck routing in the ERP solution was also a key ingredient.  The fact that Routing was integrated and up and running quickly ensured that a good Return on Investment (ROI) would occur.

 

Improved warehouse processes and accuracy increased the amount of inventory that could be picked by 40% each hour.  That is a tremendous improvement.  40 percent increase in anything is great.  Why, how about labor savings and increased access to real-time information?

What is nice about the relationship of VAI and Montebello is the working relationship they developed.  VAI helped to streamline processes that Montebello did not even know could be improved.  There is value in a relationship that is symbiotic.   VAI’s care for Montebello is similar to their care for their customers.

VAI was not simply happy to make a sale.  They took the time to learn and understand how Montebello worked and determine their challenges.  They had Montebello’s best interest, their end customers, in mind when developing and delivering their solution. 

 

Making customer service and happy customers a priority is always a good idea.  Really, think about it.  No really, this is an exercise.  How happy are you when you receive excellent customer service?  How much more likely will you shop someplace that screws up and makes it right?  You become even more loyal, regardless of the problem.  Why?  They treated you like a human being.

People do not care about you until they know you care about them.  They could care less about your company, the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system you have, or anything else.  All they want is friendly service from someone who cares, is responsive to their needs, and will listen.  They care about what your product does for them, not about your product and if you make that a priority you will have happier customers.

When the entire supply chain is empowered with the same care and concern, happy customers are the result.  That is good business in anyone’s language.  In similar fashion Dolvin Consulting cares about the businesses they work with.  What is going to help you, your business, and ultimately your customers is what counts.  Contact us today to seehow we can help.

Warehouse and Inventory Security

Theft, breakage, shipped, or lost- out there someplace.  What did we receive, where is it or where was it last?  Are we going to be late shipping to our customers, because we do not know what happened to the inventory?  How big of an impact on our financials does this loss have?  Is it just the cost of doing business?

Some aspects of lost or stolen inventory may have to be handled outside of your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution.  That is unfortunate, but the reality of integrating video surveillance is likely to be cost prohibitive, in most cases.  Some ERP solutions have links to files or folders where relevant documents can be stored.  However, most camera data pertains to a warehouse section, not a single inventory item and you may not want everyone to have access to it. 

Making everyone aware that the location is under surveillance is a twin edge sword.   In one case it can ward off potential theft as people may be afraid of detection.  On the other hand, it may make the thieves more creative.  Unknown surveillance has some benefits.  Generally this is more of a management decision versus a technology department decision.  Sometimes a locked vault or cage area is necessary for high value items.

Electronic badges and keypads help to keep track of employee movement through restricted areas, but it does not verify the quantity moved unless they are large and heavy.  The systems does however, reinforce how well management considers the value of the product.  Usually a combination of badge and camera systems works best.

So where can an ERP or WMS solution help?

ERP systems have Inventory Management modules.  Inventory lets you know how much of an item you have and where it is.  Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) track the movement of inventory. These movements include receipt, put-away, transfer, movement, picking, packing, shipment and inventory counting.

If you have properly implemented your inventory system, then you will know exactly what you have and where it is.  This helps by confirming to everyone that inventory just does not get misplaced.  If the system says there are 100 pieces in a particular bin location, then everyone expects that quantity to be there.  If it is not, then people will check and make investigations as to cause of the shortage. 

Accountability is paramount.

 

Warehouse management systems automatically record every transaction and movement of an inventory item (part).  These transactions are logged.  We know when it was picked up, by whom, where it traveled to, how long that took, and where it ended up.

Traceability is paramount.

With an accurate system or as matter of process or in an effort to create an accurate system, count-backs help.  A count-back is a method of location quantity verification.  It has many names, but the principal is this:  Your system expects 50 cases at a certain location.  A worker is issued a pick ticket on paper, voice, or mobile terminal to pick 10 cases (they are not told how many should be at that location).  The system prompts you to pick your quantity and then count the remainder.  You key in 40.  Since the system expects there to be 50 and you picked 10 it knows that 40 is correct.  If you key any other number the system will require verification of quantities at the same time notifications are sent. 

Count-back inventory processing would appear to create time consuming constraints on the picking process.  This is true to some extent initially, that is until workers understand the process and gain confidence in the inventory system.  This confidence is a necessary component.  This process helps significantly where operations have had trouble with accurate inventory.  Soon everyone knows and expects accurate inventory. 

Confidence grows and the thought of getting away with theft diminishes.

Physical inventory is a measure of how carefully you have implemented your system.  Accurate inventory is a byproduct of people that are held accountable for their actions.  Errors are not simply adjusted, but researched and reviewed with workers.  Accurate inventory is a precursor to suggested purchasing routines that produce accurate predictions.  Accurate inventory allows the reduction in safety stock, because management can count on the system being accurate.

Have you ever gone into a supply house for a part, any part?  The sales person at the counter tells you that the computer says they have 10 in stock, but he will go make sure.  What he really just said is that there is no inventory system.

Cycle counting can replace annual physicals when the inventory is accurate.  The process takes less time and interrupts operations less.  How much down time and money lost on physical inventory?  Smaller and regular counting keeps people honest.  People are less likely to take something if they know or suspect that at any given time someone will count the inventory.  Time to discovery is reduced and increase the chance of detection and conviction.

Having an accurate inventory helps when trying to reduce inventory levels and cut overhead.  It is the quickest way to a Return on Investment (ROI).  Invest in your systems, save time, save labor, save money.  A good ROI goal for your system is a complete return in one year or less.  This allows you to extrapolate how much you are losing by not doing anything and to gage exactly how big a problem you really have.

Dolvin Consulting works with manufactures, distributors and specialty retailers to help them implement accurate inventory systems.  Contact us today for a no-charge assessment consultation to determine if an in-depth study is required.  We are here for you.

  

Integrated Sales Force Automation with ERP Solution Increases Customer Satisfaction

“Algoma’s outside sales team likes the ability to look at an account and optionally print the customer’s information, which they can then bring directly to the customer during visits.  Now they can also see the customer Accounts Receivable and sales information all within the same location, without having to navigate around through the regular S2K menu options,” commented Rachel Christian. “It used to take hours before to come up with total sales for a given customer across all companies and now we have it with the click of a button.”

Read the full story by clicking here.

Efficiency, time savings, delivering high customer satisfaction, and better communication are common goals for most organizations.  Who would not want happier customers?  After all they pay the bills.  If you make it easier for your Salesforce to service your customers, everyone wins.
 

One way an integrated solution helps achieve results is by enabling and tracking all the communications between the internal and external sales force as well as its customer base.  Communication is essential, tracking it is critical to drive efficiency.

Because Algoma selected another module from their existing ERP solution provider, VAI, the implementation time would be less and the solution more cost effective.

The Sales Force application enables their sales force to complete the entire sales process through their portal.  This enables them to react quickly to customer issues and opportunities.  Any customer will like a quick and responsive representative.  Happy customers means more and bigger sales, referrals and loyalty.

The difference between this solution and others that Algoma may have used is the integration.  It becomes a business person’s tool.

Businesses need powerful solutions to drive efficiency.  If the new solution increases the maintenance and requires manual intervention to operate, then there are more places where the solution can fail.  Manual processing costs money and adds time, the opposite of the goals most organizations set.

Dolvin Consulting works with businesses to help them identify areas where integration will create benefit.  Those companies typically struggle with warehouse and inventory control issues or are concerned that they have outgrown manual processes and are looking to improve or streamline their operations.  Contact us today to getstarted.