Self-service reporting, robust forecasting and management of outsourced manufacturing bring greater efficiency and productivity.

LAGUNA HILLS, CA – Emco Wheaton Retail Corporation has selected OptiProERP Software, Inc. as the manufacturing software to run their business more efficiently.

Emco Wheaton Retail Corporation, located in Wilson, NC, designs and manufactures equipment for the service station industry and ground water markets around the world. Emco Wheaton, itself a division of Gardner Denver Inc. sold this division to Jim Lawrence almost 30 years ago.

Matt Granger started at Emco as a design engineer, then transitioned into the role of Manager of Corporate Development, looking for ways to improve the business to make it run more efficiently. In particular, that involved heading up the charge to select a new ERP system.

Emco Wheaton had been using a system called Caelus which had been implemented in 1990, just prior to the buyout. Matt described Caelus as ‘ancient’. It was text-based, hadn’t been updated in at least a decade, required a lot of Access© reports that did not give real-time information, and it lacked any kind of drill-down capability. Several screens had to be open at once to derive the required information, wasting valuable time and seriously impacting productivity. It took a lot of time just to find out where a particular part was used, for example.

In searching for a new system, the first and foremost requirement was to get to the data that they needed to do their jobs quickly, without the need to write custom reports. They wanted something that had robust forecasting out of the box. Emco Wheaton Retail also have many of what they call “Purchase Jobs”, essentially outsource manufacturing, for such things as powder-coating done by a third-party vendor.

The selection team sat through 10-15 online product demonstrations. From a ‘final five’ that included Plex and IQMS, a final shortlist of three was chosen: E2 from ShopTech, M1 from ECi, and OptiProERP. Cost was a consideration, which also led them to leverage their existing hardware for an on-premise implementation.

Emco is not planning on doing much mobile shop floor computing at this stage, this will be ‘down-the-road’ a way, so this also influenced the decision to remain with on-premise for now.

For cost-conscious companies like Emco Wheaton Retail, OptiProERP’s technology and pricing model is such that small to midsize manufacturers can adopt the type of comprehensive and future-ready solutions that larger companies typically get, but without the complexity and cost.

“Most of the other ERP systems did things I expected, OptiPro had some functionality I didn’t expect,” Matt explained. Among these were drag & drop reporting, and the online drag & drop scheduling function for work centers. Matt felt the Sales App was great, and OptiProERP had two items he was particularly interested in implementing: the online ordering capability using Magento, and the Product Configurator, both of which will allow Emco Wheaton to deliver a vastly better customer experience online by assembling systems specific to each customer’s specifications.

Matt also stated, “Having SAP attached to the OptiPro brand provided some peace of mind for us, knowing that there is like a bigger company involved, and they’re well known. It’s a brand name.”

Most staff are very ‘bought-in’ to the new system, albeit it with some nervousness about how different it will be. Most of the staff have only ever worked with Caelus.

About Emco Wheaton Retail

Emco Wheaton Retail designs and manufactures equipment for the service station industry and ground water markets around the world. They make nozzles, hoses, fittings, and some of the equipment that goes inside the tanks underground for Gas stations. They also make monitoring well manhole covers, well protectors and vaults for subterranean water.
www.emcoretail.com

About OptiProERP

OptiProERP is an innovative, industry leading software company focused on ERP manufacturing and distribution solutions. In addition to the deep industry functionality found within the OptiProERP solution, it also embeds the SAP Business One platform, the market leading platform for small and midsize enterprises. Customers gain an end-to-end ERP solution, including financials, accounting, sales, and CRM and manufacturing functionality that fully leverages deep industry knowledge and expertise.

OptiProERP is the first OEM partner of SAP’s Partner Edge Program and the only one exclusively focused on the manufacturing and distribution industries. OptiProERP and sister company, BatchMaster, are eWorkplace Manufacturing companies and leading global providers of mission-critical, industry-focused Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions. Together, they have more than 3,000 customers globally and more than 400 employees. OptiProERP is a U.S.-based company located in Laguna Hills, California. For more information, visit www.optiproerp.com.

For more information, contact:

Sudi Gummi, sudi@optiproerp.com
(949) 340-7262 x511