| Supply Chain
Management / Distribution
The New York Metro area is a hot bed of distribution, transportation,
and warehousing companies. MIG & Co. has been serving this market
for nearly 10 years and has identified a set of best-practices by
industry type. These best practices involve a sophisticated yet
user-friendly supply chain management, warehousing management, rate-shopping
and advanced distribution systems. The attached case study highlights
a Microsoft Dynamics Business Solutions Great Plains (GP) advanced distribution
project with a very high return on investment and quick time to
market.
Background
Our client had increasing customer demands, competition, rising
development costs, and pressure to speed-up time-to-market new products.
The company was attempting to reinvent itself to meet ever-tightening
lead times and higher customer expectations.
We configured the Microsoft Dynamics Business Solutions Great Plains (GP) supply-chain
management solution to improve the competitive advantage of the
company by strengthening our client perspective to a customer-centric
orientation. Microsoft Dynamics Business Solutions Great Plains (GP) business
management solutions and other 3rd party certified solutions were
integrated to achieve the customer-centric orientation.
Solution/Integrated Functions
We had to develop and implement a networked, flexible supply chain
that integrated all partners—manufacturers, retailers, suppliers,
carriers, and vendors—into a seamless unit. This was the first
step in meeting ongoing customer demand and maintaining a competitive
edge. Taking this step was crucial to make better real-time forecasting
decisions, reduce inventory and associated costs, and speed the
delivery of products and services. In doing so, the company transformed
its supply chain from a cost-based back-office exercise into a flexible
operation designed to effectively address today's challenges.
Through these changes, our client and their partners saw themselves
as a single virtual organization. A virtual organization or company
is one whose members are geographically apart, usually working by
computer e-mail and groupware while appearing to others to be a
single, unified organization with a real physical location.
Return On Investment
A successful implementation of the Microsoft Dynamics Business Solutions
Great Plains (GP) supply-chain management system achieves the following
key benefits:
- Cost reductions in inventory management, transportation and
warehousing, and packaging
- Enhanced customer satisfaction through online order entry and
configuration
- Improved service through techniques such as time-based delivery
and make-to-order
- Enhanced revenues, thanks to higher product availability and
greater product customization
- Reduced product-cycle times
- Increased bottom line due to shorter engineering-to-production
cycle times
- Flexibility to design, market, and retire products more rapidly
- Ability to sustain product quality while outsourcing major portions
of the fulfillment process
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