Background
H-B Instrument Company was founded in 1903 by the "Hiergesell
Brothers", two German engineers who specialized in the manufacture
of glass measurement products. Initially, these included
thermometers and hydrometers. Years later, the company added
relays, thermostats, switches and lighting controls. Today, nearly
a century later, these basic product areas have expanded to a
comprehensive line of temperature and density measurement
instruments, power controls, calibration services, accessories and
creative engineering of new products.
The Challenges
For the past 12 years, H-B Instrument Company grew with the use
of a mainframe IBM System 36 that was designed to provide
solutions for small and mid- sized companies without the complex
manufacturing and distribution constraints of today's fast-paced
digital economy. Over that period, the IBM system proved an
adequate solution but, with increased business demands, it
gradually lost its luster.
For example, the System 36 was not Year 2000- compliant, nor
able to handle the complex scheduling and production tasks
demanded from a twenty- first century customer base and
made-to-order production routines and schedules.
"Y2K has been a big concern for us ever since it gained its
doomsday connotation," said Leslie Gall, vice president of finance
and administration. "When we first purchased our mainframe system,
no one was even talking about the year 2000, nor were the media
fanning the fire with all the negative hype.
Still, we didn't panic. We looked at all of our options and
found a comprehensive solution."
A bigger challenge for H-B Instrument Company was the fact that
its mainframe system had difficulties integrating its various
company processes."We needed to integrate these processes, but
doing so on the System 36 would have required a larger investment
than the client-server solution we found." This was further
complicated in that the company marketed to several different
industries, including food and beverage, pharmaceutical, chemical,
educational and government.
"We were compensating for the System 36 short- comings and lack
of integration with stand alone Personal Computers and spreadsheet
or database programs for tracking, managing, projecting, and
monitoring," said Erika Reedy, vice president of operations for
H-B Instrument Company. "Everyone was working, but no one had
access to information on the process flow from beginning to end.
Our customers would call Customer Service and ask when they could
expect a product, and we couldn't tell them until the office
checked with me, the Production Manager, or someone with access to
one of our many spreadsheets and databases. What we really needed
was an advanced manufacturing solution."
The older system required someone on the manufacturing floor to
record a product's information on a spreadsheet and then, when it
moved to the next process, for another person to re-key that
updated information into a different spreadsheet. The lack of a
consistent tracking mechanism prevented H-B Instrument Company
from efficiently tracking its products along the manufacturing
process and keeping its customers adequately informed.
Some of the company's clients had very particular ways in which
they wanted their invoices and other paperwork to appear. In some
cases, clients wanted the same invoice submitted in two different
layouts. This would have meant redesigning a reporting template
for a single client.
The Search
Obstacles continued to unfold and, in May 1998, H-B Instrument
Company began searching for a manufacturing system that would
replace their older system and provide the process management and
tracking functions they needed. The company also wanted its new
system to maintain an IBM look and feel. The management team
looked at several vendors' products but didn't find anything that
would fulfill all of its needs.
Then, a month later at a packaging industry trade- show, Tom
Zappia, Vice President of New Jersey- based Business Management
International, Inc., introduced H-B Instrument Company to Navision
Software.
"It all moved very quickly from that point forward," said Gall.
"At the trade show we set up an official meeting and actually saw
the software in action. We were very impressed. So much so, that
we pretty much made up our minds on the spot."
"H-B Instrument Company needed the ability to track multiple
products throughout an entire string of processes, and we were
confident that we could provide that robust functionality," said
Zappia. In addition, they wanted a manufacturing system that had
all of the necessary functionality, from purchasing to order entry
to work order processing to MRP, but could be implemented in
stages.
"We were missing a vital materials management planning
component and it made it very difficult to function effectively,"
said Reedy. "We had engineers and designers that knew they needed
a certain part, knew what it looked like, but couldn't trace it
without knowing our internal part numbers. That information was
housed in another system that we couldn't easily access. This was
especially important when it came time for our ISO Registration
audit. The rich features of our Navision system satisfied many of
the requirements for ISO 9001 Certification, and we were able to
demonstrate their use."
The Solution
In August 1998 H-B Instrument Company signed on with Navision
Software for Navision Financials and later, Navision
Manufacturing.
"We were all very excited and even more relieved that we would
soon have a Y2K-compliant materials management system, and one
that worked across the entire enterprise," said Ed Hiergesell,
president of H-B Instrument Company. "After the implementation we
could finally return to focusing on growing our core business and
not worrying about having to find part numbers or transpose
calibration statistics from one system into another."
The Implementation
In November 1998, Business Management International, Inc. first
took a look at the company's current procedures and interviewed
several managers to determine which procedures were absolutely
necessary to maintain in their current form.
"Navision Software enabled H-B Instrument to mold the software
around the way they do business," said Zappia. "They've been
manufacturing glass measurement products since 1903, and they
didn't want to have to re-engineer their way of doing business to
fit a new software package. With the precision instruments they
manufacture, the software has to be flexible, not the other way
around." Business Management International, Inc. also developed a
concurrent "backup" system to run while the implementation was
under way. "Tom was very helpful and always made his company's
resources available," said Gall. "I was also impressed by the
devotion to quality. We would work all week and then Tom was
willing to come in over the weekend and run test systems to ensure
we were on track. He would perform the tasks using the systems
that we couldn't shut down during normal operating hours. That was
concrete proof that he really understood our business and was
willing to work on our terms."
Business Management International, Inc. used Navision
Software's core product attributes to fulfill several of H-B
Instrument Company's most pressing needs by providing each of the
workstations with the ability to review departmental statistics
and information, track a product's progress and efficiently manage
the entire manufacturing process.
"They really liked Navision Manufacturing's comprehensive
functionality," said Zappia. "Because an engineer could check a
part number, the progress of the rest of the unit, the
distribution dates, and ensure that the entire process was on
schedule -- all from a single screen using Navision Software's
drill- down features."
The Results
H-B Instrument Company went live with Navision Financials in
January 1999 and then with Navision Manufacturing in April 1999.
"The difference with a client-server based system along with
the Navision Software is unmistakable," said Gall. "Our
information on product availability is more accurate. Our
production engineers have an integrated system, and all of the
information they need is right at their fingertips for all
manufacturing orders generated for either custom orders or orders
for stock. And we have saved time and reduced work because we
don't have to run and get all the various bits and pieces of
information we need from all over the plant just to answer a
simple question."
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