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."