Integrating Financial and Operational Systems
A bottleneck can be anything that slows down, interrupts, confuses, or causes disproportionately high costs in the system. These commonly occur when a process goes from one system to another, or when advances in technology offer new approaches that reveal weak spots in existing systems.
Some real examples of eliminating bottlenecks include:- Integration between proprietary time keeping systems and a payroll system saved a home health services company 60 hours per pay period.
- Integration between handheld scanners and an inventory control system freed up $400,000 in working capital for one manufacturing company.
- Integration between a proprietary logistics systems, order entry, and inventory control systems saved a distribution company from hiring 2 to 3 additional staffmembers.
- Integration between a proprietary job tracking system and inventory control saved a manufacturing company from hiring 1 additional staff member ($25,000/year), and increased their fill rate by 10% (equivalent to $1,000,000).
- Integration between point of sale (POS) systems and payroll saved a restaurant company 20 – 30 hours per month ($8,600 per year).
- Automating inventory receipt from hand-held scanners at field locations to a centralized inventory control system saved a restaurant $100,000 per yearby transferring the cost of collecting data from the higher paid corporate staff ($50,000/year) to lower cost restaurant staff ($25,000/year) for 16 locations.
- Building an integrated a weigh ticketing system with truck scales and an ERP system enabling a glass recycler to streamline operations and absorb a competitor, increasing market share by approximately 50%. The same type of automation enabled a steel recycler to decrease theft in the steel yards, make accurate commitments to clients, and become compliant with state requirements.
- Integrating a Web store and supply chain management system with an ERP system allowed a parts supplier to keep a multimillion dollar contract with a client.
- A Web-based time and billing system inside a CRM application allowed a professional services firm to collect time daily from geographically disbursed employees and bill for time and expenses at will.
Integration is a way to alleviate multiple types of bottlenecks. As there are many ways to approach the integration between systems, careful thought and planning should be given to the most reliable and efficient methods or the project could backfire by corrupting data or worse yet, creating its own set of bottlenecks. We have performed various types of integrations with the following systems:
ERP, Accounting, Supply Chain Management, MRP & Related Systems
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Microsoft Software
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Other
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