Manufacturing
Furniture firm automates on Dynamics
27 May 2008
Virginia-based contract furniture manufacturer American of Martinsville is to eliminate manual systems and improve its master-planning capabilities using Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 and Dynamics CRM 4.0.
The company, which designs and produces furniture for the hospitality, healthcare and senior-living markets, selected Microsoft to replace its 28-year-old Unisys mainframe system with applications that had been developed in-house. It will use Dynamics AX to improve the speed and accuracy of its planning, scheduling and purchasing. Dynamics CRM will enable it to automate its quoting process, project management and customer communications.
“Microsoft Dynamics AX and Dynamics CRM work together as the most flexible system for our needs, and they provide a lot of functionality out of the box,” said Yuri Romero, vice president of information technology at American of Martinsville. “With Microsoft Dynamics solutions, we will be able to do more business with the same number of people, handle more transactions, have better control of our information, and be more proactive in catching problems early in the process.”
The company is working with Dynamics AX expert Sunrise Technologies and Dynamics CRM specialist Customer Effective to implement the two solutions. These will be tightly integrated so that workflow for front-end and back-end operations runs seamlessly, from order-entry through the design, master planning, production and delivery phases.
It will also implement Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to take advantage of the business portal capability of Microsoft Dynamics AX, along with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server to provide analytics from the data. Also integrated into system is a Vertex sales-tax solution.
“Dynamics CRM will be the catalyst for the front-end processes — using standard functionality to manage interaction with customers and their agents, to document conversations and follow-up, and to schedule workflow and activities,” said Michael Pereira, general manager for Sunrise Technologies. “Dynamics AX picks up at the point of order entry to automate tasks associated with master scheduling, supply-chain planning and purchasing.”
“Manufacturers like American of Martinsville are realising the enormous business value of connecting their sales, design and ordering processes directly with their production and delivery operations to gain powerful improvements in speed, accuracy, business intelligence and customer satisfaction,” said Michael Park, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s US Dynamics business. “Dynamics AX and Dynamics CRM offer the flexibility and seamless integration that make these benefits possible.”