Bridging Business Technology Solutions (BBTS), a Portland area provider of mid-market ERP solutions for manufacturers, service providers, and rental companies, has introduced a fail-proof way to end the fear and uncertainty that keeps businesses on the fence when it comes to implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) software: an implementation guarantee.
“We’ve seen too many businesses put up with the inefficiency and errors that come with using spreadsheets to track inventory, financials and customer accounts,” said BBTS partner Ernesto Ganchegui. “Having successfully implemented Infor SyteLine and CloudSuite Industrial (CSI) ERP over 165 times since 2013, we are comfortable guaranteeing a successful implementation for all.”
It’s more than an incentive. BBTS has a decade of experience helping small and mid-sized businesses customize and implement ERPs to back it up, especially for electronics manufacturers who need a better way to manage customer-owned and rental inventory.
Managing Customer Owned Inventory
High-tech and electronics manufacturers are among the beneficiaries of BBTS expertise and reliability.
BBTS has customized the advanced planning and scheduling (APS) of Infor SyteLine and CloudSuite Industrial (CSI) ERP to respect customer-owned inventory and allocate it only to that customer. This eliminates the need to have a unique part number for each customer’s part, which is especially problematic when parts for multiple customers are the same.
Customer owned inventory management also allows manufacturers to:
- Reserve stock for specific products of the same customer
- Reserve any part in your inventory for a specific order until the order is released
- Know when to re-order every part
- Prevent inventory excess or shortages
This feature is normally only available in tier one ERP systems like SAP, which typically require a far higher level of investment to implement and maintain, which is one of many reasons SyteLine/CSI is the ideal ERP for electronics.
Managing Rental Inventory
Some rental businesses don’t recognize the risks of spreadsheet-based inventory and customer tracking until they lose a long-time employee whose deep institutional knowledge masked its shortcomings.
In other cases, Ganchegui said, growing businesses begin to feel the pain of inefficiencies in the process of moving rental inventory quickly from one customer to the next.
“When businesses don’t have a way of tracking rental inventory in real-time, they end up with expensive gaps as rented equipment sits idle from one contract to the next,” he said.
But rental businesses have complex inventory and business tracking needs and, until recently, finding an ERP to manage them meant investing in pricey and complicated software that could take months to implement and years to master. Infor SyteLine/CSI is the ideal rental company ERP system when backed by the BBTS guarantee, especially for those holding out because they fear spending too much for technology that does too little and takes too long to yield results.
Case Studies Show the Benefits of Infor SyteLine/CSI for Rental Companies
Two recent BBTS Infor SyteLine/CSI ERP implementations illustrate the results:
- A nationwide provider of roadway safety equipment whose COO decided to make the switch after watching empty trucks coming and going from one of the company’s biggest locations
- A small, privately-owned scaffolding rental business struggling to manage multi-length contracts, one-time surcharges, lien requirements, inventory tracking and the efficient scheduling of pick-ups and deliveries – until trading its spreadsheets for Infor SyteLine/CSI ERP
Both companies reaped the benefits of a successful ERP implementation and customized rental applications that enabled:
- Custom invoicing for variable term contracts and surcharges
- Ability to stop rent on items easily – enabling one trip pick-up and delivery to the next customer
- Streamlined re-rental capability with automated return reminders
- Custom form creation
- Dispatch scheduling capability
- Real-time tracking of assets
The result was an ERP system customized to the unique needs of service providers, including equipment rental companies.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can’t get the ERP you need in the price range you can afford,” said Ganchegui. “It can be an expensive assumption.”