Abstract

Cross Co. was chosen for a case study because this Cross project perfectly exemplifies the possibilities today’s software technology can provide for the modern business. The NetSuite platform’s flexibility is on full display; showing the broad range of its customization capabilities, and the Jitterbit integration platform shows off its brilliant utility by allowing for the automation of complex processes through the seamless sharing of data between systems. By harnessing the capabilities of these two powerful and complex software platforms, eMerge Technologies has provided a unique advantage to an amazing business that streamlines their procurement process, improves their bottom line, and makes them harder for the competition to imitate.

The Client

Cross Co. provides manufacturing equipment and business services to manufacturers across the country. Started in 1954 in Greensboro North Carolina, have since grown to 9 locations and over 200 employees. Cross. Co has believed their company culture; built on honesty, integrity, mutual respect, has been the main contributor to their success. They are 100% employee-owned. To learn more about Cross Co. check out their website!

The Problem

Cross employees had a problem keeping up with the consistent updates in vendor prices. Daily changes to their product prices would require Cross employees to make updates to their procurement solution as well as their accounting system, NetSuite. This constant price shifting required an unnecessary amount of man hours to be spent on updates, and also lead to clerical errors related to over and undercharging Cross customers when price changes were not accurately accounted for.  

eMerge Technologies Solution

To reduce the redundancies of updating multiple systems with ever-changing price information, it seemed that a better solution would be to create a custom “procurement solution” inside of NetSuite that would provide Cross Co. with all the functionality needed to manage their inventory efficiently. eMerge consultants looked at the gaps between the procurement solution and NetSuite and created the lacking functionality inside of NetSuite.

NetSuite Gaps Closed by eMerge Technologies

• Ability to create product lines to set min/maxes and ordering targets for vendors
• Ability to assign items to product lines at the location-level
• Ability to see historical usage from the item record
• Ability to drill down into historical usage to see the transactions that make up the usage
• Ability to create work orders from a single screen based on min/maxes set for the item
• Ability to merge/consolidate product lines for a single purchase order to a vendor
• Ability to quickly add additional items from product line to a replenishment PO

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In addition to adding procurement functionality to the NetSuite ERP, an integration was needed to automate the price update process. Due to the large amount of data, and the complexity of this data, it was decided that the Jitterbit integration platform would be best suited to manage this integration in a cost-effective way.

A CSV file with updated vendor prices is placed in an FTP folder, where Jitterbit would then take the file, massage the data, and then push it into NetSuite where it would automatically update the relevant records with the needed price updates.

The Results

This project is still in testing, and the financial results are not currently available, however, Cross Co. predicts this project will benefit them in three areas.

1. Dozens of labor hours devoted to updating the prices of products in multiple systems can   be allocated elsewhere; saving Cross.Co resources on a daily basis.
2. Errors caused by undercharging/overcharging customers will disappear completely, allowing Cross.Co to save resources and improve their reputation with their customers
3. Licensing with regards to procurement will no longer be required by Cross Co. saving them money with licensing and other software related fees.

Overall the services rendered by eMerge Technologies, combined with the flexibility of the NetSuite ERP platform, and utility of the Jitterbit integration platform will make Cross Co. a leaner more efficient company. Reducing their overhead costs, saving labor resources, and reducing friction by simplifying their back-end processes with automation and consolidation.