Armour Valve
Case Study: Armour Valve Ltd.
Industry: Valve Design and Manufacturing
Solution: Exact Globe ERP Suite
Country: U.S.A. & Canada
About The Company
Armour Valve expanded exponentially the past three years. Small and nimble, it supplies high quality specialty valves, accessories and process equipment to the oil and gas, power, petrochemical, and waste water industries of North America. In 2007, it implemented Exact’s enterprise solution to achieve a central integrated database and enhanced performance management.
Armour Valve Ltd. averaged 30% growth in 2006 through 2008, and is on target tomeet or exceed 2008 sales revenue performance in 2009. With a headcount of just 34 people, it operates as two entities, a Canadian and a U.S. division. Along with hundreds of products, its engineers, sales reps and service technicians also furnish on-site start up,maintenance, training, and customer support. One of the keys to this small company’s success has been continuous improvement; Armour’s headquarters in Toronto has been ISO registered since 1997. The customization of its enterprise software to track metrics and execute specialized processes also strengthened performance.
The Situation
In recent years, double digit growth at Armour Valve intensified the need for information to manage performance. Until 2007, it generated reports and KPIs from 24 Lotus Notes databases, all separate from its financial package. Response to customer, supplier and internal inquiries was hampered due to lack of an integrated database. Metrics and reporting depended on manually transferring data from one system to another, increasing the potential for error and weakening the company’s ability to identify trends and respond to problems early. In 2006, Armour Valve drafted a mission statement to achieve integration and real time information for improved decision support.With sales reps spanning the continent and suppliers worldwide, an integrated global system made sense.
The Solution
After an extensive search, it chose Exact Software’s enterprise solution. In 2007, the company implemented Exact Globe, Synergy, and Event Manager, and in 2008, Exact Business Analytics (EBA). The company customized front office processes with Synergy SDK (software development kit) and is currently working with Globe SDK to introduce custom elements to its core back office processes.
“We wanted consolidated metrics gathered from both companies that could easily be filtered to focus on single company performance,” says McBeth. ”Exact has enabled us to provide KPIs via custom dashboards to any level of the company in real time for access to performance data whenever needed.” With Exact’s suite of systems, real time metrics became a reality, steering the company towards more growth.
ARMOUR VALVE’S KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS INCLUDE:
Benefits And Results
Since implementation of Exact’s enterprise solution, metrics have flowed automatically via customized EBA dashboards. Analysis is multi-dimensional by company, cost center, sales rep, sector, product and manufacturer. Meanwhile, Event Manager notifications have increased visibility of process gaps and informed task prioritization. According to McBeth, customer service has improved and operations have been streamlined. “Having a central integrated database allows us to retrieve information quickly and be more responsive to customers, suppliers, and internal stakeholders. The system encourages collaboration in new ways thanks to a cross-enterprise view of the business,” she says. “And it’s been customizable, including modified KPIs and reporting that out-of-the-box software generally does not track.”
Benefits also derive from integration of all four systems. For example, the sales team uses Synergy on the road for access to 30,000 contacts, plus real time sales and scheduling information via their mobile devices. Globe ERP allows the company to conduct business seamlessly with far flung customers and suppliers. It functions as a financial, inventory, project and workflow management tool delivering measurable processes and up-to-the-minute information. Event Manager automates processes, notifies, and frees users for higher priority tasks. McBeth views the Exact suite of products as one integrated solution supporting continuous improvement. “We could not have moved to Globe without Synergy.
“With Exact, we’re distributing custom dashboards automatically, highlighting the most important
metrics to each of our managers.”
Liz McBeth, IT and Marketing Manager
Amour Valve Ltd
