Baker Boy

The Company: About Baker Boy

Baker Boy was established in 1955 as a small, family-owned business in Hebron, ND. As the company began to grow, they built a 3,000-square-foot facility in Dickinson, ND, and began manufacturing premium frozen bakery goods. Currently, Baker Boy’s facility is over 135,000 square feet and has the ability to manufacture over 50,000 cases of product per week. Their most recent innovation, the Magic Ring Donut, has provided success for their foodservice, bakery, convenience store and private label customers. 

The Situation: Support Growth

Prior to the implementation of Aptean Food & Beverage ERP JustFood Edition, Baker Boy juggled multiple systems as a way to manage the various aspects of their business. Their sales, accounting and warehousing were not tied together in one universal system, and they were looking for a single solution to handle their different processes. This included orders, ingredient receiving, product shipment and invoicing. 

As Baker Boy continued to grow in size and success, they needed to implement a system that could support their growth. Food safety is top of mind for their business, so they needed a solution that could allow them to push their compliance initiatives further. Their business lacked a fully integrated ERP, a solution that could provide them with visibility across business operations and drive efficiency. They needed an ERP system that could support their company’s food safety initiatives, ensure quality compliance and improve standard operating procedures. 

The Solution: Aptean Food & Beverage ERP

Baker Boy wanted an ERP solution that could merge all their existing software together. This journey led them to Aptean Food & Beverage ERP – a software system designed to connect departments under a singular solution. After learning more about their ERP options, Baker Boy realized Aptean Food & Beverage ERP’s Microsoft Dynamics platform, end-to-end business management and food safety features would provide them with the functionality and security they need for their business. 

“The main thing with Microsoft products is we know they are constantly being developed on and coming out with new features,” says Cole Simnioniw, IT Manager for Baker Boy. ​“It gives us the confidence that new updates will be added as we upgrade, and that will help us to have a better product.” 

Aptean Food & Beverage ERP’s Microsoft platform gave Baker Boy the confidence to move forward with their decision. They were attracted to Aptean’s ability to integrate with their existing software, boosting accuracy in production by working seamlessly in conjunction with the other business software and tools they already used. This provided Baker Boy with a solution built specifically for their business needs. 

A team lead from each functional area was the key to the success of their Aptean Food & Beverage ERP implementation. Throughout the six-month implementation process, a large portion of time was spent ironing out all of the details for their specific business functions. In addition, Aptean team members came on-site to make sure all processes ran successfully. The IT manager at the time of implementation was very involved with the Aptean team, going over concerns, minor bugs and clarification of processes. This constant interaction with the Aptean team ensured a smooth implementation and provided Baker Boy with assurance throughout the process. 

The Results: Aptean Food & Beverage ERP Implementation Benefits

Baker Boy uses Aptean Food & Beverage ERP to help manage and streamline its business processes, including accounting, sales and warehousing. ​“The tight-knit team and functionality fit our culture best,” says Simnioniw. ​“It also did a good job of melding all of our processes into one software.” 

Aptean Food & Beverage ERP has improved accuracy for their warehousing (Aptean Floor, a device-based warehouse management module) and their purchasing by eliminating stoppages in the production line. In addition, they are able to better maintain bills of materials (BOMs) and versions of past recipes in order to track what ingredients were used in the past compared to what ingredients they use now. 

Even before their Aptean Food & Beverage ERP implementation, food safety had always been a priority for Baker Boy. Now leveraging Aptean, Baker Boy is able to support their food safety initiatives, particularly when it comes to quality assurance and creating standard operating procedures. This helped Baker Boy to become British Retail Consortium (BRC) certified, and Baker Boy now holds certifications for BRC, Global Food Safety (GFSI), and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP).