ERP Case Study

DCI Cheese Company

Location Richfield, Wisconsin USA

Solution Enterprise 21 ERP

Industry Food and Beverage

Enterprise 21 ERP

Learn More Compare TGI Software

DCI Cheese Company Case Study by TGI’s Enterprise 21 ERP Software #

The Company: About DCI Cheese Company

When DCI Cheese Company purchased Enterprise 21 ERP in 2006, the company had quadrupled in size since 2004 following a number of strategic growth initiatives through the rapid acquisition of targeted businesses. To facilitate this expansion, the company engaged in an ERP evaluation process to select an ERP system capable of supporting DCI’s multiple companies, divisions, and business units and to provide a single, comprehensive data source for real-time business information and transaction processing. According to Kevin McCarthy, DCI’s Director of Information Technology, “DCI Cheese’s legacy systems were a combination of homegrown and purchased software that could not support the new size and structure of DCI. A new ERP system capable of supporting the new DCI was needed.”

The Situation: Cost Effectiveness

One of the companies acquired by DCI, Green Bay Cheese, had already been using TGI’s Enterprise 21 ERP software. As such, DCI evaluated Enterprise 21’s potential capabilities for meeting the new DCI’s business software requirements. McCarthy continues, “A review of Enterprise 21 at Green Bay, and of Enterprise 21’s ability to support DCI’s business requirements company-wide was done. Enterprise 21’s ability to meet DCI’s base requirements, potential to modify to meet our more unique requirements and overall cost-effectiveness led to our decision to select TGI and Enterprise 21.”

The Solution: Enterprise 21 ERP

Through the implementation of Enterprise 21, DCI hoped to gain a fully-integrated system and bring all four of DCI’s divisions onto a single software platform that shared all of DCI’s customers, products, vendors, and business processes while simultaneously improving organization-wide access to information.

The Results: Enterprise 21 ERP Implementation Benefits

Since implementing Enterprise 21, DCI has been able to bring all but two of its divisions onto Enterprise 21 with the remaining divisions scheduled to go live on Enterprise 21 in July and September of 2010 respectively. The company has been able to consolidate customers, products, and vendors, and has standardized business processes to appear as a single company to its customers rather than four separate businesses. The company has also been able to gain access to accurate, real-time inventory status and has been streamlining operations across all of the company’s departments, from finance, accounting, and customer service, to purchasing, warehousing, shipping, and receiving.

McCarthy, alluding to the benefits of Enterprise 21’s fully-integrated system, states, “Enterprise 21 is much more integrated than older DCI systems. Previously, DCI had separate financial and operational systems, requiring importing, downloading, or interfacing of critical information between the two. Enterprise 21’s integrated system reduces data errors and provides much more efficient data processing. When our Richfield location went live on Enterprise 21, our inventory management of outside warehouses improved greatly. Instead of getting a once-a-week inventory status report, we were able to do full warehouse EDI and have up-to-date, accurate inventory levels.”

Perhaps most importantly, DCI has been able to grow bottom-line business profitability since implementing Enterprise 21, which McCarthy attributes to DCI’s management staff having the necessary business information for strategic decision-making purposes. “DCI has seen a steady improvement in profitability since late 2008 to the present. Although hard to specifically quantify, many of the decisions made on pricing, areas of cost reduction, and operational efficiency were based on information pulled from Enterprise 21.”

Going beyond Enterprise 21’s scope of software functionality, McCarthy and DCI Cheese Company have found a strong working partnership in their relations with TGI. McCarthy concludes, “TGI has been very responsive to our needs. We have a very good working relationship with a number of TGI resources and a weekly call with TGI to stay on top of pending issues or system modifications. DCI regularly uses TGI to assist with business issue analysis when related to Enterprise 21. In the event of system issues, we actively use the Help Desk and always receive timely assistance. TGI’s ability to modify their product to the specific needs of DCI Cheese, and the accessibility and support of their resources have confirmed our assessment that Enterprise 21 can be a long-term ERP solution for DCI Cheese Company.”

Required a fully-integrated ERP system to support rapid business growth
Required a system to support multiple companies
Required real-time inventory status and support for outside warehouse transaction processing

Benefits

Consolidated all customers, products, vendors, and business processes across multiple companies and divisions
Achieved full software system integration across all business departments
Achieved successful ERP implementation across multiple companies and divisions
Gained real-time inventory status for both on-site inventory and for outside warehouses through full warehouse EDI processing