Posts Tagged ‘Dynamics AX’

MDC Vacuum Products, LLC Goes Live on Microsoft Dynamics AX

March 22nd, 2011 by Streamline Systems LLC

DENVER, Colo. – February, 2011 – Streamline Systems LLC announced that MDC Vacuum Products, LLC, a Global leader of vacuum and ceramic seal solutions, has gone live on Microsoft Dynamics AX and sees immediate business improvements.

“MDC is expanding our business significantly around the world”, said Nigel Wenden, CEO of MDC Vacuum Products, LLC. “In order for us to do this, we needed world class software to support our growth. Microsoft Dynamics AX is that software. Thanks to the expertise of Streamline Systems’ consultants during the implementation and training of our staff, we are able to improve the productivity of our entire organization. Acquiring Dynamics AX from Streamline Systems was a great decision for MDC Vacuum Products. Streamline delivered the results they promised.”

“We explored upgrading our existing systems. After careful analysis we realized we wanted a solution that fit our needs today and one that could be extended over time through packaged vertical applications, as our business needs evolved.” said, Rick Kent, the CFO at MDC Vacuum. “We chose Microsoft Dynamics AX because we wanted to improve our business operations. It had significant functionality over our out-dated ERP system. We chose Streamline Systems because they understood exactly what we wanted to accomplish with the software. Together with their exceptional industry consultants, we focused on setting up business processes that would make us much more efficient and enable us to have the information at our finger tips to make better decisions.”

“MDC was looking to dramatically improve their productivity.” said Al Galinot, Senior Partner at Streamline Systems. “As a global manufacturer, their business model requires the highest efficiency to maintain their excellent on-time delivery and customer service. They were not able to operate optimally with their existing ERP system. Our focus during the implementation was to establish efficient business processes. Their team did a great job prioritizing the critical business processes to achieve the desired results. Together, we improved operations and dramatically improved productivity.”

About MDC Vacuum Products, LLC

MDC was founded in 1965 to serve a rapidly expanding vacuum science industry and to satisfy the increasing demand for high quality vacuum components with fast delivery and reasonable prices. Over the years MDC has expanded its portfolio acquiring Insulator Seal (ISI), a ceramic to metal bonding company, Innovent Technologies, a gas and vacuum weldment company. Today MDC is a leading manufacturer engineered process solutions; in HV & UHV Vacuum, ceramic-to-metal bonding and complex ultra-high purity gas delivery systems.

Products include flanges, fittings, valves, roughing hardware, vacuum measurement and motion and manipulation instruments, thin film equipment, a standard line of vacuum chambers, ceramic-to-metal Feedthroughs, Optics as well as Bubblers, analytical carts and Gas Delivery solutions.

MDC Vacuum is headquartered in Hayward, CA with two additional manufacturing sites in San Jose, CA and Sarasota, FL., and European operations based in Uckfield, UK. MDC has assembled a worldwide distribution network forming an experienced staff of vacuum scientists, engineers and technicians, which provide the support and communication channels necessary for a solid and long-term business partnership.

MDC is committed to producing quality products that set the industry standard. In keeping with this commitment MDC has successfully completed its registration to the ISO 9001:2008 standard

“What about reconditioning and overhaul?”

March 19th, 2010 by Streamline Systems LLC

One of the business questions regularly encountered by Industrial equipment manufacturers is whether an ERP system, in our case Microsoft Dynamics AX, is able to handle reconditioning and overhaul. Many of these businesses exist in the US, and reconditioning is something typically done for equipment with a long life span like power trains, turbines, gears, etc. Reconditioning and refurbishment have become an increased source of new revenue and an important business concern.

In this scenario, the customer sends in a used piece of equipment and the reconditioning process makes it ‘as good as new’ again through full or partial disassembly with a combination of replacement and repair of different components. Reconditioning operations exist often in conjunction with ‘new build’ but they can also run in separate facilities. Some Reconditioning businesses are Make-to-Stock, where no engineering is required, for example the refilling of ink cartridges, the remanufacturing of engine starters, etc. In this case the remanufacturing or reconditioning is a standard process.

Product Configuration and Engineering

March 19th, 2010 by Streamline Systems LLC

Product Configuration and Engineering

One of the most common business questions we encounter is whether the ERP system is able to combine product configuration with additional engineering.

We understand the question. Many of our customers sell configurable equipment where customer specific enhancements are common. These enhancements have to do with specific applications that the equipment is used in and can never be part of a configuration. For engineering these enhancements are not a big design challenge. The problem lies in the workflow and whether an ERP system is able to handle this business scenario.

Configurators are primarily designed to produce a BOM and a Route, in addition to things like pricing and configured product descriptions (or even entire manuals). The idea behind the configurator functionality is that the produced BOM and Route are complete, so a sales order can become a production order immediately. But for many of our customers this is simply not how their process works.

Considerations…

If the business frequently requires additional engineering on top of a configured product, three things have to be investigated in the ERP system:

Can the BOM as produced by a configurator be changed? This will normally be the case but doing this will create difficulties for the re-use of existing configurations. If the re-use functionality would copy an existing BOM and route of a previously configured item, we would copy the engineered modifications also. What should be done instead is to make copy of the configured BOM and add the uniquely engineered part numbers to it. On the BOM a sales order# or project# should be added for later searching. The copy of the configured BOM then becomes the correct ‘Sales-BOM’ with the engineered enhancements.

Xtek, Inc. Goes Live on Microsoft Dynamics AX, Improves Business Operations

January 3rd, 2010 by Streamline Systems LLC

DENVER, Colo. – January 3, 2010 – Streamline Systems LLC today announced that Xtek, Inc., a leading manufacturer of custom machined and heat-treated parts for heavy-duty industrial applications, has gone live on Microsoft Dynamics AX and sees immediate business improvements.

“The Microsoft Dynamics AX solution is an excellent fit to our functional requirements,” said Roger Miller, Chief Operating Officer at Xtek. “But the real value came from our implementation partner, Streamline Systems. Together with our team, Streamline Systems’ expert consultants helped us establish business processes that were optimal for our business. We have dramatically improved in certain key area; improving our on-time deliveries, tracking our costs more accurately, providing better customer service, increasing the productivity of our staff, reducing inventory, and having data at their fingertips to make better business decisions During this economic downturn, we had to reduce our staff by 15-20%. With our new AX system, I am confident that when business picks back up, we will be able to support the increased demand without having to increase our staff. We definitely made the right choice – Microsoft Dynamics AX and Streamline Systems”.

“During most implementations, software vendors help their customers go live on the new system. Our focus is to help our customers improve their business with the new software. This is what differentiates us from our competitors”, said Al Galinot, Senior Partner at Streamline Systems. “Xtek’s personnel did a great job in their implementation. During the implementation, our entire focus was to help them improve their business operations. Together, we achieved these improved results.”

A.W. Chesterton Goes Live on Microsoft’s Dynamics AX with Streamline Systems, LLC.

October 31st, 2009 by Streamline Systems LLC

DENVER, Colo. - October 31, 2009 – Streamline Systems LLC today announced that A.W. Chesterton has gone live on Microsoft Dynamics AX at their Massachusetts corporate facility. Previously, they had gone live in Europe and in their manufacturing facility in Mexico.

“Microsoft Dynamics AX software fully met our functional requirements,” said Anne Wightman, Director of IT at A.W. Chesterton. “The industry expert consultants at Streamline Systems were crucial in our ability to implement the AX software in a timely manner. Together with their team, we were able to implement the software in a fashion that made us much more productive and improved our business operations. We are now operating on the same software across our world-wide operations. This has positioned us to operate in the most competitive fashion in a global marketplace. Streamline Systems was instrumental in helping us achieve this capability. Choosing Microsoft Dynamics AX and Streamline Systems as our partner were both great decisions”

Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. Goes Live And Optimizes Operations with Microsoft Dynamics AX and Streamline Systems, LLC.

October 15th, 2009 by Streamline Systems LLC

DENVER, Colo. - October 15, 2009 – Streamline Systems LLC today announced that Ascent Solar Technologies (“Ascent”, Inc.), a leading developer and manufacturer of state of the art, thin-film flexible photovoltaic materials and modules, has gone live with Microsoft Dynamics AX business application software utilizing Streamline Systems as their implementation partner.

“Microsoft Dynamics AX software is a very good fit to our functional requirements,” said Gary Gatchell, Chief Financial Officer at Ascent. “Utilizing the expertise of Streamline systems, we were able to implement the software in a fashion to optimize our operations. As a startup company, we were required to establish our financial applications with AX to position us to grow to our potential across the globe. At the same time, we had minimal resources. We had great dependence on Streamline Systems to help us using their vast expertise. We then rolled out the software in our new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. Again, utilizing the expertise of Streamline consultants, we established optimal production processes using Dynamics AX. Our goal is to now duplicate these processes across numerous facilities around the world. With Dynamics AX and the assistance of Streamline Systems, we are now positioned to grow our business globally. Our decisions to go with Microsoft and Streamline Systems were excellent choices.”

“Ascent needed a system that would enable them to go live very quickly to satisfy their start-up operations.” said Larry Cohn, Senior Partner at Streamline Systems. “They also needed a system that would enable them to expand globally in short order. Dynamics AX has the flexibility to enable them to go-live fast while having the full functional capabilities to support them as a large, global entity. As important, they found an implementation partner that has vast expertise in their industry; a partner who knows how to implement the software so that they get the greatest benefits for their business.”

Greenbrier Chooses to Implement Microsoft Dynamics AX with Streamline Systems

September 15th, 2009 by Streamline Systems LLC

DENVER, Colo. - September 15, 2009 – Streamline Systems LLC today announced that the Greenbrier Companies (GBX), the leading North American manufacturer of intermodal railcars including articulated double stack railcars, has chosen to implement Microsoft Dynamics AX business application software utilizing Streamline Systems as their implementation partner.

“Greenbrier Manufacturing Operations (GMO) wants to significantly improve their business operations at their four manufacturing facilities in North America.” said Larry Cohn, Senior Partner at Streamline Systems. “Each facility is operating on their own ERP business system. It is extremely difficult for them to improve their productivity with each site acting autonomously. The four financial systems do not allow GMO to have a singular financial view for critical decision making and will not allow for centralized processing.”

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