OVERVIEW

Applied Recovery Systems (ARS) has specialized in scrap metal recycling for more than a quarter-century. Management tenaciously searches for new methods that streamline their operations—helping them improve their bottom line while delivering quality products more efficiently.

ARS manufactures hydraulic machines that compact scrap metal into briquettes for recycling and resale. This helps melt shops, smelting operations, and foundries reduce waste while improving their bottom lines. Ensuring accurate accounting of its inventory of parts and raw materials is critical to them, as it is with all manufacturers. “The better you’re able to account for your materials, the better you can control costs and avoid cost overruns,” said Applied Recovery Systems Purchasing and Production Manager Les Pope. “It’s something we always need to focus on.”

SEARCHING FOR THE RIGHT SYSTEM

ARS’ manual accounting processes had proven slow, inefficient, and error-prone. The company had also tried using accounting software for a few years—even making a significant expenditure on a system that simply didn’t answer their needs.

“Basically, it just didn’t give us a good accounting of our inventory in terms of dollars,” Pope said. “And that’s what we needed most.”

ENABLING STREAMLINED AND SIMPLIFIED WORKFLOWS

DeRosa Mangold Consulting, a Sage Business Partner, eventually convinced the west Texas manufacturer to try Sage 100 Manufacturing/JobOps. Manufacturing 100 is a comprehensive job management solution that delivers both operational and financial information from a single reliable source

Manufacturing 100 has helped ARS automatically estimate job costs by determining the prices of a project’s material, labor, and sub-contracted services. Even if items are not kept in inventory but need to be purchased for a specific job, their prices can be estimated without having to add them to the inventory system. With that information, ARS has been able to make the best possible pricing decisions.

By providing the critical tools needed to manage complex jobs, ARS has benefited from streamlined and simplified workflows. All financial and operational details are available from a single source.

Pope has avoided materials shortages that impact delivery schedules and controlled inventory holding costs. When a customer places an order, Manufacturing 100 analyzes the supply and demand for the materials which need to be ordered from the vendor—and when. In fact, when a part is not available, the system flags the job and the part is automatically added to a list of items that need to be ordered. Pope said he has greatly appreciated “the improvement in accuracy between inventories and the reduction of research time it takes to reconcile inventory.”

“What’s really valuable is how quickly we can provide job estimates,” Pope continued. “It’s so easy to make a piece of equipment that has the same features we sold to Customer XYZ but modify it for the needs of Customer ABC. We can make multiple versions of a piece of equipment and make minor variations to it. I can go into the system and put all the parts together, see what they cost, and then price it within minutes.”

ACCURACY OF MANUFACTURING 100 SAVES TIME AND MONEY

Manufacturing 100 continues to save Pope significant time and money. “It’s an extremely fast way to generate purchase orders and work tickets. Before, one person literally had to spend all of his time doing what Manufacturing 100 can do in seconds—identifying inventory, pricing it, estimating the total job cost, and then producing the P.O. It tells me what I need to order. It ties everything together for me in real time, giving us a really strong grasp of what a job will really cost. I think that’s a pretty valuable outcome for any company.”

Pope has also come to depend on the accuracy of Manufacturing 100. “When we conducted our last quarterly inventory report, we were within $200 of the original estimate,” he said. “I’ve heard stories in this business of inventories being off by thousands and thousands of dollars. The process improvements Manufacturing 100 helped us achieve in terms of inventory reconciliation were really significant.”