Concise Industries

"With a multi-location operation like Concise Industries, Global Shop ERP is invaluable."

Brian Rieble, Vice President, Concise Industries

It’s hard to imagine a more diverse manufacturing operation than Concise Industries. From their headquarters just outside of Chicago in Elk Grove Village, Concise management oversees the precision metal fabrication of products for a wide array of industries ranging from medical, construction equipment, telecommunications, health & fitness, elevator, alternate energy, and contract manufacturing. Furthermore, this oversight extends all the way from the scenic shores of Lake Michigan to the sandy Sonoran desert city of Nogales along the northern Mexico border. Pulling this mix of product line and geographic space together commands an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software system that is flexible, robust, and affordable. In Global Shop Solutions, Concise has found that rare blend of manufacturing software functionality and low cost of ownership.

"In looking for an ERP system, cost effectiveness was a primary consideration," states Concise Vice President Brian Rieble. In 2004 Concise looked at just about every ERP solution available—from the most expensive branded packages to those at the bottom of the cost chain—and they decided that Global Shop was the best fit for them in terms of investment and power. What Concise needed the most was an ERP software system that could grow: one that was flexible enough to meet their needs in the present, while also being capable of expanding with them as their business volume increased. "We were on a very old system back in 2004, and it was about time to move on and move up. We looked at quite a few systems, did some site visits with companies using the programs, and Global Shop looked very good to us. The data entry for the guys on the shop floor, the elimination of time cards, cost accounting, and so forth—there were simply many more features with Global Shop than with their competitors."

When a company like Concise has a vision of where they are and where they want to go, having the right tools to complete the journey is vital for success. For Concise, this vision required the move to a "one-stop" manufacturing operation for their customers, a move that would increase their capabilities in prototyping, production, assembly, and just-in-time shipping. This meant that Concise needed a way for all divisions of their operation to use common, real-time data for sales, production, and administration, and to do so across two time zones, two languages, and 2,000 miles. According to Rieble, the moment they saw Global Shop's depth and wide-ranging capabilities, their choice was made. "In terms of value and capability, there was really no comparison in our search for an ERP system," he points out. "Global Shop had all we needed in an ERP software solution, but without the enormous IT support cost that the larger software providers were quoting us."

"All of the features of the major ERP systems are in our Global Shop system. We have been able to make the changes necessary in the programs to fit our own manufacturing environment," observes Alan Cartwright, CFO of Concise Industries. It is this abundance of capabilities that is at the heart of Global Shop’s appeal for small- to medium-sized job shops, make-to-order, and other types of manufacturers. Whether it’s Auto Purchasing, Auto Work Order, Supply and Demand, Business Intelligence, or any number of other modules, the features of Global Shop ERP are what you would expect in an ERP package costing thousands more.

"The Scheduling EDI Module has been fantastic," adds Rieble. "That populates right away. We don’t need somebody in the office full-time typing in delivery dates by hand, and when a date is changed, we can get it out through the entire system right away. With the Global Shop EDI, we are interfacing directly with some of our customers, and this is a tremendous help in both customer service and on-time delivery. We definitely have more grasp of what’s coming out of our company in terms of on-time delivery. We just go into the system, download the data, and it works out great. Our Global Shop system really keeps some of our bigger customers very happy with us."

Concise is a manufacturer that specializes in robotic and lean manufacturing processes. When you rely on this level of automation in your operation, it is crucial that the software supporting it can move with equal speed and efficiency. Global Shop offers Concise the ERP tools in which bottlenecks are reduced, throughput maximized, and on-time delivery enhanced.

As Rieble observes, "We especially like the way the data entry correlates so easily and quickly with the data control and data processing, as well as our ability for getting real-time information. Really, to be able to see what’s going on out in the shop at all times is a huge plus for us." With Concise’s operations in Chicago, Tucson and Nogales, the flexibility of Global Shop becomes a tremendous benefit in terms of communication. While globalization in manufacturing is an economic reality, this doesn't mean that your production operations must be spread across oceans to compete in the global market. For Concise, this simply meant creating direct access to markets in the Southern Hemisphere.

"Our Tucson plant is on the Global Shop system with us here in Chicago and they are also linked with our sister operation in Mexico—it’s all done through Global Shop," Rieble explains. "In this regard, Global Shop is great for a multi-plant system like ours. As a matter of fact, one of the drivers for choosing Global Shop was the built-in Translator. With the links and various options in the system, it has been as smooth as silk. We’re all looking at each other in real-time, with the same real-time data. And, with each separate facility in our company using basically the same vendor base, this sort of communication is extremely valuable to us."

For a small to medium-size manufacturer, expectations of quality service are a given and something that makes their own lives in operations that much easier. Since Global Shop is family-owned for over 30 years, their customers experience very personal, top-level service before, during, and after implementation. Time and again, Global Shop exceeds customer expectations for quality support that bigger companies simply cannot match. Cartwright agrees, "From the start, we’ve appreciated the fact that they are a family-owned and operated company, and this has helped us tremendously in implementation. The couple of times we’ve had problems, we’ve been able to call them and within an hour the problems were solved."

Ultimately, it is the attention to details in the software that sets Global Shop apart from other ERP providers. As their relationship with Global Shop continues, the employees at Concise are constantly discovering new ways of using the robust software. "We are now moving to incorporate more aspects of the Global Shop system, to dig down deeper into the functions that are useful to us," Rieble observes. "The Advanced Production Scheduling module is obviously very powerful—one of the most powerful I’ve seen, and often much more powerful than ERP software systems costing three, four, five times more than Global Shop. The software has also been helpful in making us more aware of where our direct and indirect costs are and it gives us a sense of how better to control these. Once the job comes out, we immediately run reports—the Labor Reports, the Balancing Reports—we’re able to see right away if that job was profitable for us, how profitable it was (or wasn’t), and if any adjustments in quoting need to be made in the future. In short, we’re always looking in the Global Shop Estimate vs. Actual Report to get a complete picture of how well we came out of a job."

In the end, for a company such as Concise, Global Shop’s built-in flexibility to grow with the company is the greatest value provided by the software. Generally, the ability and foresight to expand to meet future emerging needs is a desired capability to have in an ERP system. Global Shop is designed to be a stable ERP foundation upon which a manufacturer builds efficiencies into their present operations, while also being a flexible enough system to allow growth in meeting future, often unforeseen, needs.

For Rieble, "Two of the top things that we see as great advantages for a company like ours in acquiring Global Shop are the consistently problem-free functions it has, and the initial investment for jumping into it. Global Shop allows a small to medium-sized company to be able to put in a great ERP system without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars." Value, efficiency, and expanded expectations—for Concise and hundreds of companies just like it, these are the hallmarks of Global Shop’s ERP software solution.