- Reduces the number of base products to maintain
- Speeds up the order creation process with rapidly selected product options and variations
- New products are brought to market faster
- Streamlined BOM generation process with accelerated, dynamic BOM drill down
- Improves user adoption by integrating all systems
Challenge
Kwik Lok was in the midst of a business transformation with new leadership, new business requirements, and new federal food safety laws being mandated. As a result, a more robust business software system was needed that could provide standardization across all of their manufacturing plants.
Kwik Lok began implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV as their core ERP system, and quickly realized how complex their Item catalog was and the potential of needing to include hundreds of thousands of possible combinations. This would make the system unwieldy for both the sales staff to use and for the IT department to maintain. It would also present a significant hinderance to any future planned e-commerce initiatives that would enable customers place orders online.
“All of this would lead to a very complex item catalog and difficulty for customer service in selecting all the correct options for the customer. We needed a simpler solution and user interface.”
“We were faced with either building hundreds of thousands of items with only small variations in the catalog, or building just a few hundred generic (or base) items and then using a configurator to build out the details specific to the order.”
Each Lok produced can come in a variety of shapes, thicknesses, sizes, colors, and opening dimensions. Kwik Lok’s bag closing machines are produced in automatic, semi-automatic, and manual versions with different parts or modules to accommodate the various Lok designs.
The equipment can also be configured with several models of printers, different electrical systems, and designs that attach to various industry conveyor systems.
Hundreds of thousands of possible combinations threatened to make the item catalog difficult for both users and IT to manage.
Users needed a simpler way to select all of the correct product options for each customer.
Configured orders needed to carry the correct product details into manufacturing.
The catalog structure also needed to support future customer-facing online ordering initiatives.
Solution
Microsoft Dynamics NAV satisfied most of the core ERP functions Kwik Lok was looking for, including the ability to have greater transparency and enhanced reporting of accounting transactions, order processing, product manufacturing, and general productivity metrics.
However it could not accommodate all the custom quote and order logic needed with so much variation in their product catalog.
“Experlogix CPQ blew away the other two competitors during the demos. Additionally, our IT Staff, who would be tasked with maintaining the system, felt that they could do much more with Experlogix categories, rules, formulas, and many other product features compared to what the other vendors were offering.”
Kwik Lok could maintain a smaller set of generic products while configuration logic defined the variations required for each order.
Categories, rules and formulas capture product logic instead of forcing salespeople to search through a massive item catalog.
Configured product information supports a streamlined BOM-generation process for manufacturing.
After the framework and training were completed, Kwik Lok's IT staff could finish building the detailed categories and logic internally.
Experlogix worked with Kwik Lok over a two-week period to build proofs of concept, establish the configurator framework, and train the internal IT team. Kwik Lok then completed the detailed categories and configuration logic internally.
“They responded immediately to our request and worked with us over a two week period to rapidly build out proof of concepts, start building the framework for our configurator, and get us trained at the same time.”
“Once the framework was in place and our IT staff was trained, we were able finish building out the detailed categories and logic on our own, and make it a fully functional system.”
Result
Since going live, Kwik Lok has seen significant time savings in several areas of the business with the combined Experlogix CPQ and Dynamics NAV system.
“Today, our sales people are able to quickly and accurately configure the needed options for our customer orders rather than searching through a large catalog with items that are very similar with only small variations. We’re now able to respond faster to customer demand, and ensure the configured products can be manufactured exactly as they were sold.”
Kwik Lok also saves time in ongoing item-catalog maintenance by only needing to maintain a few hundred generic base items.
As new product options or variations are added, the company can add new logic in the Experlogix CPQ Design Center instead of maintaining thousands of individual items in the Dynamics NAV catalog.
Adding new options or product variations can be done very quickly, allowing Kwik Lok to roll out new products faster.
Salespeople can select the needed customer options without searching through large groups of nearly identical catalog items.
Kwik Lok maintains a few hundred generic base items rather than thousands of individual variants.
New options and product variations can be introduced by extending configuration logic rather than building large numbers of new catalog items.
Configured orders support a streamlined BOM-generation process for manufacturing.
Sales can respond faster to customer demand through guided selection of the required options.
Kwik Lok can help ensure configured products can be manufactured exactly as they were sold.
“Experlogix CPQ blew away the other two competitors during the demos. And we were immediately impressed at the professionalism of the Experlogix team members and the flexibility that Experlogix CPQ offered.”
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