QC Manufacturing

Objective

Eliminate order processing bottlenecks and meet major home improvement retailers and wholesalers supply chain requirements through end-to-end order processing automation.

Solution

A TrueCommerce SAP Business One integration accelerates order processing and significantly improves order accuracy.

Benefits

• Automates the order processing workflow end-to-end to save time, reduce errors, and simplify ad hoc, manual tasks for business users
• Reduces order processing time to support faster shipping
• Rapid and ongoing ROI

“I identified and evaluated several EDI vendors against our requirements for compatibility with SAP and total costs, on that basis we quickly chose TrueCommerce.”

Background

Innovators in the “green energy” industry since 2003, QC Manufacturing, Inc. is committed to building the quietest and most energy-efficient whole-house fans on the market today. They manufacture their industry-leading QuietCool products at a 50,000 sq.ft. facility in Temecula, California for shipment to major retailers, wholesale distributors, and independent home improvement stores nationwide. QuietCool also sell their products online on Amazon.com and a wide range of eCommerce sites.

For the past four years, QC Manufacturing has been an Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company and has experienced over 1,000% growth. Their business is largely seasonal, with orders ramping up more than ten-fold during the busy warmer months.

According to Raph Reyes, Project Specialist and Developer, order processing was timeconsuming and largely manual prior to implementing TrueCommerce EDI.

“Before we started working with TrueCommerce, we were taking orders from many different customers in many different formats, including email, spreadsheets and various web portals,” states Mr. Reyes. “Each order had to be manually sorted out and entered into our business system, which increased the chance of errors.”

Busy seasons were especially challenging.

“During peak times it was very difficult to keep up with incoming orders, especially since the volume was growing so fast,” Mr. Reyes continues. “Mondays were the worst because we’re closed on the weekends and orders would just pile up.”

BEING MORE PREPARED FOR EXPLOSIVE GROWTH LEADS TO SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTS IN VENDOR SCORECARDS WITHOUT ADDING STAFF

Explosive growth brought a challenge. To keep from falling behind on orders, QC Manufacturing needed to hire extra help at peak times. Eventually their drop-shipping order volume grew so large that both Lowes and Home Depot mandated that they implement EDI.

After first upgrading to an SAP Business One environment, the manufacturer looked for an integrated EDI solution that could automate as much of their order processing workflow as possible.

“I identified and evaluated several EDI vendors against our requirements for compatibility with SAP and total cost,” Mr. Reyes recalls. “On that basis we quickly chose TrueCommerce.”

QC Manufacturing started its implementation in Q4 2016 and went live within a few months.

Mr. Reyes estimates that his company’s new order processing workflow saves business users up to five minutes per order. “With 100 to 150 orders per day coming in at peak times, that’s a lot of minutes,” he points out.

With order turnaround time frames now easy to meet, vendor scorecards have also improved significantly. So has the bottom line.

“Since order processing became handsoff, we haven’t had to hire any extra help for order entry in peak season,” observes Mr. Reyes.

MORE CONNECTED WITH END-TOEND WORKFLOW AUTOMATION

Thanks to a comprehensive EDI integration with SAP Business One, and leveraging the popular TrueCommerce Scheduler add-on, QC Manufacturing enjoys full EDI workflow automation—from the time the order comes in to when the shipment goes out and acknowledgements and ASNs are sent.

Mr. Reyes explains: “I configured the TrueCommerce Scheduler to pick up incoming EDI sales orders every hour and export them to SAP. At that point, the warehouse staff can view the sales orders on their handheld scanners—so they know what’s in their queue and can prioritize.”

Drop-ship programs also became more efficient.

“In the case of a drop-ship order, for example, our shipping system will automatically upload all the information into the delivery document,” says Mr. Reyes. “Four times daily, the Scheduler picks up the delivery documents, which TrueCommerce EDI ‘turns around’ to automatically create ASNs, including tracking data.”

TrueCommerce also allowed QC Manufacturing to extract additional value from its SAP system.

“When accounting opens the delivery document in SAP, they generate a corresponding invoice. The Scheduler automatically picks up invoices at the end of the day, and TrueCommerce EDI automatically sends those out to customers,” Mr. Reyes relates. “When exceptions occur, such as a missing tracking number, I get an email from the EDI system, or I can just check the EDI inbox.”

MORE SUPPORTED WITH PLATINUM LEVEL SUPPORT

Despite having no prior EDI experience and numerous additional responsibilities, Mr. Reyes has been able to singlehandedly manage his company’s EDI implementation, including setup, testing, onboarding partners, go-live, and ongoing administration.

“Initially I was concerned because I had no idea what I was doing,” Mr. Reyes relates. “I thought they’d start talking about technical things that were over my head, but that wasn’t the case at all. TrueCommerce made it very easy for me to understand what was going on— the team was just awesome. Plus, the feedback loop when I had questions was very fast.”

Business continued to grow rapidly, and QC Manufacturing decided to make an additional strategic investment by signing up for TrueCommerce Platinum Support.

“I subscribed to the Platinum Support level at the start of 2018 because I needed to onboard a couple of key wholesale partners,” Mr. Reyes adds. “That’s been very beneficial because my contact knows exactly how our EDI system is setup, understands our business model and is familiar with our issues.”

RAPID, SUSTAINED ROI

Mr. Reyes calculates that QC Manufacturing’s EDI investment paid for itself within about eighteen months through reduced time and staff costs, even as sales continued to grow at their greatest rate in the past two years.

“EDI is very convenient and basically hands-off for the business users, which was our goal when we implemented it,” emphasizes Mr. Reyes. “I would definitely recommend TrueCommerce EDI to other businesses like ours.”

Raph Reyes
Project Specialist and Developer
QC Manufacturing