Epicor Helps LH Industrial Supplies Move to the Cloud and Maximize Efficiency

LH Industrial Supplies is headquartered in Lafayette, Indiana, and known for being a general MRO supplier and industrial supply house.

Founded in 1978, the company offers products from hand tools to hydraulic hoses. They are known for being a fixture in their community since they exclusively serve their surrounding county.

Upgrading their tech

Recently, LH Industrial Supplies realized that they needed their company to remain relevant in the technological landscape. They were facing off against big box giants like Amazon and were struggling. Eventually, their president, Kregg Cheek, realized that they needed a technological partner to get their company into the cloud. That’s when they found Epicor software.

LH Industrial Supplies has been working with Epicor since 1991. “Back then, it was a 4C box,” Kregg said. “We’ve been on the current Prophet 21 system for four years now. And we upgraded to the Azure public cloud this past year.”

Kregg didn’t want to deal with maintaining the servers or infrastructure of his site. He knew how much it cost to buy his own company server—and how much work it would take to maintain it—so going to the cloud was a no brainer.

“It made a heck of a lot more sense for me not to have to worry about maintaining all that equipment and everything on my end,” Kregg said. “I like being able to log into my systems anywhere I want to—whether we work at home, on the road, or on vacation.”

Increasing efficiency

After integrating into the cloud, LH Industrial Supplies processes orders much more quickly. This is largely due to being able to access their data—like their entire inventory—in real-time. As a result, their team can effectively manage sales wherever they are.

In addition, the company has had their sales go up a few percentage points after getting on the cloud. They even have a couple less employees—and are still able to efficiently process orders. To put in exact terms, there has been a 3% increase in revenue and overall productivity.

“We’re more efficient in our warehouse than we’ve ever been before,” Kregg said.

Competing in the marketplace

The rapid evolution of technology can make it difficult for small distributors to keep up with competitive business needs. Thankfully, being an early adopter of the cloud has been a great way for LH Industrial Supplies to stay competitive.

“As a small company, having a top-notch software program helps us compete with the bigger companies in the marketplace,” said Kregg. “Moving to the cloud with software takes away the cost and burden of maintaining our server and allows us to fully focus on the business. We’re now able to access the system anywhere—allowing us to be more productive.”