G.L. Huyett

Fastener Company Sets Itself Apart With Prophet 21

G.L. Huyett is a Minneapolis, Kansas-based manufacturer and distributor of non-threaded fasteners and specialty components serving the industrial fastener, industrial mill supply, power transmission, and hardware channels. Major industries include capital goods manufacturers, agricultural equipment, outdoor power equipment and power train manufacturers, and some automotive. With 135 employees currently, the firm was founded in 1899 and incorporated in 1906. About one-third of sales are manufactured; one-third are globally sourced; and one-third are distributed for other U.S. makers.
The company has been using Prophet 21® enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution since 2007. According to Scott Longfellow, Vice President – Operations and Finance,“We selected the Prophet 21 system because it was the most aligned to the requirements of our high-volume fastener distribution business. We carry more than 150,000 SKUs. At present, 30 percent of our sales come from e-commerce, and that statistic is growing.”

Creating a competitive advantage

According to Longfellow, “The open architecture and development tools of Prophet 21 have helped our company create features that set us apart:

• We created the “The Pack List that Will Change your Life™”— meaning, it has changed our customers’ lives. Over and over, our direct sales team receives kudos for our pack list, because the features we included save customers time receiving our products.
• We leveraged the Prophet 21 application programming interface (API) to automate order entry, so customers can submit XML or CSV documents and completely bypass the complexity and expense of Electronic Data Interchange.
• We introduced Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at the department and company levels, which are posted on public monitors throughout our operations.
• We leveraged the Prophet 21 pricing library structure to institute complex tiered pricing for more than 150,000 SKUs.
• We created custom GS-1 labels that allow us to ship product to high-volume customers with complex and strict labeling requirements.”

Quantitative results

G.L. Huyett has also seen significant cost savings and other measurable benefits from its Prophet 21 implementation. Explains Longfellow, “We were able to reduce headcount on our customer service team, by eliminating time wasted in managing quotes on paper. Epicor DynaChange® Designer gave us the flexibility to create fields to assign actions for customer quotations, and we created Quote Aging portals to manage the follow-up. The portals ensure we complete work in the right order. As a result, we can return quotes faster, and our close rate and sales are up. We can see this clearly in our Quote Follow-up and Closing Ratio reporting.” The paperless quotation environment also allows the sales team to manage prints for custom parts and certifications very efficiently.

In addition, the company used a combination of Prophet 21 replenishment tools, along with effective inventory management consulting and tools, to help reduce inventory by 20 percent, improve turns by 30 percent, and increase service levels to 98 percent.

Conclusion
Longfellow notes, “Epicor understands that distributors need a full-featured ERP that is flexible enough to suit their needs, along with powerful development tools that allow them to expand capabilities and set themselves apart from the competition.”

He concludes, “Prophet 21 is good value, and Epicor is committed to continuously improving it. There are no other close competitors that offer an ERP well suited for our high-volume small parts distribution.”