CRS Electronics

Since 1996, CRS Electronics has been a leader in the research and development of innovative LED product solutions. In addition to cutting edge R&D, exemplified by numerous patents, CRS Electronics maintains its own state-of-the-art manufacturing facility located in North America to design and manufacture LED products for major customers, as well as its own product brands. CRS Electronics delivers optimal LED solutions for a number of interior and exterior architectural lighting applications.

CRS Electronics Improves Supply Chain and Operational Controls with Epicor

Extremely fast growth and rising sales opportunities with national commercial distributors put pressure on their systems. New supply chain systems were required to manage their international supply requirements and to handle the challenges of long lead times and forecast planning. CRS Electronics also needed to meet the financial requirements and controls of being a publicly traded entity. Realizing that the company had outgrown its legacy software-a financially-centric software package from Sage-the management team began evaluating options to address their growth needs. Given the growth needs and the business timing of the move to a new system, CRS Electronics desired a fast implementation of 60 days.

The strategy

After evaluating its vendor options, CRS Electronics decided to take a closer look at the next-generation Epicor enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution and teamed up with Epicor local partner Six S Partners for an in-depth review. Epicor was the only vendor who could address all scenarios and meet CRS Electronics' unique requirements, as well as meet the company's implementation timeline.

Together with a tailored "quick start" implementation strategy, CRS Electronics was able to go live and get up and running on the core finance and supply chain aspects of the system allowing them to meet the demands of their distribution and commercial client base. Following the Epicor best practices methodology for implementation carried out by Six S Partners, CRS Electronics is better enabled to increase and streamline its operational effectiveness in meeting the day-to-day challenges and replace the individual spreadsheets and islands of information that were not previously integrated, shared effectively, or properly controlled.

"Six S Partners was great at helping us understand the software and the best practices to meet our needs without limiting the flexibility for the future," says Justin Koetsier, director of IT, CRS Electronics. "The quick start program and knowledgeable consultants from Six S Partners guided our project to get us up and running effectively."

Six S Partners takes a unique approach to the implementation that puts the customer in control of the amount of functionality that they wish to employ along with the time, budget, and scope elements. By managing the project with its lean tools and leveraging the Epicor Signature Implementation Methodology, the customer's assessment becomes the blue print for the project success. By forging a strong partnership with its clients and ensuring clear expectations, the Six S Partners team is able to meet and exceed customer expectations within the budget and scope that was agreed upon.

"Every customer's requirements are unique. For CRS Electronics, they were interested in a platform for growth-so getting results early was key," says John Preiditsch, president and founder, Six S Partners. "Today, they are expanding and opening new markets and launching new products. By extending a systematic approach to the use of Epicor, we have already helped CRS Electronics realize the benefits of a standard package and best practices where most firms would have gone through the trials of manual or custom tools that would eventually need to be brought back in line with the organizational objectives and systems. Six S Partners has learned that regardless of customer size, sticking to the proven implementation process allows us to remain within scope and on budget."

Key functional areas

All departments play a vested role in the information they put in the system. Epicor was instrumental in establishing a close connection between all business units inside CRS Electronics, from sales and finance to production and shipping. In addition to better collaboration, built-in functionality provides opportunities for continuous improvements and efficiencies across the entire
organization, including forecasting, purchasing, bill of materials, job travelers, and a comprehensive MRP system.

From an IT standpoint, Epicor is an intuitive and easy-to-use system. User-specific dashboards are easy to configure which in practice means employees from different divisions, including finance, sales, shipping, purchasing and engineering, have access to information that is relevant to their job needs. "New modules can be applied as we need them and information stays behind a wall until we're ready for it. We're able to easily create dashboards to tailor information for the entire company so each department has the right information for their day-to-day work," says Koetsier.