Over the past 85 years, family-owned Star Lumber & Supply Co. has become a noteworthy Kansas corporation. Three divisions across 11 sites employ more than 400 employees and provide high-quality products and services to customers throughout Kansas and Oklahoma. The award-winning company is a trusted supplier of cabinets, countertops, doors, windows, decking, fencing, flooring, and more to contractors and homeowners.
Epicor BisTrack is an industry leader in functionality, scope, enhancements and rapid development. The entire Epicor team is professional—their attitude, work ethic and industry knowledge are remarkable. Epicor is head and shoulders above every other software vendor we looked at.
In keeping with the company’s focus on harnessing technology to drive efficiency and add value to customers, Star Lumber replaced a home-grown ERP system with Epicor BisTrack in 2017. Patrick Goebel, President at Star Lumber, shared, “Epicor BisTrack is an industry leader in functionality, scope, enhancements, and rapid development. The entire Epicor team is professional—their attitude, work ethic, and industry knowledge are remarkable. Epicor is head and shoulders above every other software vendor we looked at.”
The conversion was seamless with expert-led implementation. Commercial Sales Manager at Star Lumber, Eric Chippeaux, recalled, “The Epicor team is the reason we had a smooth rollout. It was amazing what they knew about the building materials business.”
An immediate benefit was a dramatic increase in the sales team's productivity: before, converting window quotes used to take close to two hours. With Epicor BisTrack, it takes three to four minutes. It also reduced errors by eliminating the need to re-key information. “Epicor BisTrack delivers significant time savings,” Chippeaux noted. “Our salespeople now have four to five extra hours in the day to find new customers and grow the business—and we capture costs more efficiently, too.”
Star Lumber continuously extracts greater value from the Epicor solution by adopting a broader span of functionality and making the data work harder.
For example, Epicor BisTrack business intelligence helps to provide crucial data to make educated decisions about staffing, capital purchases, and improved delivery operations. Chippeaux explained, “With up-to-the-minute delivery data, we can see where our trucks are, which part of the stop they’re on, how long the truck is idle, and if the driver speeds.”
Matt Goebel, Business Systems Analyst at Star Lumber, imparted, “We added a map to show every delivery point. This visual better informs logistics decisions to drive efficiencies to enhance customer satisfaction.” Chippeaux added, “Outside sales can also use the data to identify where to concentrate their efforts.”
Epicor BisTrack Delivery helps to enable drivers to tell the delivery story through pictures, including job address, materials delivered, and where they were left. Chippeaux recollected, “During the first week of running Epicor BisTrack, a customer called to say we hadn’t delivered the product. In the past, we’d have to call the driver, who may or may not answer the phone. Now, we have that information, including a delivery picture, at the click of a button and can respond to the customer immediately.”
Star Lumber also substantially streamlined the ordering process by creating an ordering application that allows order entry in the field. “The app is integrated with Epicor BisTrack and has eradicated errors caused by re-entering order information. That’s a big deal,” Chippeaux commented.
While still in its infancy, the new process promises significant time savings. “We’ve done about 20 orders a week so far, and that equates to four or five hours saved,” Goebel clarified. “It also makes orders instantly visible, so dispatch has an extra hour or two to get it pulled and delivered. It’s a major customer service boost.”
When Star Lumber deployed Epicor BisTrack, management explored Epicor Warehouse Management (WMS) but didn’t have the right people to support that change. Goebel admitted, “We always strove for accurate inventory, but it was challenging. Our sales team didn’t trust our counts and that meant we often held higher-than-required inventory levels.” After a particularly frustrating search for a misplaced product, Chippeaux knew it was time for action.
In March 2021, Star Lumber implemented WMS. While it was challenging to get everyone on board with the migration, “Epicor WMS is worth every second we invest in it because it makes everyone so much more efficient,” Goebel emphasized. Today, Star Lumber sales reps no longer drive out to the yard to check inventory; they simply trust what Epicor WMS tells them.
The month we implemented Epicor WMS was our biggest month ever, and we had 40 months in a row of new sales records. That would have been impossible without Epicor WMS right-sizing our inventory and Epicor BisTrack optimizing our operations.
“The month we implemented Epicor WMS was our biggest month ever, and we had 40 months in a row of new sales records,” Chippeaux recalled. “That would have been impossible without Epicor WMS right-sizing our inventory and Epicor BisTrack optimizing our operations.”
Annual inventory takes one-fourth of the time it used to, and we do it with four people rather than 12 to 15. The confidence of knowing how accurate it is feels great.
Another benefit of WMS has been the virtual elimination of overtime, from periods of 18% to 20% overtime to just 6%. Chippeaux disclosed, “Our yard guys often worked till 8:00 p.m. pulling deliveries. Now they go home at 5:00 p.m. every day because they only pull what’s needed for the next day.”
Daily cycle counts, without the need to freeze inventory, have been another crucial improvement. Epicor WMS also pruned the resources required for annual inventory. “Annual inventory takes one-fourth of the time it used to, and we do it with four people rather than 12 to 15,” Goebel highlighted. “The confidence of knowing how accurate it is feels great.”
Additionally, the operations team has become 100% paperless. “In operations, we had printers at every picking and pulling station; all those have been eliminated, as well as all the paper we’ve cut out,” Chippeaux said.
Each Star Lumber department has dashboards with sales history, open orders and open POs. Instead of searching through every single order to find information, teams can open the applicable dashboard, enabling them to share information with customers faster.
“User-defined fields, smart clicks, and smart views enable mid-level managers to get data out of the system easily,” Chippeaux elaborated. “It’s one thing to get the big picture, but it’s another to get operational information to decision-makers faster. Epicor BisTrack accelerates giving people the information they need at the right time.”
In the relentless pursuit of improving the business and enhancing the customer experience, the Star Lumber team is already deep into the planning of the following initiatives, including exploring the expansion of Epicor WMS to other sites and a credit note project. Chippeaux described, “Customers will be able to attach a picture to the credit note and drivers will scan a QR code to see exactly what they are supposed to pick up and where it is. This will eliminate multiple trips to pick up returns, tremendously enhancing efficiency and customer service.”
Star Lumber is also in the process of defining new metrics for each operational team, such as on-time and in-full delivery and productivity targets. “We are hyper-focused on understanding if we are meeting or exceeding customers’ expectations,” Chippeaux remarked. “To do that, we need to be able to measure and track improvements. Epicor enables us to do that easily.”
He continued, “Epicor has been an excellent investment that continually improves how we do business.”