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The Company
Based in Forest City, N.C., United Southern Industries
(USI) provides a complete range of services including
custom injection molding, gas assist, two-shot molding, over-molding,
in-mold decorating, and more.
Founded in 1970, USI has a long history of
delivering quality parts to Fortune 100 companies in the automotive, lawn
and garden, power tools, merchandise display, telecommunications, construction,
and industrial markets. The company’s manufacturing facilities meet
the highest quality standards and are ISO 9001-2000 certified with 24/7
capacity. From investments in stateof- the-art technology to investments
in employee training, USI is committed to doing business in a way that
is far from business as usual.
Return on Investment
- Eliminated monthly manual inventory counts
- Reduced inventory variances by as much as 80%
- Empowered shop-floor operators to effect lean operations
- Streamlined EDI process to save more than 10 work hours per week
- Eliminated excess data entry
Software
EnterpriseIQ™ ERP software system including: Customer Relationship
Management (CRM), Electronic Data
Interchange (EDI), RealTime Machine Monitoring, wireless Warehouse Management
System (WMS), Preventative Maintenance (PM), Payroll, Time & Attendance,
and more.
Hardware
Oracle database with
Windows-based PCs.
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EnterpriseIQ ERP & Manufacturing Software Solution
Is Cornerstone of Success for Top Molder
Plastics manufacturers in the U.S. have long faced obstacles
such as economic downturns, off-shore competition, and high material costs.
While many have closed shop over the years, United Southern Industries,
Inc. of Forest City, North Carolina has taken an unconventional
path to success. When faced with increased foreign competition, United
Southern made the strategic decision to invest in people, technology and innovation, rather
than make cutbacks to remain competitive.
That decision spurred the company to re-invent its culture, creating a
more transparent way of doing business; a way that would push lean manufacturing principles
from the top down, and empower employees at every level to drive profitability. But doing
so required United Southern to change the way it managed enterprise operations.
“Even the best lean practices can be undermined by
a lack of communication,” says Todd Bennett, president at United
Southern. “Lean success hinges on the exchange of critical business
information across all manufacturing areas, from sales and customer service
to engineering and quality control, and every point in between. Our old,
manual ERP system did not support that exchange, and so it wasn’t
a good fit with the more progressive culture we were building to compete
in the global marketplace.”
As part of its new culture, United Southern adopted an open-book
management philosophy designed to drive costs out of the manufacturing
process by teaching employees how to use financial information on the
shop floor, keeping employees focused on results, and rewarding their
successes. In the mid-nineties, the company sought to replace its manual
based and disparate ERP system with a solution that would facilitate this
new philosophy.
Automation, comprehensive functionality, ease-of-use, and
most importantly across-theboard access to accurate, relevant data were
paramount. United Southern found the perfect fit with EnterpriseIQ, the
innovative, single-source enterprise and manufacturing software solution
from IQMS.
“With our old system, no one had access to the same
data. There were pockets of information, but nothing was connected, and
what information was available was often inaccurate or had to be forced
out of the system,” says Bennett. “We looked at a lot of ERP
systems, but none were as comprehensive as the IQMS solution. When we
saw that EnterpriseIQ had everything we needed in a single-database and
from one vendor, we knew the concept was right for us.”
has received no-cost upgrades, and now operates EnterpriseIQ
using a Windows environment and wireless technology. When many ERP packages have a five year shelf life, utilizing
and growing with one system for over ten years is a significant achievement.
“IQMS understands the specific demands we face as a plastic molder
and has allowed us to build our lean culture with the confidence that our business will never outpace the technology
we’ve selected to run it,” say Bennett.
United Southern previously relied on manual data systems to manage critical
enterprise operations such as inventory and scheduling. Within the manual system, the company had no
way to track scrap, or easily access bills of material or machine data, so what happened on the shop floor
was not necessarily reflected in accounting and scheduling. Inventory was particularly stressful.
“We spent two or three days every month counting all the parts on
our floor, and another three to four weeks trying to reconcile those numbers,” says Bennett. “By the time
we finished, it was inventory time all over again and our variances could be as much as $100,000 each month.”
Managing monthly inventories against the company’s increased production
schedule became arduous, and the lack of consistent, accurate enterprise data prevented United Southern
from knowing its true cost of doing business.
“It seemed every day there were more fires to put out, and we had
no idea whether we were making money or not,” says Bennett. “There were a lot of ERP products out there
that did specific things like machine process monitoring, but we needed a central nervous system, not a single nerve.
That’s why we selected EnterpriseIQ.”
As a comprehensive, single-source ERP and Manufacturing
system, EnterpriseIQ is written, developed and supported by IQMS, with
all modules built on one database. This means the functionalities United
Southern relies on, such as Inventory Tracking, Finite Scheduling, Purchasing,
and RealTime Machine Monitoring work in unison with the same data, and
can be easily accessed and used by anyone in the company.
With EnterpriseIQ in place, United Southern has improved machine utilization,
reduced overages, improved cash flow, and tightened its production schedule. Automated cycle counts
enabled the company to eliminate the labor and frustration of monthly inventories that used to take days to
count and weeks to reconcile. Now the company conducts a single, end-of-year count at its two facilities in
only three hours time, with variances as low as $2,000 for $28 million in sales, as was the case in 2007.
“EnterpriseIQ allows us to go deep into lean manufacturing,”
explains Bennett. “Now everyone, from the shop floor to top management,
has the same real-time data at their fingertips. Not only can we see what
is happening on the shop floor as it occurs, but we can use historical
metrics to empower our employees to drive greater efficiencies and make
better decisions, which in turn drives greater profitability for us and
our customers.”
United Southern takes pride in its ability to drive out
hidden costs to benefit its customers’ bottom lines. The company
also takes pride in its unconventional approach to 24/7 customer service.
United Southern utilizes the IQMS RealTime Machine Monitoring module and wireless Warehouse Management System
to assist in driving communication at the shop floor level. IQMS was one of the first ERP companies
to introduce this leading-edge system that delivers instant information from the plant floor to any connected
device. With RealTime Machine Monitoring, United Southern has equipped its customer service representatives
with at-home access to the company’s EnterpriseIQ system.
“Whereas some molders hold customer service to weekday business hours
only, we do better,” says Bennett. “Wireless technology lets us access the IQMS system from anywhere.
Not only can I log on at anytime day or night to check production, but our customer service reps can respond to our customers
instantly with real-time accuracy.”
Another area where EnterpriseIQ has enabled United Southern to set new
standards in service is with Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). In the past, United Southern handled EDI transactions
via facsimile and required a dedicated employee to manage the manual data transfer, a process that took as much
as 10 hours a week. Any changes made caused delays and errors, and because manual input could not be performed
daily, the process was slow and the company often fell behind schedule.
Since implementing EnterpriseIQ with its EDI Translator, United Southern
has saved in labor costs, improved order accuracy, and expedited its schedule. Those benefits alone are tremendous,
but according to Bennett, there is an intangible benefit that’s even greater: “If you consider customer
service speed and accuracy a competitive advantage, then EnterpriseIQ delivers.”
With EnterpriseIQ as an integral part of its overall strategy, United
Southern is pushing beyond what is typical to deliver results that are “far from business as usual.” In fact,
according to recent trade data collected by The Society of the Plastics Industry, the company’s labor costs are seven percent
less than other molders its size, and its manufacturing costs are five percent less than the industry average.
“IQMS is a cornerstone in our culture of success,”
explains Bennett. “Because EnterpriseIQ touches every aspect of our
business and is so easy for anyone to use, it has allowed us to weave
our quality system and continuous improvement practices permanently into
the fabric of our organization. Now our shop floor operators and other
employees can see instantly how their efforts impact the bottom line,
so every one of our employees is as invested in the company’s success
as I am. We look forward to the future technology IQMS can provide because
we know it will enable us to deliver ever-greater results for our customers
for many years to come.”
While U.S.-based injection molders have closed shop over
the years, United Southern Industries, Inc. of Forest City, North Carolina has taken an unconventional path to success. Faced
with increased foreign competition brought on by the signing of NAFTA in 1994, United Southern made the strategic
decision to invest in people, technology and innovation, rather than make cutbacks to remain competitive.
That decision spurred the company, founded in 1970, to re-invent its culture to push lean manufacturing
principles from the top down, and empower employees at every level to drive profitability. To do so, United
Southern sought to replace its manual-based and disparate ERP system with a solution that offered automation,
comprehensive functionality, ease-of-use, and enterprise-wide access to accurate, relevant data. Since
selecting EnterpriseIQ in 1996 for this purpose, United Southern has pushed beyond what is typical in its
industry to deliver better value with less cost.
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