Epicor Software Corporation has announced that StatLab Medical Products, a distributor of high-quality consumables in the anatomic pathology market has selected Epicor's next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Epicor will replace StatLab's aging and home-grown systems to improve accuracy and agility throughout the production and distribution processes.
Headquartered in McKinney Texas, StatLab Medical Products has been in business for over 35 years and has grown rapidly to serve its 2,500 customers. However, their existing ERP and CRM systems were implemented when the company was much smaller and system functionality has lagged behind business growth. Now with 63 employees, StatLab's existing systems can no longer accommodate the growing number of users that access the systems. Since expansion continues to be a focus for StatLab, an ERP system that can grow with them is crucial to future success.
"We haven't had integrated ERP and CRM systems," said Cara Skowronski, director of continuous improvement for StatLab Medical Products. "And given the rapid pace of our business, we need a fully-integrated solution so everyone has consistent access to up-to-date information in the office and on the road."
StatLab was utilising multiple systems that communicated only once per day, resulting in a large amount of redundancy and rework pricing was inconsistent between CRM and ERP systems, the status of inventory wasn't real time and employees were making excessive phone calls or doing extra off-line research to provide the most accurate information to customers. "Information transparency and access to data is the number one reason we were looking to switch systems," Skowronski added.
An integrated ERP solution will not only provide employees with more timely information, it will also help with managing inventory and production. Epicor will enable StatLab to replace manual data collection through electronic means, whether by mobile device or computers on the shop floor, in addition to allowing the company to have a better idea of their "true costs" in production and distribution. For example, by implementing Epicor, StatLab hopes to give customers accurate freight estimates at the point of order entry, a great concern for many customers due to the nature of the shipment sizes. Epicor systems will be able to provide an accurate shipping quote so there are no surprises for customers on the backend.
StatLab customers value the ability to manage inventory in a "hands-off" way and often place blanket or recurring orders that are scheduled out into the future. They also need the flexibility to change the order if needed, which was consuming hours of StatLab employees' time creating manual workarounds. "Epicor will enable us to be more agile to complete those customers' needs," Skowronski said.
As part of the Epicor implementation, StatLab is planning on launching an e-commerce option, a service that the company was previously unable to provide to its customers due to limitations with existing ERP systems. "Many of our customers are asking for online ordering capability or EDI to transmit orders and we look forward to being able to provide this service," Skowronski said.
Thirty ERP vendors were contacted by consulting firm West Monroe Partners (Chicago, IL) on behalf of StatLab and Epicor was ultimately chosen for its ability to meet the StatLab's 20 key features and 280 functional requirements, in addition to the usability of the software, total cost of ownership and technical platform.
"StatLab Medical Products will benefit greatly from Epicor's ease of use and the increase in clarity, accuracy and efficiency of information that is housed in one system," said Mike Tatara, product marketing manager for Epicor. "The full integration of data collected throughout sales, customer service, logistics and production will give StatLab employees the opportunity to focus on growth objectives and serving customers' unique needs, instead of spending valuable time on sorting through outdated or inaccurate data."
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