Fast-growing businesses face a challenge. On the one hand, they need a solid operational foundation for continued growth. On the other hand, they need flexibility and a system that adapts with them. Texas-based Austin Cutlery & Tool solved this challenge with SAP Cloud ERP.
The company unites three separate food service tool brands, Cangshan Cutlery, New Star Foodservice, and Artaste. To drive expansion and both support and integrate these brands under a single manufacturing and sales platform, Austin Cutlery & Tool turned to SAP Cloud ERP.
“The easy access and the integration of new and emerging technologies really sold us on SAP,” says Ryan Loofs, engineering lead at the company. “SAP’s forward-thinking approach to technology aligns with where we want to be as a business.”
There are several ways that Austin Cutlery & Tool uses SAP Cloud ERP to support their collection of growing businesses.
Things have changed fast for Austin Cutlery & Tool as it has grown. SAP Cloud ERP has allowed the business to bring on new capabilities as they are needed without big IT projects or operational slowdowns.
SAP Cloud ERP is built from the ground up as a modular solution that makes it possible to natively hook in just about any application, cloud service, or functionality needed by using the SAP Business Technology Platform. Where there is a need, Austin can quickly and easily extend the system without operational disruption.
Austin Cutlery & Tool operates several distinct manufacturing and sales locations across its brands, some located outside the US. With SAP Cloud ERP, Austin connects these operations through a single business platform.
SAP Cloud ERP can easily integrate multi-site operations and connect with third-party systems, which has been perfect for the company’s diverse operational footprint.
The end-to-end, real-time visibility built into SAP Cloud ERP has been a huge operational advantage for Austin Cutlery & Tool as it grows. For one of its brands, Cangshan Cutlery, the full visibility improved inventory accuracy from 76 percent to 98.5 percent.
“The data accessibility and ability to move through it quickly is really unlike anything I'd seen in an ERP system before,” notes Loofs.
Visibility and operational efficiency have improved dramatically overall, not just with warehousing. Key metrics such as customer returns are now available in real time instead of taking a day to compile. Troubleshooting manual orders from small customers now happens in minutes, not hours or days.
Austin Cutlery & Tool has seasonal spikes in orders across its collection of brands. With SAP Cloud ERP, the company can scale up order volumes and expand capacity as needed without bottlenecks.
“The holiday season is big for us,” says Loofs. “This year we shipped upwards of 1500 parcels per day, up from 600 to 800 before. I’m confident we could ship substantially more, too, which speaks to the scalability [of SAP Cloud ERP].”
One of the reasons that the company chose SAP Cloud ERP was that it could get deep industry-specific functionality such as extended warehouse management without having to use a bloated, more expensive system.
Because SAP Cloud ERP is a future-proof solution that can scale or connect with anything, Austin Cutlery & Tool goes deep on the functionality it needs but only where that added complexity is required. Everywhere else, it can keep things simple.
Austin Cutlery & Tool has used SAP Cloud ERP to make business processes more efficient. This is key for the company as it grows and expands from a small startup to a larger organization.
“We wanted world-class operational best practices instead of lots of customization so we weren’t fighting against the system and pushing problems down the road,” explains Kevin Langford, operational project manager at the company. “We really needed a partner who could come in and tell us that what we were proposing was not a best practice.”
While SAP Cloud ERP allows a business to customize and configure workflows to meet unique needs, it also guides a growing business toward industry-standard best practices by default. This not only enables faster system implementation, but it also standardizes a growing company’s processes around best practices.
Both smaller fast-growing businesses and large enterprises use SAP Cloud ERP as a flexible, scalable backend solution for running operations now and as things evolve. How will SAP Cloud ERP help your business grow?
This isn’t your father’s ERP. Learn more about SAP Cloud ERP and what it has to offer, or contact one of our experienced ERP consultants for a demo and answers to your specific questions.
You can reach us by calling (801) 642-0123 or by writing info@nbs-us.com.