Download PDF
Sage 300 Speeds Operations at Marathon Brake Systems
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Supply Chain Visibility
Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
Marathon Brake Systems, a distributor of heavy-duty brake lining products, was in need of a modern and robust business management solution to replace its previous version of Sage PFW ERP. The company wanted better inventory control tools and an integrated customer relationship management (CRM) system. The company's sales professionals are stationed across North America, the Caribbean, and Mexico, making it crucial for the company to process orders quickly and efficiently to maintain its service levels.
About The Customer
Marathon Brake Systems is a company that distributes heavy-duty brake lining products to fleet customers, auto supply stores, and repair facilities. The company was founded in 1991 and has built a reputation for superior products backed by excellent service. With sales professionals stationed across North America, the Caribbean, and Mexico, Marathon Brake Systems’ reach is broad. The company is based in Cartersville, Georgia.
The Solution
Marathon Brake Systems chose Sage 300 as their business management solution. The flexible SQL architecture of Sage 300 enabled the company’s business partner to create specialized views and queries to deliver the precise information its staff needs. For example, a customized view was created that shows the component items associated with the assembly item, including their quantity available and committed by warehouse. This query is used to determine if the components on hand to build the ordered item. Sage 300 also provides more accurate costing data for the company's assembled items and reduces manual entry. The assembly process removes the components from inventory and replaces them with the finished item as the goods are sold. The company also implemented Sage CRM to provide their sales representatives with fast, reliable, and comprehensive access to customer, inventory, and order data.
Operational Impact
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
Remote Temperature Monitoring of Perishable Goods Saves Money
RMONI was facing temperature monitoring challenges in a cold chain business. A cold chain must be established and maintained to ensure goods have been properly refrigerated during every step of the process, making temperature monitoring a critical business function. Manual registration practice can be very costly, labor intensive and prone to mistakes.
Case Study
Hospital Inventory Management
The hospital supply chain team is responsible for ensuring that the right medical supplies are readily available to clinicians when and where needed, and to do so in the most efficient manner possible. However, many of the systems and processes in use at the cancer center for supply chain management were not best suited to support these goals. Barcoding technology, a commonly used method for inventory management of medical supplies, is labor intensive, time consuming, does not provide real-time visibility into inventory levels and can be prone to error. Consequently, the lack of accurate and real-time visibility into inventory levels across multiple supply rooms in multiple hospital facilities creates additional inefficiency in the system causing over-ordering, hoarding, and wasted supplies. Other sources of waste and cost were also identified as candidates for improvement. Existing systems and processes did not provide adequate security for high-cost inventory within the hospital, which was another driver of cost. A lack of visibility into expiration dates for supplies resulted in supplies being wasted due to past expiry dates. Storage of supplies was also a key consideration given the location of the cancer center’s facilities in a dense urban setting, where space is always at a premium. In order to address the challenges outlined above, the hospital sought a solution that would provide real-time inventory information with high levels of accuracy, reduce the level of manual effort required and enable data driven decision making to ensure that the right supplies were readily available to clinicians in the right location at the right time.