24 WESTERN PALLET
demand for access to real time information,” observed Phil Varley, President of Pallet Connect, one leading ERP system providers to the pallet industry. “ it’s becoming more of a necessity.”
That sentiment was echoed by Chaille Brindley, publisher of Pallet Enterprise Magazine, in a recent Western Pallet Association webinar. “If you don’t have a good data solution for your business, if you don’t have a good ERP, you don’t have ability to provide the right information to customers,” he said. “That’s going to be an issue.”
2 Non-value added duplicate data
entry, entry error, and
spreadsheets
“It’s strange to see an industry as big as the pallet industry still using Excel, paper and QuickBooks to run its operations,” Varley said, “especially the smaller and mid-sized companies of less than 100 employees.” Because information is only entered once into an ERP system, duplicate processes and the potential for transcription errors are eliminated.
The use of an ERP system offers businesses the opportunity to eliminate non-value-added duplicate data entry, entry error, and the use of spreadsheets, observed Rob Zesch, CEO of Helioz Technologies, the maker of Pallet Insights. This can save time, reduce the risk of errors, and improve the accuracy and reliability of the data, enabling businesses to make more informed decisions and respond quickly to changing market conditions.
“The Production Module in Pallet Insights is a great example of avoiding duplicate data entry,” Zesch said. “In Pallet Insights, if the production data is entered manually, duplicate entries are not saved in the database due to user’s permissions and Insights’ policies. If the production data is pulled from another system (PLC data integration), only unique values are stored in the database and shown to the user which result in better process optimization and reducing costs.
3 Any pallet company can move to
an ERP system
“Pallet Connect has clients with hundreds of employees and also smaller clients with less than 10 employees,” Varley explained. “I would say the negative long term impact is what pallet companies need to consider by not installing an ERP system. Its no longer a nice to have but more of a necessity , especially if they want to complete with the big national players.” He stresses that no company is too small. In the case of Pallet Connect, pricing is based on a sliding scale depending on the number of users.
“In our opinion, an ERP makes sense for every company, especially for those with a vision to grow,” added Grinwis. “In fact, we like to say, “Everybody needs PalMate.” For such growth oriented companies, it makes sense to take advantage of best practices and strategies to get to where you want to be, and the earlier you start, the more ingrained the ERP will be in your business psyche as you scale.
“In fact, with PalMate being a fully scalable solution, we find that the most successful companies start with implementing basic functionality and as their businesses grow and become more complex, our system has the tools that can scale with them and handle that additional complexity. The trick for any company is to move at a pace that balances the organization’s ability to manage change and its ability to successfully maintain regular operations.”