AMSAFE

The Challenge:

HEAVILY CUSTOMIZED LEGACY ERP LIMITS AMSAFE’S ABILITY TO SCALE AND ADAPT

Gaining a competitive edge in manufacturing is difficult in its own right, requiring dedication, innovation and the ability to deliver reliable results. But maintaining that edge demands even more; the agility to adapt, the foresight to evolve and the systems to support growth without disruption. For AmSafe, staying ahead meant ensuring its operations could meet evolving consumer demand and shifting market dynamics. 

“Being that we’re already the global leader in passenger restraints, it’s all about protecting market share,” explained Kevin Davis, Vice President of Finance at AmSafe. “Making sure that when our customers need us and they call on us, we can respond to the call… and making sure that we have an ERP system that supports that and supports our visibility of everything from inventory to orders to getting it shipped.”

QAD ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) helped AmSafe establish itself as a global leader in the industry but, as technology and customer needs changed, the company recognized that its legacy system could no longer keep up. The challenge, however, was that customizations once required to facilitate growth were now limiting its ability to scale and adapt. 

“All the customizations really prevented us from upgrading over time and kept us from moving forward with a newer version sooner,” stated Davis.

To stay ahead, and maintain its ability to deliver a superior customer experience, AmSafe needed to upgrade to QAD Adaptive ERP, but wanted to ensure the new solution met its unique needs. “The thought process with the new environment was, we wanted to be as out-of-the-box as possible while still maintaining the efficiency that we had with a fully customized version,” shared Davis. 

About the Partner:

ROUNDVIEW TECHNOLOGIES

Roundview Technologies, part of the QAD Partner Network, is a professional IT consulting firm that specializes in QAD related services, including upgrade / implementations, QAD integration services, Boomi, QXtend, advanced configuration in QAD ERP (including Enterprise Platform), EAM, EDI/eCommerce and EQMS. 

Since its establishment in 2010, Roundview has earned a reputation for delivering world-class services for QAD customers. Founder Gary Yang is regarded as one of the most respected technical architects in the North American QAD Market.

“Roundview came in as business partners to truly help us succeed. They helped get us across the finish line,” observed Davis.

For its outstanding contribution to the project, Roundview was recognized with the Rapid Achiever Award at the 2024 LEAP Awards. This award recognizes exceptionally agile and effective implementations of QAD solutions.

The Solution:

AMSAFE TAPS QAD PARTNER TO MOVE TO QAD ADAPTIVE ERP QUICKLY AND SEAMLESSLY

AmSafe’s upgrade from a legacy QAD ERP version to QAD Adaptive ERP with Adaptive UX was a complex project with a tight timeline; the meeting of which required achieving the perfect balance between reducing customizations and maintaining operational efficiency. 

The company set an October 2023 deadline for the go-live event and wasn’t going to budge on it. Davis explains: “The deadline was my commitment to the organization and we understood the challenge that we were given. We took that challenge on and we were not going to allow roadblocks, barriers or additional challenges, other than a tight schedule to prevent us from staying on task and staying on schedule.”

Three months before the deadline, AmSafe partnered with Roundview Technologies for support and guidance, relying on their extensive QAD solution expertise to streamline the process and ensure a seamless upgrade experience.

The ability to execute in this fixed time frame is in stark contrast to the well documented industry struggles when implementing technology from the larger ERP concerns. The combination of QAD’s off-the-shelf capability and the effectiveness of Roundview Technologies provided for this significant accomplishment.

“The Roundview team was critical in helping ensure that was feasible,” continued Davis. Roundview’s experts worked with AmSafe to prioritize critical tasks needed for the go-live event, helped fill gaps during the data conversion process with QAD's low-code/no-code platform and ensured the company used programming or upgrade options that would facilitate future enhancements. The team also helped AmSafe approach customizations strategically, ensuring that modifications would no longer be a barrier to adaptability or flexibility. 

“Roundview did a phenomenal job of truly being a business partner with us. Gary and his team really engaged with our business, worked on-site to understand our processes and then made sure we had the tools to move forward,” said Davis. “Gary gave me all the confidence in the world that they could do it and delivered on what he said.”

The Benefits:

QAD ADAPTIVE ERP EMPOWERS AMSAFE TO INCREASE EFFICIENCY AND REDUCE COSTS

With QAD and Roundview’s support, AmSafe achieved its go-live deadline and QAD Adaptive ERP with Adaptive UX immediately began delivering measurable benefits for the business. The company quickly returned to efficiency levels seen under its heavily customized QAD legacy ERP environment and leadership shifted its attention to process improvement. 

With QAD Adaptive ERP, AmSafe has achieved an 87.5% improvement in the time required to load pricing sheets. For 600 customers, the process previously took 8 to 12 hours; now, it can be completed in less than one hour. Updates for individual customer pricing, meanwhile, have been slashed from up to two hours to as little as five minutes. 

The ability to deliver individual customer pricing nearly instantaneously is well appreciated by customers and streamlines all of the commercial engagements. 

“We’re able to dig into more details and spend more time on the analysis versus putting the report together, which translates to opportunities for improved resource allocation and margin management”, said Davis. Managing more than 10,000 active parts and 100,000 drawings is easier than ever with QAD Adaptive ERP’s enhanced reporting capabilities and real-time insights. “We needed the time to look through the data at a detailed level, and this has given us the opportunity to do that.”

Davis shared that AmSafe’s employees have also been quick to embrace QAD Adaptive ERP. The option to phase users onto the web interface ensured smooth adoption across different departments and increased productivity. “QAD has really helped our users feel more empowered.”

“QAD, day in and day out, whether it was the on-prem or the current, cloud-based Adaptive ERP has never given us anything to worry about. They make sure that our system is up and running day or night, and respond very quickly if we do have any issues.”

“QAD did a great job partnering with us through the upgrade, along with Roundview, to make sure that we were successful and our business was protected. It's been reliable and a good move for us and helps us ensure that we're set up for success,” Davis added.

Davis’ advice for leaders considering an ERP upgrade? ”Find a strategic partner like Roundview to help you with the process and a robust, enterprise level, growth-based platform like QAD.”