NOBLE BIOMATERIALS

THE CHALLENGE:

NOBLE BIOMATERIALS SEEKS ONE SYSTEM OF RECORD AMID MAJOR GROWTH

As a result of the significant growth the company has experienced, Noble Biomaterials management wisely saw the need to standardize on a common system that would enable them to adapt and support current and future growth goals of its business, across the globe.

When it was originally implemented, the current ERP solution was championed by the finance team and was used primarily for its financial management functions. Over time however, the company’s lean IT team added solutions to support company-wide processes such as sales forecasting and planning, maintenance planning and quality management, as well as fixed asset management. Managers were also using manual, paper-based solutions for project management and collaboration.

“Over the years, we added some third-party solutions and we were using spreadsheets to try to keep ourselves organized,” commented Chief Financial Officer Tom Bross.

“Management doubted the accuracy of the manufacturing data produced by these disparate solutions. We knew we needed to do something to fix it.” In addition, as new managers joined the growing company, they expected modern IT systems, analytics and one version of the truth. In an effort to support innovation imperatives and drive operational efficiencies, these managers conducted a fact-finding mission to review newer systems that would deliver real-time data, visuals, and metrics in an easy-to-use solution. They identified the need to have one system of record to cover all manufacturing operations and business processes.

The Solution:

QAD ADAPTIVE ERP UNIFIES NOBLE BIOMATERIALS’ BUSINESS PROCESSES

After looking at other ERP solutions, Noble Biomaterials selected QAD Adaptive ERP in the cloud to satisfy their technical and business requirements and for smoother growth and scalability within the company.

“At the QAD Explore Customer Conference, we were impressed with QAD’s Adaptive UX. We loved the visuals and the analytics capabilities. We decided right there that we wanted to pursue this with QAD,” said Bross.

QAD’s Adaptive User Experience (UX), which is built on the QAD Enterprise Platform, delivers an adaptable, role-based and modern UX with personalization capabilities and embedded analytics. It provides users an enhanced experience resulting in improved productivity, decision making and manufacturing data accuracy. Insights gained through embedded analytics reduce uncertainty and provide Activity Center dashboards for identifying and addressing issues before they become a problem.

QAD implemented the solution covering discrete sales, requisition to purchase orders for indirect materials, Fixed Assets and Return Material Authorizations (RMAs). QAD also introduced a new “Rolling Sales Forecast” Enterprise Platform app and an Enterprise Platform extension for the Adaptive UX Sales Order entry screen capturing criteria business categorization fields.

“The sales forecasting app and sales order extension built in the QAD Enterprise Platform have been helpful for the sales organization. They are now able to add certain attributes to the sales order as needed that are included within the invoicing process. We’re seeing great engagement for those users.”

As part of QAD Adaptive ERP, QAD Production Execution provides the production insights needed to rapidly respond to unplanned inventory shortages, equipment failures and productivity slowdowns. It also allows manufacturers to directly tie ERP and shop floor operational data and processes together to manage shop floor activities in real time which helps Noble Biomaterials optimize resources, fulfill product orders more quickly and reduce inventory costs.

In addition, leveraging QAD Adaptive ERP in the cloud allows management at Noble Biomaterials to focus on their business and growth plans without having to physically maintain their own servers. QAD Adaptive ERP allows for future upgrades, gives Noble the modern technology it needs, eliminates manual processes, and accommodates their projected growth. Now Noble can unify all business processes on one ERP system.

The Benefits:

ONE VERSION OF THE TRUTH

Gaining one system with reliable data to cover all business and manufacturing processes has been a major benefit for Noble Biomaterials.

“One of the reasons we selected QAD Adaptive ERP was the importance of having one version of the truth,” commented Bross. “We had data before, but the various stakeholders couldn’t agree on what was accurate because it was coming from so many sources.”

Noble also benefited from automation on its shop floor operation with the implementation of QAD Production Execution.

“The shop floor interface of Production Execution is operator-centric and very visual. An operator can start and stop an order or report a downtime by pressing a simple icon on the screen. Having the operator directly enter the data we have improved data quality and the data is available as production happens. We used to pay overtime to get data entered into the system. We’ve eliminated the overtime and now have that cost savings as a result,” commented Bross.

With embedded analytics and Action Centers, Noble can monitor real-time KPIs. In their daily performance touchpoint meetings, the Operations team can review real-time data – for example, on scheduling, produceto-schedule, scrap rates – directly from QAD Adaptive ERP, which used to be handled with spreadsheets.

“The KPIs from the Action Centers were a strong selling point and an area where we’ll gain greater insight into our business. We think there are even more time savings as we can get everyone using the Action Centers as their one source of data,” said Bross. 

“The Operations team wanted the data in a format that’s easily digestible and that’s what QAD supplies,” suggested Bross.

In addition, automated barcoding and serialization have replaced manual tasks. With the implementation of QAD Automation Solutions as part of the project, Noble has dramatically cut shipping to invoicing processing time. The shipping department used to spend an hour to invoice one order. With QAD Automation Solutions, Noble is able to speed up the invoicing process and eliminate manual and paper-based processes,” stated Bross.

Other benefits include:

• Able to replace a third-party application to manage sales forecasts so that the Sales department has better, more reliable data to improve sales forecasting accuracy.

• The positive reaction from operators and end users:

“The response of the operators has been really supportive because it’s so much easier to use. The user interface is extremely intuitive which helped us minimize training time and keep the learning curve much flatter than expected,” commented Bross.