Since it was founded almost 25 years ago, Industrial Valves & Fittings (IVF) has evolved from a distributor of pipe, valves and fittings to a just-in-time supplier and on-site inventory manager of industrial supplies to the construction, chemical, petroleum, electronic, power and semi-conductor industries.

Its products have grown to include Oil Dri absorbents, fasteners, tools, electric hardware, hose, belts, chemicals, instrumentation fittings,  and a wide range of metric products from leading manufacturers such as Ham-Let, Stanley, Duracell, 3M, Master Lock and Dewalt, among others.

In addition to its large in-stock inventory, this $4.5 million distributor located in New Castle, Delaware also provides custom re-packaging, kitting, sub-assembly fabrication and custom hose manufacturing services.  It houses a class 10,000  clean room for jobs that require a contaminant free environment.  With CompuData’s help, IVF now offers its customers a new, state-of-the-art software-driven vendor managed inventory (VMI) system.

With thousands of different products in its inventory and customer-specific value added services tailored to corporate business partners located in the United States, Europe, Asia and South America, you might wonder how a staff of 12 employees successfully manages this growing business.

Bursting Pipes
As the business has evolved, so too have the tools used to manage its operations.  IVF had been running Peachtree by Sage Software as far back as when it was a DOS-based product.  With eight users on the Peachtree system, it had helped IVF better manage its accounting operations and fulfilled its needs for a long period of time.  However, as the company grew, it found the solution was no longer robust enough to handle its large volume of transactions.  And, due to Peachtree’s file size limitations, IVF was struggling with data corruption issues, which opened the door to potentially even more significant problems.  The distributor found itself having to restore lost data at least once or twice a year and wasting valuable time re-entering the lost data. 

Managing thousands of different parts in its inventory and processing more than 300 purchase orders each month, it was critical that IVF find a solution that could handle high volumes of transactions.  With the Peachtree system, IVF was tracking its inventory and entering the necessary data into the system manually.  The distributor also had to put its own codes on purchase orders to ensure that they could be tracked at a later date. 

“As part of our growth strategy, we evaluated our processes and our tools and determined that we needed a more robust accounting software solution and an automated inventory management system,” said Julio da Ponte II, Vice President of Product and Business Development for IVF.  “We needed a solution that we could easily upgrade when necessary and would be compatible with a variety of different interfaces.”   

Assembling the Right Solution
“MAS 90 had numerous features that we liked and it fit our requirements,” said da Ponte.  “Because it was also a Sage Software product, we knew the migration of our vast amounts of data would be much easier than going with another product.  We were also looking for a local, reputable MAS 90 reseller to implement and service our solution.  Because CompuData provides MAS 90 training to other resellers and has a solid reputation, we felt that they definitely fit the bill.” 

MAS 90 organizes and streamlines IVF’s processes and helps it keep accurate records of each of its transactions.  Accounting and inventory are fully integrated.  MAS 90 even provides IVF with the proper control system to manage its purchase orders electronically.  And, with the built-in reporting tools in MAS 90, IVF is able to output information in many different report formats and is easily able to export data into spreadsheets.  

Inventory Management
One important area of IVF’s business is its kitting and assembling operation where it takes several finished parts and packages and ships them as a kit.  This operation has a significant logistical component to it and IVF needed an automated system to ensure that it always has the necessary parts in stock.  MAS 90 provides real-time information pertaining to each part providing IVF with precise control of its inventory – eliminating a potential logistical nightmare.

Bill of Materials
The MAS 90 Bill of Materials module allows IVF to easily track the parts that make up its finished kits and also provides IVF with a wide range of accurate and informative reports on the parts and their production histories.

Remote Salesperson
IVF sees its new vendor managed inventory service as a major facilitator for future growth.  Known internally as its “bread truck” service, IVF sends out its employees to its customers’ locations to check their inventory and determine what parts need to be ordered.   The parts all have barcode labels on them.  Using MAS 90’s Remote Salesperson module, the IVF employee simply goes to the customer site with a Palm Pilot and attached barcode scanner and scans each part.  As the part is scanned, the item is brought up on the Palm Pilot and they can easily enter in the additional number of parts needed.  The employee can then hot sync their Palm Pilot with MAS 90 and automatically generate a packing slip and invoice.

Return Merchandise Authorization
“Although returned merchandise is not an area we would like to focus on,” explains da Ponte, “we need an efficient way to manage returns when necessary.  Customers these days request easy return policies and processes and to stay competitive we need to be able to handle these returns or replacements with ease.  The MAS 90 Return Merchandise Authorization module helps us be more responsive to our customers.”

The Complete Package
“Like any business, we are often being challenged by our clients to lower costs and therefore must look at our own cost structure to find new ways to provide more competitive pricing,” explained da Ponte.  “The original goal of implementing a new solution was to get rid of the frustration associated with our data corruption problems.  But with the additional capabilities in MAS 90, we have also managed to streamline our processes enabling us to further cut costs and pass the savings onto our customers.”  

“CompuData has been a valuable partner throughout the implementation of MAS 90,” commented da Ponte.  “With our large inventory, there was a significant amount of data that needed to be transferred to MAS 90 during the implementation process.  CompuData was able to provide us with realistic estimates of how long each step would take and has provided us with quick responses when issues arise.  We’ve been pleased with CompuData’s level of service and the team’s thorough understanding of the MAS 90 system.” 

Like many small companies conducting business with large international companies, IVF needed to take the next step to streamline its processes.  MAS 90 enables small companies with limited personnel resources like IVF to easily integrate their accounting and inventory functions and gain control of their critical business processes.