The company’s product line includes hose reels, deck storage boxes, and small lawn equipment sheds, which are sold primarily through large retail chains, like Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot and Lowes.

 

Prior to selecting Solarsoft iVP, the company had been using a version of BPCS, installed in 1996, along with several third-party applications for Forecasting, Advanced Planning and Scheduling and Warehouse Management.

 

Ed Booth, Director of IT, recognized inherent limitations in this legacy system, such as its database, which didn’t allow for such current requirements as UCC Net, email addresses and websites. He also realized that the cost of performing the needed rewrites to the existing system would equal the cost of purchasing and implementing an entirely new ERP solution.

 

In the first quarter of 2007, Mr. Booth and his evaluation team began in earnest the process of finding a future-looking solution that would enable Suncast to meet the evolving requirements of its customers. “When you do business with the big-box retailers, IT needs to be a business enabler,” he says. “Our philosophy is that we want to do what’s right by our customers and not be limited by our software. Solarsoft iVP gives us that opportunity.”

 

The team evaluated several large ERP providers in addition to Solarsoft, using not only feature and function in its selection criteria, but Suncast’s corporate culture as well.

 

“We have a very capable IT staff and an engaged internal user community that sometimes comes up with new programs or requirements they’d like to have implemented in the software,” he says. “With the bigger ERP systems, you get what you get, and that’s it. You’re either paying them to do the customization or you’re changing your business processes to deal with the software. We didn’t want to do that. We wanted an ERP solution that we could modify and enhance as necessary to satisfy our users. Solarsoft gave us the best opportunity for that. For our culture it was the complete, premier ERP package out there.”

 

Mr. Booth is looking to exploit the promise of real-time collaboration with customers, suppliers and employees through Solarsoft’s Easy e-business Suite and sees particular value in the integration of Solarsoft iVP’s ERP functionality with the Management Execution Software (MES) capabilities provided by Solarsoft sister-company, Mattec Corporation.

 

With full Solarsoft/Mattec implementation forecasted for January, 2008, he anticipates eliminating redundant and inaccurate production schedules, as well as improving front-office support through its purchasing and financial functions. “We are laying a foundation, leveraging state-of-the-art technology that will see us into the next 10 years and beyond.”

 

Solarsoft is a new name in mid-range ERP systems but an established supplier of software tailored to the needs of manufacturers, distributors and merchant & wholesale businesses.  The company has grown organically and through acquisition since 1986.  Over 1,500 firms across North America, Europe and Asia rely on Solarsoft to bring clarity and efficiency to their operations.  Solarsoft was formed from the merger of XKO Software Ltd and CMS Software Inc, a transaction funded by Marlin Equity Partners of Los Angeles.