Case Study – A Christmas Crisis
Last Christmas was the final straw for Santa. Nearly 7 billion customers globally with regional offices on every continent and he was still managing his business from a spreadsheet! 2016 needed to be different, so he approached FMIS to help save Christmas.
This year Santa is doing things a little bit differently:
Sales Orders
Several million letters with lists of toys can be pretty daunting to manage. The elves in sales spent ages trying to explain each order to the production elves and even then there was nowhere central to keep all the requests. Customer service ratings began to suffer as orders got missed or mixed up.
Luckily, FMIS Sales Orders now means that the sales elves can simply select the right toy from a pick list and the production elves know exactly what is required, for whom and by when. To save time the delivery date was defaulted to 25th December.
Stock and Inventory
The production line was getting out of hand. The elves in the warehouse spent most of their time trying to find the right parts for the production elves. With several million different stock codes, there were a lot of places to look and even then there was often a sign saying ‘out of stock’ when they did find the right bin.
FMIS Stock Control now allows elves to know exactly where any product code is stored down to the individual bin and how many are in stock. Automated replenishment means that the elves hardly ever run out and even if they do, they can easily see if any of the regional depots have the same item in stock.
Purchasing
Purchasing costs were spiralling out of control. Santa could no longer sign off every PO and with the regional offices, it was taking weeks to get a PO signed off so the elves simply started ignoring the process and buying directly.
With FMIS Purchase Order Processing, the elves can now see who the preferred supplier is for any item, what it should cost and what code to use for it when it arrives. The elves in finance can now see who has spent what, when it was receipted and where to charge it. The best part is that with automated workflows, Purchase Orders can be signed off quickly and easily, so no one needs to go direct anymore.
Equipment Maintenance
The elves in Maintenance were struggling to cope with the number of jobs they had to do. Emergency repairs meant that routine maintenance was not getting done and this lead to more repairs. With Christmas, there are no extensions to the fulfilment date so delays to production are a big problem.
With FMIS Equipment and Maintenance, the elves can now schedule all planned maintenance ahead of time, prioritise reactive maintenance and create work orders for all jobs.
Asset Tracking
The elves were getting frustrated that they didn’t have the right tools for the job at the right time. The tools that they did have often got lost and had to be replaced or borrowed and were not returned.
FMIS Asset Tracking now means that every item can be tracked and the introduction of barcode labels means that every asset can be individually identified. The annual audit in January has been cut from weeks to a few days and the Equipment Loans feature in the system allows elves to book rooms or tools easily and check their availability on the calendar.
Fleet Management
In the past this wasn’t really a problem. One magic sleigh was pretty easy to manage, but as the operation has grown, Santa now needs to manage a fleet of delivery vans, trucks and company cars as well. FMIS Fleet Management ensures that all vehicles are in working order all the time.
Silent Night
This year for the first time in many years, the elves are actually looking forward to Christmas Eve and the fact that come 5:30 pm it truly will be a silent night at the office with no last minute panic.
From all the team at FMIS, we hope you have a great Christmas and look forward to working with you in 2017.
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