To Accommodate Growth and Set the Stage for Company-Wide Modernization, National Guard Products Starts with New Las Vegas Facility
Modernizing legacy applications delivers many benefits such as greater business agility and the ability to leverage new technologies like artificial intelligence. There are also the benefits of the cloud, which makes it easier to secure digital assets and provides an infrastructure for resilient application performance.
But modernization can also be a challenge. It’s difficult to get internal teams to change their ways and adapt to the new workflow processes that modernization introduces. There can also be hiccups to business-as-usual as the company makes the transition from a legacy ERP application to a modern ERP platform in the cloud.
Opening of New Facility Presents Modernization Opportunity
One of our customers that found a way to work around these challenges is National Guard Products (NGP), which custom manufactures more than 20,000 products spanning door seals, thresholds, gasketing, louvers, sound seals, door bottoms, flood shields, continuous geared hinges, and sliding doors. As NGP planned to expand its Memphis operations by opening a second manufacturing plant in Las Vegas, Director of IT Ali Syed knew it was the ideal opportunity to deploy a modern ERP platform.
At the time, the Memphis facility relied on a legacy ERP system and operated efficiently because the team had been in place a long time. But so much of the process was in their heads—and not in a scalable system. With Las Vegas coming online with a completely new staff, Syed felt it would be easier to start with a new ERP system there before transitioning the Memphis team.
Western Computer Offers Expertise and Real-World Experience
To seize on the Las Vegas opportunity for deploying a modernized ERP platform, Ali decided to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. He also identified Western Computer as an ideal partner to help him with the deployment. He remembered Western Computer ERP experts giving presentations at Microsoft Dynamics conferences, and Western Computer had recently implemented Business Central for NGP’s sister company, Jordan Aluminum.
“The presentations proved the expertise of the Western Computer team while the deployment for Jordan Aluminum demonstrated their real-world experiences,” Ali points out.
A key tool Western Computer brought to the table that also convinced Syed was the Insight Works product configurator, which Western Computer integrated with Business Central. The manufacturing execution application is built specifically for Business Central and can handle material resource planning. This made it possible for NGP to streamline the process for the many thousands of products the company custom builds.
A Key Tool for Resolving Supply Chain Issues
With the Dynamics 365 Business Central solution deployed by Western Computer, NGP can run reports to forecast how much material is needed to purchase to fulfill customer orders. This functionality also helps resolve supply chain issues. NGG has been able to keep a safe level of inventory without tying up too much capital.
Ali also appreciates the benefits of using a cloud solution like Dynamics 365 since he no longer has to worry about server uptime, the infrastructure, and backing up the data. It’s all taken care of by Microsoft, which makes life a lot easier for the IT team. If something goes wrong, Ali knows Microsoft will take care of it—even in the middle of the night.
Another benefit for NGP comes from the integration of Business Central that Western Computer set up with Salesforce, the CRM platform. Western Computer configured APIs in Business Central so real-time data flows automatically between the two systems, which eliminates manual rekeying and input errors.
Smoothest ERP Implementation Ever
Following the opening of the Las Vegas facility and the deployment of Business Central, NGP has continued to grow rapidly—acquiring companies in Montreal, and two other US cities. Ali is currently building his plan to migrate the legacy ERP system in Memphis and eventually bring all the new acquisitions over to Business Central as well.
“This was the smoothest ERP implementation I’ve been involved with,” Ali reveals. “We were able to ship products at full capacity on the very first day. In my experience, that has never happened before.”
To learn more about how Western Computer helped National Guard Products modernize its ERP system to handle the company’s surging growth and set the stage for future modernization, check out the complete case study. And to find out how we can deliver the same benefits to your company, contact us today.
About the Author
More Content by Cady Jackson
