“We specialize in innovation,” said Ken Kane, executive vice president, Lighting Services Inc. “The transition to digital technologies-especially LED-changed the entire industry. Fortunately, we've been at the forefront of this evolution with an unwavering dedication to quality lighting. We're not a big company. In fact, we're a small, privately owned, independent company that loves what we do and works closely with customers to develop specific project solutions.
According to Kane, Lighting Services Inc was once able to develop a product that would remain marketable for 10-12 years. In recent years, that timeframe compressed to 10-12 weeks, resulting in LSI reinventing itself from a traditional lighting manufacturer to a state-of-the art provider of just-in-time technologies.
Updated ERP system leads to enhanced customization abilities
A newer, more flexible, and forward-looking enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution became key to LSI's new positioning-especially as its legacy system faded into obsolescence after more than a decade of use. The desired new system requirements also included the ability to reliably and instantaneously identify raw material expiration dates, properly control the constant flow of inventory, stock electronically matching components without error, and carefully track the status of projects on the shop floor.
“The entire supply chain from the entry of sales orders to manufacturing and shipping has completely evolved over the past 5-10 years,” explained Kane. “Our second generation ERP system was about 13 years old and couldn't keep up with the quick direction changes needed to accommodate customized orders. We were also committed to moving beyond manual, old-school manufacturing practices.”
“We reviewed about 20 different ERP systems and decided on Epicor after a year-long search-due to its inherent flexibility. Since its installation, we've become a much more efficient business. The system slices and dices data in ways that make sense to us. In addition, this helped us to increase gross margins and the bottom line without adding to our revenue stream.”
The new system has also allowed the company to embrace newer and more modern manufacturing practices its previous system could not support-in addition to allowing the company to redo the manufacturing floor to be more cell-based and quicker to react to changing customer demands. “Some of the technological advances we're implementing now and into the next two to three years will set up the shop floor to connect to handheld devices-scanning material flow in and out of different cell areas, which we know will improve efficiencies and tracking of product,” said Kane.
Greater data visibility at every process phase
“Data visibility is extremely important to us,” offered Alis Holguin, director of manufacturing, Lighting Services Inc. “Epicor allows us to track the status of jobs in real time as they move through every point on the shop floor. As a result, we can now make wise and quick decisions based on Epicor reports and dashboards. We've even been able to accurately instill additional buffer time into our quotes to meet customer deadlines.”
Statistics and data have also made it easier to predict industry trends-providing further cost savings by making more informed raw material purchases. This allows LSI to manage cash flow based on a clearer view of projects moving through the pipeline.
“Now that our product life cycles have shrunk considerably, we also have to move product development at a much quicker pace-and have the ability on the shop floor to apply technology in a way that is much more efficient and discreet in the way we manufacture, and Epicor ERP [Kinetic] will allow us to embrace connectivity throughout our factory floor much easier,” Kane concluded.