Improving Inventory Management
Once Regency Lighting became comfortable with the system, the Epicor Business Consulting Services team engaged with them in July 2009 to identify specific inventory turns Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to improve upon. Epicor developed a proposal to Regency senior leadership with a specific, narrow focus on Advanced Demand Forecasting (ADF). The consultants identified SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) goals to assist Regency Lighting to improve these KPIs with ADF.
Some methods for accomplishing these goals included Epicor Senior Business Consultants working with Regency to identify dead stock items, strategizing to reduce the dead stock, and moving suppliers to the UpTo replenishment method. The latter allows Regency to determine when to purchase and how much to purchase.
“Prior to implementing the UpTo replenishment method, we managed our order points through the minimum/maximum replenishment method,” explains Regenstreif. “This method was extremely time-consuming, requiring our purchasing agents to adjust the levels on each item/location combination manually. Because of the time it took to review and update the levels, our order points were often out of date and not reflective of current usage. The UpTo replenishment method utilizes formulas to quickly determine the right order points based on measurable variables such as safety stock, average lead times, and forecasting history.”
According to Regenstreif, “The Epicor Business Consulting team conducted a series of site visits to institute the change in how we were using the Prophet 21 system.” Over the course of nine months, the Epicor consultants and Regency senior leadership team began training the purchasing department and configuring the system for Advanced Demand Forecasting, eventually rolling it out to all locations.
Meeting Goals and Looking Ahead
“Through the assistance of Epicor Business Consulting, we improved our inventory turns by one point in one year, enabling us to increase our sales by 19 percent without increasing our inventory value as a percentage of sales,” notes Regenstreif.
With the Prophet 21 ERP now performing the inventory replenishment calculations, Regency Lighting improved net cash flow and financial positioning while increasing customer service levels, and began to create more efficient warehouse space and resource utilization. States Regenstreif, “We removed a manual process and replaced it with an automated one based on intelligent criteria and metrics. This gave our purchasing agents more time to spend on other value-added procedures.”
Regarding Epicor Business Consulting, Regenstreif comments, “We are very happy with the quality of the people engaged with us. Epicor's process to identify specific, targeted quantitative goals and a defined scope of work is very good.” He also recommends Epicor for its senior leadership and technology roadmap, concluding, “We are looking forward to the future with Epicor as a strategic partner.”