Since the mid-90s, Timberlane had been using an in-house quoting tool that was modified from a cabinet-making shop’s software solution. They were able to customize the software in order to design their shutters, but it couldn’t pull off certain things specific to their products. Errors were introduced since they couldn’t update or maintain their product options.
Timberlane also had a home-grown, online configurator, available to their sales team via an internal web page. It could serve up basic options for their shutters, but it didn’t carry through to their engineering and manufacturing side of the business. They knew that they needed a complete, end-to-end process.
They ultimately wanted to integrate their engineering knowledge with a user-friendly and web-facing tool that could start with a customer order entry and continue all the way through manufacturing.
“We have a simple product with numerous and sometimes complex and unlimited option catalog. KBMax [Epicor CPQ] allows us to handle 95% of the custom requests without needing to use outside drawing programs to meet the customer’s needs.”
Jeff Smith, Engineering & Design CAD Specialist | Timberlane
Timberlane empowered a small team of internal stakeholders, consisting of a manufacturing leader and an engineering draftsman. They provided top-down knowledge to the Epicor CPQ project team about their entire process; From orders and accounting, to manufacturing and shipping. This team knew exactly how materials came in, how their products were sold, all the options available, and ultimately how they were manufactured.
Timberlane’s internal team relayed their robust requirements to the Epicor CPQ implementation team who used the information to design and launch a visual product configurator that they could maintain through a user-friendly admin and rules engine.
Their internal sales reps immediately started using the configurator. They can only select valid product options when setting up an order. As the shutter is finalized, 2D renderings are automatically generated to support their manufacturing operations, supported with data like Bill of Materials, work instructions, the machines necessary for manufacturing, and even defining the workstations that will be used for that particular order.
Their team is continuously building and trying new things with the platform. The cloud-based platform allows them to enjoy simple maintenance and enhancements, rather than the pain of upgrades and migrations felt by a custom solution.
Timberlane was able to completely automate their customer order entry process and work order creation process in just six months. The team has dramatically reduced the drafting time required to finalize quotes.
Every order is now generated 100% accurately – replacing Timberlane’s old, home-grown, customized software that allowed for incompatible product options.
With Epicor CPQ Snap, the team is able to easily maintain and extend their product configurator themselves. They added an entirely new product line of aluminum shutters and introduced inventory integration with their ERP.
