Amatrol Opens the Lines of Customer Communications with MAPICS (now Infor)

A privately held company, Amatrol, Inc. manufactures technical training systems and curriculum in the areas of mechanical maintenance, fluid power, robotics & automation, quality assurance, plastic injection molding, electronic motors & control, programmable controllers, and thermal systems.

The company is headquartered in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and markets, ships and services their products worldwide to middle schools, high schools, community colleges, universities and corporate training centers. The schools use them for teaching exploration, pre-engineering, technology, engineering research, and skilled trades.

The Situation
Amatrol previously had an older Infor version running on an IBM iSeries (formerly AS/400) that didn't have the capacity to upgrade to the newer Infor software. Scheduling was done with MRP-generated dates without consideration for capacity, which meant ship dates could only be estimated. The company had to manually check on the status of manufacturing orders, and without feedback on the manufacturing orders, they could only estimate labor costs. Amatrol also had to analyze general ledger cost information manually. Communication had to be done manually, which made it difficult to keep everyone working effectively. One of the largest obstacles to being productive was the dated user interface. The older user interface also used a lot of codes that made it difficult to interpret information on the screens.

The Solution
Amatrol needed a new system-one that would handle its growing needs. After evaluating several ERP vendors, Amatrol found that Infor best fit its needs. Amatrol wanted a stable company that would be around in the future, local support, and a smooth conversion. Amatrol also placed high importance on the convenience and ease of use of the client architecture user interface. These were the critical selection criteria for Amatrol-and Infor was a perfect match.

Amatrol went through a very aggressive implementation. The rapid implementation was made possible with the involvement of top management, an informed and excited user community, an experienced consultant team, minimal software modifications, and a "full speed ahead" attitude. Amatrol converted to its new Infor ERP for iSeries system in just 30 days! The users were up and running on the client architecture user interface within 30 days after that. Now that's efficiency!

Real Results

• Infor Customer Service Management has allowed Amatrol to quickly and easily order information - a 100 percent improvement.
• Infor Enterprise Product Data Management has allowed quick and easy access to bill-of-material and routing information - an 80 percent improvement.
• Infor Paperless Manufacturing has automated data collection and provided Amatrol with real-time feedback on the status of manufacturing orders, cutting the time to find out the status of orders by 70 percent.
• Infor Order Based Production Management has enabled purchasing planners to cut the time it takes to generate a purchase order by 50 percent.
• Using Infor Order Based Production Management, the manufacturing planners have cut the time it takes to generate a manufacturing order by 45 percent.
• The receiving clerks have used Infor Materials Management to reduce the time it takes to receive purchased MRP items by 40 percent.
• All of these improvements have enabled Amatrol to provide the company's products with shorter lead times and handle increased growth with the same time and staff that they had before.