Via their acquisition of a Baltimore-based company, Wurth Wood Group was introduced to DMSi’s legacy software, DMS+, in 2005. They soon realized they needed to consolidate into one system that would give them inventory accuracy and building material-specific features like rebate reporting.
“Moving from D+ to our legacy software would be moving backwards, and moving to D+ was not an option,” said Theresa Liscinsky, IT Manager of Wurth. “The support we received from DMSi led us to review and consider Agility.
To continue to grow profit using the resources they had, and increase inventory accuracy, the company implemented Agility in 2007.
“Agility made us more efficient and therefore better at serving our customers” Liscinsky said. “It allows us more connection and easily interfaces to third-party software.”
One of the functions Wurth fully capitalizes on is the rebate reporting features, which make it easier to submit laminate vendor rebates to suppliers. Rebate reporting also allows them to track cost and gross margins more accurately for items that qualify for rebates.
“We had rebate reporting in our legacy system,” said Liscinsky, “but Agility is much more detailed and allows better tracking formatted to our multiple suppliers. The import price program speeds price updates and rebate changes.”
Another DMSi product Wurth Wood Group has had success with is BInformed, a flexible business intelligence application that lets the company view and interact with business data. It allows companies like them to make informed decisions, and to standardize reporting processes.
“We needed an upgraded, all-inclusive system,” Mike Potthoff, Christensen Lumber’s Chief Financial Officer said. “We decided to start from scratch and implement Agility to gain the efficiency we were lacking.”
A customer since 1999, the Nebraska-based company ran DMS+ software before making the switch to Agility in 2009. Christensen prides themselves on being focused on service and staying ahead of technology.
“Now our customers feel that we’re a proactive, tech-friendly company,” Potthoff said. “We’re seen in a new light.”
Agility provides Christensen Lumber with easier, more accurate inventory management. “Our real-time visibility has increased significantly,” Potthoff said. “We can trust item stock availability and quantity on hand.”
This increased visibility also applies to non-stock items. “The bill-of-materials (BOM) structure lets us easily quote doors that we don’t carry in inventory. It allows our walk-in customers to get real-time pricing and availability on special order configured doors.”
Agility has helped Christensen Lumber improve their overall operation from customer service to administration.
“We use the suggested purchase order features extensively,” Potthoff said. “The ability to link a sales order to a purchase order has been a big improvement from the way things were done before. We are really becoming efficient at managing our reorder points, which has allowed us to free up significant amounts of cash without compromising service.”
Processes that were once timely and manual are now simple, a change that has made an impact on productivity.
“Agility has helped our month-end billing process,” Potthoff said. “Before, we printed a statement and then manually matched up invoices to the statement and then mailed it to the customer. Now, a statement prints, and all the invoices follow suit. What was once a day and a half project now takes half a day.”
Agility’s project management module is so integrated with the rest of the software’s accounting and inventory capabilities that we take it for granted that it was always part of the program. Not so. The module came about due to a unique collaboration between DMSi and Bridgewell, an existing Agility customer whose extraordinary growth led to the tool’s development.
The Contractor Direct division of Bridgewell, whose business is dedicated to the supply chain management of vast product lines, was bringing in new, large, and complex contracts that required serious coordination. For instance, a builder’s requested delivery date and order size might suddenly change – several times. Purchasing, shipping and invoicing orders would need adjusting with little notice, also a growing challenge. Bridgewell’s existing tools simply weren’t suited to the unique demands of these large contracts. They needed a better method.
As an existing Agility customer, DMSi agreed to work with Bridgewell to create a project management tool in Agility. This would eliminate the need to synchronize data with an outside application or to double-enter information.
“Our approach was to have one centralized order and inventory management and accounting solution,” said Scott White, Bridgewell’s Director of Information Technology. “We were already on Agility, and we wanted to keep it that way.”
DMSi’s development team began working closely with Bridgewell to understand the company’s needs. Representatives from DMSi met with the division vice presidents as well as the sales and buying teams.
“It was a very collaborative process,” says White. “We had a two-day session with them to really clarify the requirements.”
The project management tool would need to centralize key functions so contracts could be updated quickly and easily. Bridgewell also wanted to see each contract as a unified project rather than a series of separate transactions. This would help departments coordinate and would give management a better sense of how a contract was progressing. DMSi continued to work closely with Bridgewell throughout development, making sure the project met the original objectives.
“As sprints were completed, the individual teams would show what they had developed, and we would either unofficially sign off or ask for tweaks,” said White. “That tighter collaboration really added value.”
Bridgewell began integrating the Project Management window almost immediately, adding additional functionalities as they became available.
“Our buyers now make changes, particularly in lumber, that they couldn’t do before,” said White. “Now the admin staff is out of that process. It’s mostly in the buying team’s hands, which is where we always wanted it.”
In 2013, DMSi released the Project Management window to all its customers as a new feature in Agility. It contained the essential functions for managing contracts with multiple deliveries over time: changing item quantity on a quote, updating estimated delivery dates, committing inventory to a sales order directly from a quote, and tracking change orders. Grouping functions together meant admins no longer needed to move between multiple menus for a single transaction.
So, where did this powerful project management tool translate into a competitive advantage for Bridgewell?
“Our edge is that our business processes can scale up where they couldn’t before,” said White. “Now, we compete for those 5-6,000- product-line job contracts that are out there.”
The sales team at Wholesale Millwork had a problem: They were spending a lot of time keeping track of pricing requests. Per a customer’s inquiry, the sales reps would jot down a list of products and prices on a notepad. But if the customer called back days later, there was no easy way to find it. The sales order had to be created from scratch, and any special pricing had to be double-checked. Things got even more complicated if the original rep wasn’t available.
Wholesale Millwork’s leadership believed they could improve this process with Agility’s OrderPad. OrderPad that is a standard feature in Agility ERP software. Think of it as an updated version of the classic sales notepad. Reps can quickly put together a list of products with job-specific pricing. They can then turn the list into an order or save it for later. OrderPad records are saved in Agility, so it’s easy for any rep to find quotes.
“We saw the value in everyone knowing what someone else had quoted (or mis-quoted) without having to get the original person back on the phone,” said T.L. Wright, System Manager at Wholesale Millwork.
OrderPad’s simple interface lets reps build product lists quickly. Account information, inventory levels, and job-specific pricing are displayed on one screen. Adding items to the OrderPad product list is much faster than creating a full quote, so it’s perfect for informal price checks. When the customer is ready to purchase, users can turn the product list into a sales order directly from the OrderPad screen with only one or two clicks.
OrderPad is also available in the Agility mobile app. Outside sales reps can give immediate and accurate quotes during customer visits. Saving the list in Agility means reps don’t have to manually enter the details later.
For Wholesale Millwork’s leadership, it was so important for them that teammates start using it that they took an active role in encouraging adoption.
“We pushed OrderPad to our people by doing things like giving prizes for using it,” says Wright.
Now, Wholesale Millwork’s sales team has a much easier time tracking pricing requests. Chrissy Cerillo, sales rep, thinks OrderPad is helpful for any location where more than one person takes customer orders.
“Special pricing and change of quantity are right there,” said Cerillo. “For job-specific pricing, it’s quicker for me than pulling up stock status and entering the customer number. I’m more confident that I’m getting the correct price.”
As a manager who only sometimes takes orders, Wright says the tool is especially useful for someone in his position, since the quotes he creates are saved in Agility for the regular team: “It’s unlikely I will answer the phone next time, but the information is there for whoever does.”
OrderPad has also improved the speed and accuracy of building quotes. Wholesale Millwork’s team can quickly look-up customer pricing or turn a product list into a sales order without starting from scratch.
“I like the speed of getting pricing and being able to change UOM for a customer in the same screen,” said King.
Questions and change requests have always been part of jobsite visits for McCray Lumber and Millwork sales reps. Customers wanting to add quantity or move a delivery date would tell the rep, who would in turn call a McCray dispatcher. The calls, said Scott Schwart, would quickly pile up.
“There are about 30 of us in the field all trying to get ahold of somebody at the same time. The dispatchers had to do lookups for 40 or 50 different customers a day.”
In addition to creating more work for McCray’s dispatchers, this system caused problems for the reps too. They would wait around for a callback or go to the next job, promising to update the customer as soon as they heard something.
Wanting a better way to serve their customers in the field, the team decided to try the Agility Mobile Sales app. It lets reps access key account information such as open A/R, existing order status, and pending deliveries. They can also immediately check customer pricing and item availability. The app accesses a company’s data in Agility but does not require the bandwidth and processing power of the full platform. Reps can find what they need over a basic wireless or cellular network.
The McCray team downloaded the Agility Sales app onto their phones and tablets then spent some time trying out the functionalities. Scott noticed the speed right away.
“It’s amazing how fast it performs. You just push the button, and the information comes up. It’s instantaneous.”
The app changed the nature of Scott’s customer visits. Having direct access to account information eliminated the telephone game. “I can be on the job site, and the carpenter will tell me ‘Hey that load that was scheduled for next week, I need it tomorrow.’ And instead of calling the guys in the office and waiting for them to go through the lookup process, I can find the ticket number in about 15-20 seconds, get the date changed, and it’s on its way to being billed.”
The Agility Sales app has made Scott much more efficient. “There’s been a huge savings in time. I can look at the ticket, have the information, and be on my way in less than 30 seconds. And I don’t bring a lot of the paperwork that I used to. I just pull up the app and look at exactly what I want to see.”
In addition to keeping projects on time, the fast turnaround makes it easier for Scott’s contractors to provide good service to their customers.
“We can tell the builder we already got it ordered, and it’ll be here tomorrow. A couple of contractors have said to me specifically that they are impressed with how fast we can get them information.”
Priding itself on unparalleled service, Georgia-based Mid-State Lumber has grown significantly since its founding in 1976, adding multiple locations and expanding into new territories. As their operation grew, the company knew it needed to deliver the same service quality, so in 2005, they implemented Agility.
Agility inventory and accounting software allowed Mid-State Lumber to maintain accuracy, efficiency, and quality of service as they scaled up their operations. Designed for the building materials industry, Agility contains features tailored to the unique needs of businesses such as Mid-State Lumber. It centralizes key business processes so sales, accounting, purchasing and dispatch transactions are created and managed from one place. Any changes made in Agility happen in real time and are reflected across the entire system. This is critical for companies like Mid-State Lumber where purchasing, sales, and dispatch may operate from separate branches.
“I have worked in every department in the company, and I find that Agility is helpful in every area,” said Maria Hall, Mid-State Lumber’s primary system manager. “Anything that you want to do from quoting, automated processing, reporting, to viewers…Agility does it all.”
Agility allows Mid-State Lumber’s departments to coordinate effectively. Because Agility provides real-time data, everyone sees current information. There’s no need for departments to update each other over the phone or email.
“If I change anything, the sales agents and the shipping department see it right away,” said Hall. “If I get a call telling me a customer won’t be ready for their order until next Wednesday, I can just open my viewer, change the day and the shipping department automatically sees that it’s done.”
Real-time data makes it easier for the Mid-State Lumber team to provide excellent service. Employees in every area of operation know information in Agility is current and accurate. There’s no need to double-check that a product is available before placing an order or scheduling a delivery.
“You can be confident in what you are looking at,” said Hall. “If you see that you have 8,044 feet of item A, that’s what’s in the warehouse. The same thing in accounts receivable.”
Real Time
Agility allows Mid-State Lumber to be extremely responsive to customers’ needs. Credit manager Anita Toupin appreciates that results are instant.
“As soon as a guy enters an order, I have receivables change. If a customer is past due and on credit hold, as soon as we get checks and apply them, it frees up their account.”
Agility has also helped reduce the paper trail common in many offices. Agility’s reports and queries pull up all the data she needs in one screen. For instance, she can run a report to find all invoices past due by a certain number of days. Or she can use the A/R Credit Details screen to view an account’s credit information across all branches.
“They have come up with a lot of new things for us that have helped us keep our receivables in a good standing,” says Toupin. “I’ve been with the company for 30 years. We used to work off a weekly aging report, posting by hand, blue sheets, etc. Now, it’s simplified. The mounds of paperwork we had are gone. We have come a long, long way.”
The DMSi team worked closely with Mid-State Lumber and developed solid relationships with their counterparts. As a veteran employee of a service-based company, Toupin is keenly aware of the impact those relationships can have: “DMSi is like a family. It really is. They treat their customers the same way, and that’s a positive thing.”
Cabinet and countertop company Plunkett Distributing was handling hundreds of custom orders every month using a time-intensive, multi-step process.
One employee would create the sales order in the branch’s system. Then, a second employee would re-enter the details from a fax to create the bill of materials (BOM) and work order. It was time-intensive, with an ever-present risk of data-entry error. The company wanted a more efficient way to handle custom orders.
Plunkett Distributing implemented the Agility ERP system and immediately began using the branch transfer functionality, which makes it easy to coordinate remanufacturing processes across multiple locations. Once a rep enters a sales order at his branch, Agility automatically creates the related bill of materials and work order at the production facility. It also queues up shipping and receiving transactions for the final product.
It has been an extremely positive experience for us,” says owner Don Plunkett. “The rep enters the sales order, and then the bill of materials and the work order show up on the screen at our other facility across town. It’s been a huge help.”
Plunkett also leverages Agility’s reporting tools via sales dashboards that make it easy to monitor his team’s performance: “We have better visibility into things like market costs and gross margin violations. We can pull out data that we never could before. I’m able to see things as they are trending instead of hearing about it after something goes wrong. It’s had an enormous impact on our bottom line.”
Don says he’s excited about the future and sees more opportunities for improving operations and expanding the business: “There are things within Agility that are making us better than we ever were before. We’re ready to take another step forward.”
Concannon Lumber Company, which trades, manufactures, and maintains inventories of lumber, plywood, and specialty forest products worldwide, had a problem. Despite using Agility inventory and accounting software for a decade, they felt like they could be doing more with it.
“Our users became complacent,” said Jane Ryan, Controller. “Nobody wanted to change what they were doing, so they weren’t paying attention to new features.”
Cindy McCarville, Senior Account Manager at DMSi, understood their situation.
“If your current processes work and nothing feels broken, people forget to ask how to do it better. There’s so much untapped potential in Agility.”
Concannon’s leadership decided to bring in McCarville to evaluate and improve their current processes. She spent two days with the staff in their Portland, OR office to observe processes and learn about their goals.
“Cindy took the time to really understand the nuances of our business,” said Ryan. “For instance, our export and internal domestic sales teams need totally different information. Also, one of our owners prefers detailed reports, but the other prefers seeing the big picture.”
After her visit, McCarville created a report outlining steps Concannon Lumber Company’s team could take to leverage Agility more effectively. She followed up with several phone calls to Ryan to discuss the recommendations and strategies for implementing the changes.
Things happened quickly after that, with results soon following.
“We’re now using all sorts of functions,” says Ryan. “Automated processing. Amazing. That whole system has completely changed the way we run our weekly reports.”
By automating manual tasks, Ryan has more time to focus on higher-value activities. Instead of going in early every Monday to run the daily balancing reports, they now run automatically on Sunday nights. A task that used to take an hour and a half now took five minutes.
Another major win for Concannon is journal entry import. Previously, the accounting staff would manually update recurring entries each month.
“Cindy showed us how to do the journal entry import. We quit using recurring entries because now, everything is on import. It’s such an amazing tool.”
In addition to recommending specific Agility functions, McCarville’s report also covered best practices for things like dashboards and user interfaces. “Even little tricks like customizing the order entry screen made a huge difference,” said Ryan. “We set up different headers for the export and domestic sales teams so people don’t have to look at information they don’t need. Setting those up the right way really improved people’s efficiency.”
“Now people are looking for new things on their own,” said Ryan. “It’s changed people’s mindset altogether.”
Pro dealers Kelly-Fradet Lumber, serving professional contractors across Connecticut and Massachusetts, had a very specific challenge: Customers sometimes wanted an exact copy of a custom item ordered months or even years ago.
Custom items are a key part of their business, many of which have hundreds of configurable options. To further complicate things, Kelly-Fradet’s customers frequently do business at different branches. They may place the original order at one branch, but then reorder it at a different location.
To improve their service across their locations, Kelly-Fradet decided to implement the Agility ERP system.
“We made the move to DMSi several years ago after experiencing serious growing pains with our previous software,” says Dan Sullivan, Kelly-Fradet’s General Manager.
From sales and accounting to purchasing, Agility handles every aspect of Kelly-Fradet’s operation.
“Agility integrates all our information into a very efficient system,” says Sullivan. “With just a few clicks, you have everything you need to handle inventory management and fulfillment quickly and accurately.”
Agility streamlines custom orders from entry to fulfillment. From the customizable Point of Sale screen, Kelly-Fradet’s team can easily search a customer’s order history across branches to find a specific custom item. The sales rep can then add the item to the current sales order with a few clicks.
“Finding customer information is infinitely easier,” says Rick Barrows, outside sales rep. “Even if a customer isn’t sure about a previous order, we can look up their past orders and re-create the item.”
Another way Agility streamlines the custom item order process is through interfaces with vendors such as Andersen Windows. Once the sales rep creates the original order, Agility pushes details to the interface and submits the order to Andersen. There’s no need for the rep to re-key the order themselves. This not only saves time; it also dramatically reduces the risk of error.
“The Andersen IQ windows interface lets our staff quickly and accurately complete non-stock quotes and orders from their POS computers,” says Ron Reid, manager for Kelly-Fradet’s East Longmeadow branch. “We can quickly get our customers satisfied and back in the field working,”
When it comes to order fulfillment, Agility turns Kelly-Fradet’s multi-branch setup into an asset. Customers can place an order in any of Kelly-Fradet’s branches. The shipping department can then assign it to ship from the location or stocking branch closest to the customer’s job site. If the materials aren’t currently in stock at the desired shipping location, Agility ensures the product is available at the correct branch by the scheduled delivery date.
“Agility saves so much time and research,” says Sullivan. “There is no more guessing. The data that Agility provides allows quicker and better decisions regarding inventory, payables, receivables, and purchasing. Every day, I’m able to accomplish much more and do so more accurately. DMSi has been a key factor in our company’s growth and success.”
