Benefits of implementation
Order Processing Time twenty four% reduction
Order entry time 42% reduction
Order processing, pricing,
Improve accounting accuracy
Increase employee productivity
Stuck in a manual process
IBIDEN USA, a sales subsidiary of IBIDEN Co., Ltd., offers a wide range of parts to meet customer needs, but with a diverse product catalog and complex inventory processes, the company felt bogged down in outdated processes.
Because orders consist of 10-20 different part numbers and several distribution locations, IBIDEN's four-person order fulfillment team spent a lot of time on tedious logistics tasks. Once the warehouse received shipping forecasts and requests, they were processed as orders and then sent to the accounting team, who manually entered them into the system.
Price changes and similar part numbers meant the Ibiden team had to regularly reconcile these. It often took employees 15-20 minutes just to enter an order, making the entire process from start to finish slow and prone to errors.
"When problems occur, they are magnified because the data isn't connected," says Atsushi Uchida, president and CEO of Ibiden USA. "Complicated inventory management processes increase the workload of our accounting team and impact our financial results. Pressuring our team to process things quickly leads to more mistakes."
solution
IBIDEN needed the help of a partner to streamline and automate its ordering process. They began looking for a cost-effective, easy-to-use solution that would allow them to directly import pricing, inventory, and order data. After considering cloud products such as Salesforce, IBIDEN selected HULFT Integrate.
"HULFT is easy to use and does not require changes to our internal systems," Uchida said. "Because it can be processed externally, it's like a bridge connecting systems. There's no need to modify or change the software itself. That's what makes it so appealing."
Fully automated process for tracking orders, shipments and prices
HULFT, Inc.'s professional services team participated in IBIDEN's plan formulation and built the program using a consulting approach.
"HULFT, Inc. took a comprehensive approach to solving our problem," says Uchida. "They focused on solving the problem and went beyond implementing HULFT Integrate and selling the software. They also participated in our review process and interviewed our employees to understand the current situation and the data."
HULFT Integrate operational in 4 months
By laying the groundwork up front, HULFT, Inc. professional services team aimed to resolve 80-90% of issues before the project began. HULFT, Inc. team expanded the functionality of HULFT Integrate for a comprehensive automation cycle.
- Automate multiple product item entry. Product item entries send from storage warehouses are typically listed multiple times. To avoid inconsistent inventory tracking, HULFT, Inc. built a new system to automatically enter repeated product items into a single product item.
- Automated price list integration. Previously, product price lists, which were managed in an external Excel spreadsheet, had to be checked against another data source to ensure there were no errors. If a product item listed in an email did not appear in the price list Excel spreadsheet, an error would occur. HULFT Integrate leveraged these data sources to enable IBIDEN to integrate multiple product price lists, automating the entire process.
- Automated error notification. To ensure consistency and prevent recurrence of internal errors, HULFT, Inc. built an automatic error notification system that collects all transaction history and first analyzes why an error occurred.
In four months, IBIDEN went live with HULFT Integrate, an intuitive data integration and processing solution that connects the organization with more than 80 different data sources with minimal configuration. Now, using HULFT Integrate, IBIDEN's data-rich emails, corresponding to both customers and price lists, are extracted into files that are automatically uploaded to a Microsoft Dynamics database.
Time-saving and accuracy-enhancing results
Upon implementation, HULFT Integrate delivered immediate results. Using HULFT, the IBIDEN team reduced order processing time overall by 24%. Employees can also enter orders 42% faster than before. These figures now represent 40% of the overall reduction target.
HULFT, Inc.'s support team worked closely with IBIDEN throughout the implementation period. "They were with us all the way through until full-scale operation began," says Uchida. "They answered all of our questions. We're very pleased with the results so far. Manual input has now been largely eliminated, which has increased staff productivity."
IBIDEN USA Co., Ltd.
IBIDEN Co., Ltd. is a leading manufacturer of electronic components, advanced ceramic products, automotive and housing materials, and raw materials for various industries. As a century-old manufacturing pioneer with nearly 14,000 employees worldwide, the company is highly regarded for its emissions-reducing diesel particulate filters. The company was also one of the first Japanese suppliers recognized by Apple Inc. for producing all of its components using only renewable energy.
IBIDEN Co., Ltd., an innovator in sustainable and renewable energy, started out as a hydroelectric power generation company and currently operates three hydroelectric power plants. IBIDEN-owned cogeneration systems provide power for its facilities.
The IBIDEN Group continues to grow in new communities and promotes the "IBIDEN Spirit" of teamwork, innovation, trust, integrity and corporate responsibility to serve customers who demand new products with enhanced efficiency and functionality.
- The content of this case study is current as of the time of the interview. The content of this case study may change without notice.