Fairview Fittings

Expansive Operations Cause Inventory Control Issues

Running a business across two countries with 12 locations is a challenge; Fairview Fittings & Manufacturing LTD knows this first hand.

“We have nine locations in the Canadian provinces and three in the US. Each one was ordering stock, fulfilling and shipping orders, and manufacturing its own parts. It was a procurement nightmare, explains Raymond Singh, IT Manager of Fairview Fittings.“With more than 32,000 items, we had no idea what stock we had, which led to over-ordering, under-stocking and al-most $2,000,000 in dead stock.

Their ERP system, Fourth Generation was not capable of providing them with the inventory control measures they required. So, they turned to Blake Barkhouse of GFI SMB Solutions Inc.

“When I first met with the management team at Fairview Fittings, I knew they needed a robust solution that could handle the amount of data they generated, and also offer them flexibility to use it the way it best suited their business, remarks Barkhouse.

Implementation Creates Opportunity to Improve

As soon as Valogix was installed at Fairview Fittings, they were able to see substantial opportunities for improvement.

“Right away, we were able to identify areas that we could get to work on, explains Singh.“When we implemented Valogix, we immediately saw that we had $1,800,000 in dead stock, that we previously did not know was on the shelves. Over the last two years, we’ve been able to whittle that down to just $400,000. With the lack of visibility of our stock in our old system, we would have never known that we had such a substantial problem if we had not start-ed using Valogix.

The impact on inventory values has been just as significant. At implementation, Fairview Fittings carried $12.2M in inventory in the Canadian locations. Six months after implementation, they had reduced that to $11.7M and in two short years, that figure has gone down to $10.4M—a total $1.8M reduction.

“VALOGIX allowed us to get a better handle on our inventory situation and make smarter purchasing decisions based on the information it provides us, adds Singh.

Efficiency Adds to the Return on Investment

We are using the Inventory Trans-fer module in the nine Canadian locations, comments Chris Kil-pin, purchasing manager.“By transferring stock, we save about $1,000,000 a year. While we were expecting great results, we could not have imagined the incredible return on investment we’ve attained.

Not only has Fairview Fittings been able to get control of their stock, they’ve been able to streamline their purchasing department. Singh states,“We now operate with one less buyer (who has been moved to another area) saving the purchasing department at least $60,000 a year. Because the system does so much of the work for us, our staff is better able to focus its efforts on areas of the business that we previously neglected due to lack of time.