1. ®
AccountMate
CUSTOMER SUCCESS
Manufacturer Implements Best-of-Breed
ERP Solution and Triples Profits Over
Three Years Without Increasing Overhead
Dixie Iron Works, a tools manufacturer for the oil in emergencies and reputation for excellent quality.
mining industry, tripled its profits over three years
Implementing the theory of constraints
after implementing a best-of-breed enterprise
Dixie’s President, Joe Merritt, realized his company
resources planning (ERP) solution based on
was struggling with managing its resources. Upon
AccountMate® financial software. reading “The Goal” by Dr. Eli Goldratt, Merritt real-
ized that the “theory of constraints” described in the
ather than purchasing a single integrated ERP book was the answer to his business’ problem.
R solution, Gerard Danos, Vice President of
Operations for Dixie Iron Works in Alice, Texas,
decided to integrate three powerful software packages:
The theory of constraints describes a manufactur-
ing operation as a chain of interdependent resources
and that the elements with the greatest load, relative to
an advanced planning and scheduling system, a manu- their capacity, constrain the performance of the oth-
facturing execution system, and an accounting system. ers. By identifying and scheduling those constraints
This made it possible for the firm to obtain complete first, it is often possible to dramatically improve the
visibility and control over its entire operations while throughput of a plant - with little or no impact on
spending considerably less than the cost of a compara- operating expenses.
ble integrated solution. At that time, Dixie was using a host-based
The best-of-breed solution allowed the firm to iden- manufacturing execution system and a DOS-based
tify bottlenecks and to find inexpensive solutions, mak- accounting system that couldn’t communicate with
ing it possible for them to increase revenues 20% over a each other. This meant that data had to be re-entered
three-year period while their costs grew at a much by hand from one system to the next and that reports
lower rate. were often out of date by the time they were printed.
Because oil fields operate 24 hours a day, when It was essentially impossible for Dixie to identify the
something breaks, Dixie’s customers put in a call, some- constraints in their manufacturing system – much less
times in the middle of the night, and expect the compa- to adjust scheduling to overcome them.
ny to respond almost immediately. The problem the So Merritt charged Danos with the task of imple-
firm had in the past was that it was difficult to balance menting a theory of constraints-based scheduling sys-
the many competing customer demands that it faced. tem. The first thing Danos did was look at integrated
Each time the firm took on an emergency job, it had ERP solutions, but he quickly ran into problems.
a tendency to move the delivery dates of many other “First of all, none of the systems I was able to find
jobs backwards. Inventory was high and profits were provided a thorough implementation of the theory of
low, despite the fact that the firm was usually able to constraints in their planning and scheduling system,”
obtain a premium price because of its fast turnaround Danos said. “Second, the cost of the packages that came

2. closest to providing what we needed ability to produce custom reports ed on a very modular basis, making
were more than we could afford.” and to drill down from reports or it a relatively simple process to
Danos then considered the tables to the underlying report sim- modify the code or even build your
option of building his own system ply by clicking on a line item. These own modules from scratch.”
with individual software compo- features complemented Danos’
nents. He first identified a planning Immediate throughput
and scheduling system— “In addition to helping improvements
Resonance™ from Thru-Put Danos noted immediate
Technologies out of San Jose, us increase our throughput,
improvements once the new solu-
California—which runs on the our best-of-breed approach tion was implemented. “This com-
Windows operating system. “This bination of software gave us the
package was key to our strategy also helped us keep a lid
ability to quickly and accurately
because it implements the theory on our overhead expenses,” assess where and when bottlenecks
of constraints,” Danos said. would occur,” Danos said. “We can
“However, it seemed like an impos-
Danos said.
now drill down to highlight which
sible task to integrate this system orders might be affected by new
with our existing MES and objective of implementing a theory conditions and quickly remedy the
accounting software.” of constraints system relying heavi- situation,”
ly on planning and analysis. “No longer does our scheduler
The best-of-breed approach Danos soon decided that the best- have to intervene, resolving conflicts
of-breed approach would meet his
COURTNEY PERRY
Danos talked job by job in a less than optimal
to Linda Bryan of needs better than any of the other manner. The scheduling software
Tamlin Software packages he considered. To sweeten instead recalculates a solution for
Development in the deal, the total cost of the best- our bottlenecks. It suggests optimal
Dallas, Texas, the of-breed solution was among the overtime, allows alternate routings,
firm that installed lowest of his realistic alternatives. minimizes changeover and shows
and supported Tamlin developed a software the impact on throughput and
Dixie’s previous package called Manufacturer delivery dates. With a few clicks of a
Linda Bryan
DOS-based Conductor, which the firm now mouse, we can now schedule our
accounting system. Bryan told markets and supports commercial- shop in 15 to 30 minutes.”
Danos her firm could develop from ly. The program was developed “In the past we were often faced
scratch a manufacturing execution from scratch and competes aggres- with the choice or turning down
system to provide real-time shop sively in the market place. Bryan emergency orders or pushing the
floor management and interface said that the development process rest of our schedule backwards,
with Resonance™. was expedited by the use of a joint either of which might antagonize
She also found out what Dixie application development process. important customers,” Danos con-
needed in a Windows-based The process brought all of the deci- tinued. “Now, we simply enter the
accounting system, and recom- sion-makers at Dixie together to new job in our schedule and see
mended AccountMate®, from fully define the requirements they how it shakes out. The program
AccountMate Software.” had for each part of the program. highlights the resources that have
AccountMate has an open architec- “AccountMate provided a pow- become constraints under the new
ture that makes it simple to inte- erful base for this installation,” scheduling parameters. Often, this
grate with other software packages,” Bryan said. “It offers every capabili- makes it possible to handle the job
Bryan said. “It was a natural fit.” ty that you could ever imagine without missing any dates through
Bryan demonstrated to Danos needing in a mid-sized manufactur- such means as relieving breaks,
the many powerful AccountMate ing operation. In addition, scheduling breaks or subcontracting
features not available with his cur- AccountMate provides the source out small jobs on the bottleneck
rent accounting system, such as the code and the program is construct- resources.”

3. The system also enabled Dixie
to improve workflow through areas Dixie Iron Works specializes in the production of high-pressure flow
that were often constraints. “We
control equipment to customer specifications for the oil mining industry.
noticed that one particular machine
seemed to be a constraint on a reg- The company operates both as a job shop and also produces its own line
ular basis,” Danos explained. “This of high-pressure oil field plug valves.
machine was quite large and also
took up a lot of floor space so buy-
ing a second one wasn’t a viable
option. Instead, we carefully exam- ume purchases,” Danos explained. better positioned than our com-
ined the work that flowed across “The result is that we have been petitors to handle whatever comes.
the machine, looking for jobs that able to triple our sales without Based on our success, I highly rec-
could be moved somewhere else. adding a single overhead person.” ommend that anyone who can’t
We realized that by spending only “The best of breed approach has find a single-source ERP system
$5000 and retrofitting an old drill made a dramatic difference for our that fully meets their needs, consid-
press it would be able to handle firm,” Danos said. “We obtained er a best-of-breed solution with
about 25% of the work that cur- what we feel are the best possible components such as those used in
rently flowed across that machine.” packages in the scheduling, MES this application.” v
and accounting areas at a very rea-
Increasing Profits While sonable price. The level of integra- Founded in 1991, Tamlin Software
Minimizing Overhead tion is, in my opinion, equal to a
Developers, Inc. is a systems integrator pro-
single solution approach.”
“In addition to helping us viding ERP and Shop Floor Control solu-
increase our throughput, our best- tions to small- to mid-range manufacturers
of-breed approach also helped us "The result is that we and distributors. Tamlin provides solutions
keep a lid on our overhead expens- for distribution, accounting and e-com-
have been able to triple
es,” Danos said. “Because of the merce and is an authorized AccountMate
large amount of manual data entry our sales without adding Business Partner. For more information on
and paper shuffling involved in our a single overhead person. their integrated manufacturing solutions,
previous system, we generally had
The best of breed please visit www.tamlinsoftware.com.
to add overhead people proportion-
al to our level of sales. The new sys- approach has made a
tem, however, integrates so tightly
that it has eliminated most of the dramatic difference for
manual work. For example, when our firm," Danos said
an employee starts on a new opera-
tion, they swipe their badge in their
“The effect on our business has
local work center. That information
been truly dramatic. We more than
goes to the MES for job costing
doubled our inventory turns to 12
purposes and flows straight
per year and increased our due date
through to AccountMate where it
performance to 65%. Over the pre-
goes into payroll.
ceding three years, we have
“Likewise, when we create a sales
increased sales by 20% and profits
order, the materials that are
by 50% every year on a compound-
required for building the parts auto-
ed basis. Last year, the oil field busi-
matically get entered into the pur-
ness took a real hit and our sales
chasing module where they can be
dropped but we feel we are much
combined with other orders for vol-
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