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The Layfield Group of CompaniesLeverages SYSPRO’s Open Architecture to Simplify Customer Service

The Layfield Group of Companies was founded in the mid-1950s as a fabricated plastics business. In 1978, the current owners purchased Layfield and diversified its product line, which today includes polyethylene film products, printed and laminated packaging film and pouches, geotechnical fabrics, industrial fabrics, and plastic-lined environmental containment systems and covers. Layfield’s operations are divided into three divisions, each providing products and services to a different market segment.

Layfield is headquartered in Richmond, B.C., with manufacturing and distribution facilities in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, San Diego and Seattle. The company pursues expansion through acquisition, in-house development, and diversification. According to Ivano Nichele, Director, Information Services, Layfield has doubled in size over the last five years, and currently employs 300 people.

 “We're a rapidly growing company,” says Nichele. “Historically, a paper-based shipping system was sufficient, because we tend to sell large truckloads of product, which keeps the number of shipments we make relatively low.” In the last five years, however, Layfield has experienced a period of accelerated growth. As the company's shipping requirements grew more complex, it became apparent that parts of the business, shipping in particular, were running on obsolete technology and last-millennium business processes.

Says Nichele: “When you're smaller you can deal with paper. As we grew, it became apparent that we needed to automate. The shipper's desk was covered in expensive triplicate forms designed for out-dated dot-matrix printers. Orders were sometimes misplaced, and the fact that there was no order-status visibility among divisions compounded the problem. One of the worst consequences of a paper-based order process was a serious disconnect between shipping and customer service. If a customer needed to modify an order, or simply to check on its status, it was a very involved and time-consuming process.”

Since 2000, most of Layfield's companies have been running on SYSPRO ERP software. With the advent of SYSPRO 6.0, Microsoft®.NET component architecture and XML standards have been leveraged to deliver “e.net solutions,” an open architecture framework that provides users with a standardized method for directly accessing SYSPRO's business functionality.

Architecturally closed systems are usually too rigid for most small- to mid-sized companies. The most cost-effective way to share common data across an entire enterprise is to select an ERP with flexible open-architecture. “Once we understood SYSPRO's capabilities,” says Nichele, “it was a fairly simple matter to create a tool that would connect our shipping department to the rest of the company.”

To create the bridge between the shipping yard and the rest of the company, Nichele created a simple and intuitive interface. “The shipping application keeps track of each order as it's worked on, from the moment it's opened, to the time it's staged, and finally shipped.” As the order is processed, the information from the shipping yard is simultaneously updated in SYSPRO. That makes the order's status visible to anyone with authorized access to Layfield's ERP. “A customer service representative, dealing with a customer query, can see exactly what's happening with an order – there's no need to phone the shipper, or track down a piece of paper.”

 Because the shipping application was designed specifically with shippers in mind, says Nichele, training was extremely straightforward. “The shippers were initially concerned, but the transition went smoothly. With e.net we were able to build a cost-effective tool that followed their logic and met all their needs.”

 “All-in-all,” says Nichele, “extending the functionality of SYSPRO to the shipping yard has had very clear business benefits. By closing that loop, everyone in the company can now see the status of our orders.” One immediate effect of order visibility was the elimination of back-and-forth telephone calls. “We tracked that measure for four months,” says Nichele, “and pretty much from the time we went live the number of phone calls reduced dramatically – a five-fold improvement. Our customers now have their queries answered immediately. That makes for better business relationships, and saves our CSRs and shippers a great deal of time.”

 Layfield has also noted a significant cost saving associated with eliminating the expensive three-part forms. In addition, since the application uses SYSPRO to generate automated reports, customers now receive clean and professional-looking documentation. And because the shipping interface also displays future orders, shippers have the ability to create further efficiencies through strategic planning.

 The successful deployment of the shipping application has given Layfield the confidence to continue extending SYSPRO ERP across its entire operation. “Currently,” says Nichele, “our Environmental Systems Division is still using too many manual processes, but we're making plans to ensure that soon changes. Increasing our competitive edge is an on-going concern, and one of the most effective ways we can do that is by continuing to leverage SYSPRO.”

For more information on the Layfield Group please visit their website at: www.layfieldgroup.com.

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Infor recognizes Business Solutions Alliance Inc. as Canadian Certified Channel Partner

Infor, the world's third largest business software company, selects Business Solutions Alliance Inc.(BSA) as its Certified Channel Partner marketing and supporting Infor ERP VISUAL across Canada. 

Tailor your ERP for every user's role

Microsoft goes after line of business employees with the launch of Dynamics NAV 2009, which adds Outlook integration and Office-like features
11/19/2008 6:01:00 AM By: Shane Schick

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/Home/News.asp?id=50826&PageMem=1

Everyone needs something from the company’s enterprise resource planning system, whether they recognize the abbreviation “ERP” or not.

Sales managers need updates on who bought what. Marketing execs want to know how much of their advertising budget is left. CFOs might have to update the payroll module when raises are given out. Until recently, however, ERP systems tended to treat all users the same way, forcing them to pore through data to find what they need.

This is the issue Microsoft is addressing this week with the launch of Dynamics NAV 2009. The ERP system, aimed at mid-market firms, will offer what the company describes as a “role-tailored user experience.” In other words, depending on what you do at a company, the NAV interface you see will display information that’s relevant to your particular line of business.

“From a business perspective, role-tailored user experience is giving a boost to users’ productivity,” said Jan Sillemann, director of global product management for Microsoft Dynamics NAV in Copenhagen. “Let’s say you’re a person managing sales orders. When you open your NAV you will see an overview of those orders, the quotes that are out there, the delays and so on.”

Nigel Wallis, a research director with Toronto-based IDC Canada, said Microsoft has improved its market share in ERP year over year, and NAV 2009 may offer the company another strong boost.

“As Microsoft gets deeper into the enterprise and B2B, Dynamics has got to be the spearhead for that,” he said. “It makes sense to move into the line of business decision-makers, that this is the way they see the business data, this is what keeps business running.”

Depending on how companies install it, many users might end up tapping into this kind of data without ever seeing the front end of the ERP product, according to Sillemann.

“You will have immediate integration with Outlook. You will see your inbox or calendar,” he said. “When you want to see your customers, you see them on a list. When you scroll

The NAV 2009 “action pane” will be similar in appearance to the “ribbon” used in Microsoft Office product such as Word. The icons in this pane can be personalized according to what kind of information the user needs or wants to see.

“We also know that in one organization one person might be wearing two hats, so to speak,” said Sillemann. “We have heavily extended what you can do in terms of personalization. And you can do it without involving IT staff,  because we see that as a key trend – that they want to be able to do things themselves.”

Although other software makers may offer the ability to create role-based ERP, Wallis said NAV 2009 could speed up time to market among Microsoft’s customers. “There’s less customization, less tweaking and enablement by the system integrator, if you’re using one, or in-house IT, to get people up to speed in their role,” he said.

NAV 2009’s Web-based integration was part of the appeal at Toronto-based Vox Wireless, a consulting firm that recently implemented NAV 2009 among its 75-person firm and six regional Canadian offices.

“Our staff really liked the ability of running everything out of Outlook,” said Jim Heaton, CEO of Vox Wireless. “There are quite a bit of features tying in, as with CRM. You could book your appointment in Outlook with a customer and have that connected right back into NAV. Before, we would be entering it four times (into different areas).”

Sillemann said Microsoft conducted a number of surveys with information workers that showed they prefer to work with Office-like products, as it reduces the learning curve when new technology is introduced.

“They could be updating information using Excel,” he said. “Lots of customers prefer that if they lost a large amount of data, it’s easier to work in a tool like Excel, modify it and put it back into NAV.”

Microsoft will be offering 21 roles already designed for line of business managers when they purchase NAV 2009, although they will be able to create and define roles specific to their business as well. The product will also allow users to search for information across NAV as well as other systems to which it connects, Sillemann said.

Vox Wireless test-drives Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009Being part of Microsoft's Technical Adoption Program gives this Toronto VAR a market edge

11/19/2008 8:50:00 AM By: Shane Schick

A Canadian VAR said it decided the best way to prepare for selling Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) latest NAV mid-market ERP system was to deploy it in-house.

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=50829

Toronto-based Vox Wireless, a 75-person operation with six locations across the country, said it went live with NAV 2009 in early September. Vox Wireless is a member of Microsoft's Technical Adoption Program (TAP), and CEO Jim Heaton said the chance to test-drive the enterprise resource planning package should give his firm credibility among his customers.

“You can't effectively help a customer if you don't use the product,” he said. “We switched out and installed NAV 2009 connected to Microsoft CRM, (which is in turn) connected to SharePoint.”

Vox Wireless had previously been a partner for Infor's Visual Manufacturing ERP product, and was using it internally as well, according to Heaton. However NAV 2009, which is part of Microsoft's Dynamics line of business applications, can be applied to distribution and professional service customers as well as manufacturers. “You're not just restricted to one vertical,” he said.

Microsoft first gained the NAV product line as part of its acquisition of Navision A/S in 2002. NAV 2009 features a three-tiered architecture and Web services integration, along with role-tailored interfaces that can display specific information depending on the user's job function in a company. Heaton had high praise for the product's simplicity.

“It's way easier to change and get information directly on to your portal pages,” he said. “The integration with SharePoint – to be able to use portal pages and document management tools – that's huge for us. SharePoint is such a popular product right now.”

Large enterprise ERP vendors such as SAP have begun avoiding large-scale version upgrades in favour of feature packages that are released several times over the course of the year. According to Jan Sillemann, director of global product management for Microsoft Dynamics NAV, partners should not expect the company to follow a similar trend.

“We recently went out and asked customers and asked expectations on how often they want to see a new release,” he said. “The answers varied from new releases every three months to new releases every four or five years. No matter how nice you do an upgrade, it's always something that means a change to people everyday. They are here to run their business. That's why we have committed ourselves to this 24-month release cycle.”

 In between there might be smaller releases or feature packs, Sillemann added, but nothing that matches the enhancements in NAV 2009.

Heaton said being part of TAP gives Vox Wireless a great head start on NAV 2009. “We've been on it for a year. The Average Microsoft partner's not getting it until February. By the time they see it for the first time we'll probably have done 10 implementations. You just take such a commanding lead in the market.”

Since the beginning of last year, Microsoft has also organized a Microsoft Dynamics NAV ISV Beta Access Program where many partners get early information, trainings and access to technical previews.

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Exact Software: Business analytics solution soothes international growing pains for Alltech Biotechnology