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.

- 30 -