SAP: Replacing a legacy system with a centralized system

The Company: Dynamic Paint Products Inc. is Canada’s largest specialty manufacturer and distributor of Paintware products. Their products range from paint brushes and rollers to wallpaper tools and accessories. Dynamic has its head office located in Mississauga, Ontario, with a distribution centre in Delta, B.C., and manufacturing operations in China.

The Challenge: Dynamic wanted to replace its legacy business software system, as it had an undersized platform that lacked core functionality. Due to its increased production and growing business, Dynamic needed a robust and integrated ERP solution that would eliminate the need for the multiple interfaces of its legacy system. These multiple interfaces were prone to errors and were not flexible enough to meet changing demands. The high amount of customization also led to system inefficiencies and rigid processes.

The Strategy: Dynamic leveraged SAP Business All-in-One, which was implemented by Toronto-based Contax Inc. SAP Business All-in-One targets mid-sized companies and provides them with solutions that have been pre-configured and pre-tested using industry-specific processes. This makes implementation time quicker and more affordable for the mid-market. The program simplifies the buying cycle and makes implementations faster and more predictable by allowing prospects – jointly with partners – to explore, demo, evaluate and implement solutions configured to costumers’ business needs.

“We are a mid-sized company with large enterprise business requirements. There are a lot of moving parts involved in our operation, and we are dealing with top-tier customers, suppliers and competitors. The SAP offering helps us streamline our processes and enables us to focus exclusively on delivering value to our customers, and growing our business,” says David Moon, IT manager.

By leveraging this solution, it will enable the company’s continued growth and expansion into international markets.

“Most of our business is transacted with tier-one retailers, and that means we have the same complexities that they do in their business models,” says COO Paul Lobb. “Having the right systems to support those complexities is critical.”

The implementation strategy was to adhere to the standard industry business best practices used by leading firms in the manufacturing and distribution industry in order to reduce implementation time, increase the speed of user adoption and enable Dynamic to gain a faster return on investment. This process also creates a focused and streamlined business process that reduces errors and increases efficiencies in production and administration. Moving from all of the customizations and multiple systems allows Dynamic to focus on its aggressive growth trajectory.

Already a heavy user of business intelligence software, Dynamic will also be deploying optimized, innovative business intelligence functionality from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio to gain enhanced reporting and forecasting functionality.

The Results: Dynamic replaced all of its legacy ERP systems and applications with SAP Business All-in-One. The results had an immediate impact on the business. Some of the key benefits realized soon after “go live” included:

• Elimination of error-prone interfaces between different systems;

• Improved efficiency of having all company-wide information in one centralized system;

• Tighter integration with key customers through enhanced EDI capabilities; and

• Improved consistency, reliability and stability of the system and the data.

Over the longer term, Dynamic expects to continue to improve processes, increase efficiency and further expand its use of ERP and CRM software from SAP to meet the evolving needs of the business, and leverage technology as a growth-enabler.

The implementation of SAP Business All-in-One was completed on time and on budget.

“When the implementation was done, it was very clear that SAP understood the SME environment. They were able to position a partner with us that understood that type of business and that could align themselves and integrate themselves with our business platform and our culture,” says Lobb.

The transition to SAP gave Dynamic a scalable system that will grow with business.

“SAP Business All-in-One provides Dynamic Paint Products with solutions to address today’s challenges, as well as a flexible and scalable platform to support future growth. We are pleased with the success of the implementation for Dynamic, and look forward to continuing our partnership as the company continues to grow and expand,” says Michael Pearson, president of Contax.

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A condensed version of this case study ran as part of the 2011 Software Case Study Guide in the September 2011 issue of Manufacturing AUTOMATION.