Dorcy carries about 2,500 items in its inventory, which approaches $12 million at any given time. Three warehouses—two in Columbus, Ohio and one in Burlington, Canada—have a combined capacity of nearly 250,000 square feet.
Dorcy operations relied on 25-year-old, homegrown software. The system lacked a true warehouse management component, and the three facilities were not integrated with each other or with the financial system. Inventory variances approaching $200,000 were not uncommon. No real-time inventory information was available as the system could only batch data overnight.
A separate financial package handled accounting functions, but it did not integrate with the other homegrown software solutions. Staff spent innumerable hours pulling data from the various systems to create basic financial management reports in Excel. The process was repeated weekly and monthly, as needed, to obtain the data necessary to guide corporate operations.
Dorcy faced two challenges – to modernize both the company’s hardware, and software systems in order to handle day-to-day operations. Ultimately, Dorcy selected VAI (Vormittag Associates, Inc.) to be its software vendor because VAI offers fully integrated solutions with unparalleled functionality. Mark Craddock, Dorcy’s IT Director, relates, “Three things impressed us about VAI: its extensive install base, the size of its support staff and its emphasis on regularly updating its software. However, it was the technical knowledge and responsiveness of VAI’s staff that carried our decision. We wanted the personalized service that is the hallmark of VAI.”
Dorcy purchased VAI’s S2K Enterprise Software, including the financial, warehousing, purchasing, and inventory modules, as well as an EDI integrator from VAI business partner EXTOL. VAI software is equipped with built-in adapters that interface directly with this product.
According to Macy Bergoon, Director of Supply Chain, Dorcy, “The combination of real-time inventory, cycle counting and RF devices has yielded negligible inventory variances. We dropped from a $170,000 variance to less than $5,000 in one year.”
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