ERP Success Story - Calnetix R&D
Calnetix-R&D and ERP
If you think that keeping a major manufacturing operation running smoothly from day to day is a hard thing to do, try running four major manufacturing operations at the same time and under one roof. This is the challenge for Calnetix, a Cerritos, California, company that is a world leader in developing and manufacturing high speed electric motors and generators.
Much of the technology that Calnetix uses in their products is the result of their own significant research and development (R&D) efforts into the development of frictionless magnetic bearing technologies, known as high-speed permanent magnet radial-flux machines. The result has been the spin-off a variety of technologies into their own stand-alone companies as subsidiaries or affiliates of the parent Calnetix.
These affiliates include VYCON (flywheel energy storage systems), Direct Drive Systems (high speed permanent magnet motors and generators), and, their newest entity, TurboGenix (waste heat recovery and power production).
From the start, Calnetix knew it would need a special software system to manage the tremendous amount of business information generated by their continually expanding company. Within a year of their 1998 inception, Calnetix turned to Global Shop Solutions to produce an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system capable of making this information stream an asset, not a detriment, to their growth. Mike Baca, the purchasing manager at Calnetix, remembers the series of events that delivered ERP to Calnetix.
“We started using QuickBooks as our purchasing and accounting system, and everything else on Excel spreadsheets and even Word documents. It was quickly apparent we needed to find a software system that would allow us to control inventory, track the sampling time-a complete platform that could become the backbone of our manufacturing system.”
Baca continues, “Around 1999, I asked a good friend of mine, Tom Lewis, the president of Wilshire Precision, what system he was running. He told me it was Global Shop Solutions and that it was the best he’d ever seen.
So, I went over to his facility and he showed me how easily a work order was generated and parts purchased, and how he could schedule parts out and in. Afterwards, I brought the idea of acquiring the Global Shop system back to our Calnetix president. The Global Shop salesman came out and demonstrated the details of the system, and, I’m happy to say, we’ve been using it ever since.”
For Baca, the integration of the Global Shop system has meant greater efficiencies in work order generation, purchasing, tracking work orders, reading shop orders, looking at open orders, and tracking inventory. “Being in purchasing, and needing to know what my forecasting looks like, I really use the Global Shop Supply and Demand screen quite a bit,” Baca states. “But, perhaps most important, Global Shop helps us meet due dates-all of the time. Global Shop keeps us on track and keeps us delivering on-time.”
Next Week: “Multiple Affiliate Management through Global Shop Solutions”