21st Century ERP Preserves American Craftsman Tradition

They say that a personal approach to finely-crafted wood furniture is a lost art in the United States. In a world of plastic and particleboard, the centuries-old tradition of taking a piece of American hardwood like Appalachian oak or Pennsylvania cherry, and turning it into an heirloom chair or table is simply not worth the effort.

Well, don’t tell that to the Martin family of Meyerstown, Pennsylvania. Nestled into the rolling Amish farmlands of Southeastern Pennsylvania, the Martins have been producing some of the best solid wood furniture made in America for over 20 years.

However, theirs is neither a typical industrial job shop, nor a sleepy backyard shed woodworking operation. Martin’s Wood Products (MWP) is a highly sophisticated custom furniture manufacturer whose lineage of family management has kept pace with the technological and enterprise resource planning (ERP) advances of the 21st century. According to MWP’s General Manager James Martin, one reason they’ve been able to continue to craft and sell the highest quality, American-made solid wood furniture is due to their decision to acquire Global Shop Solutions ERP software in 2003. “We found out about Global Shop through researching many different ERP software products. While doing this, I received an invitation to a seminar that Global Shop was holding in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I went, and their discussion and software demonstration really raised my interest. So, after speaking with them further, we purchased the Global Shop system, and I must say that we’ve had great success with Global Shop from day one,” Martin explains. “We have liked working with them ever since.”

For MWP, the Global Shop system, as well as the company itself, was a natural alliance not only in terms of the ERP software needed to bring costing under control, but also in the similar basic business philosophies held by the two companies.

Both MWP and Global Shop are family-owned and operated businesses where exemplary customer service and employee relations are vital to their success. It is the Global Shop personal approach to doing business that first appealed to MWP-in Global Shop, MWP saw their own traditions of consistent quality business management style and execution. Martin observes, “Like Martin’s Wood Products, Global Shop is a customer intimate business. That’s just one of many reasons why they’re a perfect fit for us.”

Global Shop’s Configurator Calculates Millions of Design Options
      
MWP is a multifaceted production operation. They’re a made-to-order manufacturing business that produces custom work as well as carrying a standard product line.

As malleable as wood is in the hands of the master craftsmen at MWP, there are nearly an endless array of options possible with their product furniture designs-different configurations, hardware, color choices, styles, sizes, and shapes. For example, in the subcategory of finishes alone, MWP customers can choose any number of colors and/or textures in general categories such as stained, glazed, painted, distressed, and planed.

Ultimately, there must be a central database where various design options can be considered and ordered.  And a powerful software tool to make it happen. Global Shop’s Configurator application fills the bill.    

Next Week: More about “Global Shop’s Configurator Calculates Millions of Design Options”

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 9:52 am and is filed under ERP Success Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.